Today (Oct. 13) First Solar and Clean Energy Collective (CEC) announced a new partnership today under which First Solar will supply Clean Energy Collective with its solar panels for community solar gardens across the U.S. Already the companies have four projects planned using First Solar's thin-film photovoltaic panels.

This week former Vice President Al Gore joined with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) to sign the Under 2 MOU, a directive aimed at keeping climate change to a 2 degree Celsius rise in temperatures. The global directive is just one of four steps the governor took on Oct. 8 to limit carbon and pollution emissions in the state while encouraging more solar power development in the Empire state.

Today, Oct. 8, the biennial Solar Decathlon opened up to the public at Orange County Great Park in Irvine, Calif. The competition challenges college teams from around the world to build solar-powered homes. This year 14 teams of universities from five countries across two continents are competing in 10 events to create homes that are energy-efficient, comfortable and cost-effective. 

A new report out from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) found an interesting side effect of increased wind and solar power use—fossil fuel prices are rising. BNEF’s Levelised Cost of Electricity Update for the second half of 2015 found that the costs of wind and solar power have continued to go down while the costs of gas-fired and coal-fired electric generation have gone up! Moreover, the cycle will continue as wind and solar flourish. 

That the commercial solar sector has trailed the residential and utility solar markets is no secret. But with changing incentives, as well as enormous opportunity to cover vast rooftop spaces with solar power some are starting to take a harder look at what type of opportunity commercial rooftop solar represents.

Last week (Oct. 1) Austin’s utility, Austin Energy, approved a plan that would invest $33 million in 300 megawatts of solar projects to supply energy needs for its customers. Though the utility hasn’t announced all the projects this investment will cover, the cost of the projects will be roughly 3.8 cents per kilowatt hour—the lowest seen in Texas and likely one of the lowest costs for solar power to date!

Today (Oct. 2) SolarCity introduced its newest product, solar panels. The company said its new solar panels, which will be made in the U.S. are the most efficient panels for the rooftop market at over 22 percent module efficiency. The company will begin producing the modules at its pilot facility in California before starting mass production at a facility in Buffalo, NY in 2017.

Earlier this week Virginia’s biggest solar project to date, an 80 megawatt solar farm, got it’s final permit thanks to the governor. Now that the regulations allowing such solar projects to be implemented is in place other companies are clamoring to get to work on their projects. Case in point on Oct. 1 Dominion Virginia Power filed to approve three large-scale solar projects totaling 56 megawatts of power.

Solar is reaching into the cost territory of natural gas, according to the latest “Utility-Scale Solar” report from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBL) funded by the Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative. An increasing body of evidence shows that utilities are signing deals with solar project developers for an average 5 cents per kilowatt-hour. This puts solar power within the realm of parity with other electric sources—the average wholesale price of electricity across the U.S. ranged from 3 to 6 cents per kilowatt hour in 2014.

Last Friday (Sept. 25) Arizona Public Service (APS) announced that it planned to forgo its previously planned “cost of service” charge implementation for its customers with solar power installations. Under the planned charge residents with new solar arrays would have had to pay an average monthly service fee of $21 to put solar power back on the grid—now they pay $5 a month.