Exelon Generation and its subsidiary ComEd of Illinois said that progress is being made on its controversial Future Energy Jobs Bill, which conditionally passed a 9 to 1 vote at an Illinois House Energy Committee hearing. Gov. Bruce Rauner's (R) office and the clean energy industry have successfully pushed back against provisions in the original bill that would make it harder for people to go solar in the state. 

As the transition process begins from the Obama administration to the Donald Trump administration, the press and clean energy advocates are anxious as to whether progress toward a renewable energy future will be undone.

Solar loan financier Mosaic announced that it has closed on a $250 million loan with Deutsche Bank for a  warehouse facility, a short-term line of credit that uses revolving loans as collateral. The arrangement combined with recent upsizing of its warehouse and liquidation of existing loans are increasing Mosaic’s solar loan capacity to $550 million.

The 2016 Presidential election is over and President Elect Donald Trump is appointing members of his transition team and Cabinet to implement policies proposed during his election campaign. 

Amazon’s AWS subsidiary partnered with Dominion Energy to vastly expand the amount of solar power in the Old Dominion of Virginia. Under a power-purchase agreement, 180 megawatts of solar farms, being built across five Virginia counties, will supply AWS’ energy needs in the state. The PPA enabled the projects which are expected to be in service by late 2017.

Global leaders convened at the United Nations’ COP22 in Marrakech, Morocco, this week to discuss climate change and the implementation of the Paris Agreement. But it’s not just global leaders that want to see action on climate change, business leaders are increasingly taking action on climate change and pushing political leaders to do so, too. 

The Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA) released a first-of-its-kind guide designed to help policymakers develop community solar programs specific to their communities. The organization introduced the guide at the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners’ (NARUC’s) annual meeting in La Quinta, CA, this week. 

California’s SOMO Village is expanding its solar array to a full 3.1 megawatts and adding a 1 megawatt commercial energy storage system that is expected to save its 1,000 residents and 50 businesses more than $1.8 million over 10 years and $160,000 in energy costs in the first year alone. The new systems are being installed by Green Charge and solar developer REC Solar.

NextEra Energy Resources commissioned the Blythe and McCoy solar energy centers, in Riverside County, CA. The solar farms consist of 4 million solar panels and a generating capacity of 485 megawatts of solar energy. That’s equivalent to powering 181,000 homes and a reduction of 774,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide emissions produce by the use of fossil fuels.

In a likely setback to solar industry expansion in Utah, utility Rocky Mountain Power has proposed three new changes would raise rates for all new solar customers. Set to go into effect Dec. 9, 2016, rates are to be separated into a $15.00 fixed monthly charge, $9.02 per kilowatt for high demand hours and 3.81 cents per kilowatt-hour for the amount of electricity each residential solar customer uses. Additionally, the utility has proposed a $60 application fee for most new net-metered customers to cover the expense of processing applications which the utility claimed cost it $650,000 in 2015.