Solar power has an ardent new supporter, Hillary Clinton. In Iowa as the 2016 campaign season warms up she has introduced the outlines of an ambitious energy plan that would get the U.S. to 33 percent renewable energy by 2020 by in part installing 700 million more solar panels across the US. 

Yesterday (July 23) Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced that is investing $1 million in solar power to be installed at Habitat for Humanity facilities across its service area. Under the agreement the utility will install solar power at 79 homes with 18 different Habitat for Humanity local affiliates.

This is something a little different. The SunPort is set to launch a kickstarter next week. You’ve heard about rooftop solar and you’ve hopefully heard about community solar but the SunPort is a nifty device that lets you buy solar power pretty much anywhere you go—as you long as you bring the plug with you. 

Yesterday (July 22) Sunrun and the New York Yankees announced a new partnership under which Yankees fans will have greater access to solar energy at lower than utility rates. The new deal comes even as the company plans its initial public offering of up to $309 million in stock. Maybe it’s fitting that the company is partnering with the Yankees, after all it will trade on the NASDAQ in the Big Apple under the ticker RUN. 

A new study looks at how long utilities are taking to integrate small solar like rooftop solar into their electric grid. The study, Comparing Utility Interconnection Timelines for Small-Scale Solar PV, by EQ Research found that between 2013 and 2014 the amount of time it took 34 leading utilities to allow customers with rooftop solar installations to start producing their own electricity went up by 5 days. 

Today SunEdison and its TerraForm Power YieldCo subsidiary announced plans to acquire Vivint Solar in a $2.2 billion deal. The deal will help SunEdison become one of the biggest—not just renewable energy companies—but one of the biggest energy companies in the U.S., according to Greentech Media.

The next generation of solar photovoltaics is upon us. But first new solar materials like perovskite crystals and other organics must be able to catch up with the conventional thin-film and silicon crystalline technologies that are already being used. But there are thousands if not millions of compounds that could yield the next great solar cell. To that end the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Naval Research Laboratory have developed a new means of testing materials to more quickly determine which mixes are likely to prover the best for creating the next generation of solar cells. 

Yeah, you read that right. First Solar’s proposed 100 megawatt Solar Playa 2 project for NV Energy in Nevada is the lowest-cost electric project proposal that NV Energy received this year. The bid for the project came in at 3.87 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) under a 20-year power-purchase agreement (PPA), which is at a rate lower than any other electric projects offered to the company if not throughout the entire country. 

Florida might be the Sunshine State, but thus far it hasn’t been as easy for homeowners in the state to go solar as it is in other states. That may change this year. As of today (July 15), there are now two measures attempting to make it to the 2016 ballot that would make it easier to go solar in the state—but they’re not friendly with each other. 

Fossil fuel and free market advocates weren’t able to get rid of Colorado’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) as they’d hoped. Instead the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Colorado upheld the voter-passed mandate from 2004. The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) called the ruling precedent setting since the court found the RPS does not impose unlawful regulations on out-of-state companies or harm interstate commerce.