Solar pushed aeronautics boundaries earlier this year when a solar-powered plane finished its circumnavigation of the globe. Now a group wants to take solar to new heights—the stratosphere. 

As part of his Reforming the Energy Vision Strategy, New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo (D) announced that $3.6 million in funding from the NY-Sun Initiative will be invested to increase solar access to low- to moderate-income communities throughout New York. It’s a move that shows Cuomo wants to provide 40 percent of households that have incomes lower than 80 percent of the median in their area with clean and affordable solar power.   

Stanford University and SunPower have completed construction on a 67-megawatt utility-scale solar farm outside of Palmdale, CA, that is projected to produce over half of the electricity needed by the main Stanford campus in Palo Alto, CA. Consisting of 155,000 solar panels over 200 acres of Mojave Desert, the Stanford Solar Generating Station took 5 months to construct and provided the region with 430 solar industry jobs. 

New Mexico’s Kit Carson Electric Cooperative wants to install enough solar power to cover all of its customers’ electric needs during summer peak days by 2022. To get there it wants to install dozens of 1-megawatt solar arrays, expanding its solar capacity from 5 megawatts to 35 megawatts within 6 years. 

Enphase Energy and solar installer Solaray Energy, have completed the construction of a rooftop solar installation in Newtown, Australia, with the largest Enphase Storage System to date. Installed at the multi-unit student housing co-operative Stucco, the solar array is backed up with a 43.2-kilowatt energy storage system. 

It’s a lot cheaper than it was 6 months ago to become a solar customer. A recent report released by Green Tech Media Research (GTM), U.S. PV System Pricing H2 2016: System Pricing, Breakdowns and Forecasts, showed a reduction in cost of 8.6 percent for residential solar, 12.5 percent for commercial and up to 17.4 percent for utility-scale solar installations during the second half of 2016. GTM cites dramatic reductions in cost to drops in the price of solar panels, inverters, trackers and labor costs. 

A principle of being a consumer in the US is getting the full value of what you pay for. A new report by Environment New York Shining Rewards: The Value of Rooftop Solar Power for Consumers and Society found that residential and commercial customers with solar arrays aren’t getting that value. It found they provide more benefits to the power grid, society and the environment than utilities reimburse them through net-metering programs.

A post-election survey of 1,000 Latinos across the US conducted by the Sierra Club and GreenLatinos shows that there is nearly unanimous support within the Latino community to protect the earth. Of the respondents 97 percent agree that battling climate change is a moral obligation and 71 percent believe that the US must meet its commitments to the Paris Agreement. 

USAID announced that it is investing $4 million into eight African solar start-ups through a competition called Scaling off-Grid Energy: Grand Challenge for Development. USAID’s commitment will provide 120,000 homes in off-grid communities across Africa with solar power.

The season for giving has begun. Now, Habitat for Humanity, Solar Kentucky and former nightclub owner and host of Renewable Energy Podcast David Butler are partnering to raise money to install solar power on Habitat for Humanity homes in five Kentucky cities: Lexington, Louisville, Bowling Green, Berea and Elizabethtown.