Apple’s newest datacenter, under construction in Reno, Nev., plans to take advantage of the sun with an 18 to 20 megawatt SunPower C7 Tracker photovoltaic array, according to reports. The Ft. Churchill Solar Array will likely be the biggest yet for SunPower’s relatively new tracker system and the first under NV Energy’s new Green Energy Program.

SolarStrong strikes again—and it’s a good thing. SolarCity’s partnership with U.S. Renewables Group Renewable Finance and Bank of America Merrill Lynch to install solar on military housing units at bases across the country is making rapid progress this year. On July 3, it announced that it will install solar at more than 600 houses at New Mexico’s Holloman Air Force Base. 

Connecticut’s Clean Energy Finance and Investment Authority (CEFIA)—also called the CT Green Bank—has leveraged $9.5 million in ratepayer funds into a $50 million private capital investment to support solar leasing for homes and businesses under a public-private partnership. The fund created is expected to support roughly 14 megawatts of distributed photovoltaics—enough for about 1,500 homes and 40 commercial photovoltaic (PV) systems, as well as 400 solar thermal projects—over the next two years. 

Last week Texas A&M University-Central Texas announced ambitious plans to build a $600 million solar testing facility, which it said would be the largest in the world. The university is partnering with the Center for Solar Energy to develop a roughly 800-acre site. It will also include a solar farm that will power the campus. 

Clean Power Finance, a white label solar financing company and software as a service provider for solar installers, has just signed up another equity investor in Duke Energy, bringing the total round of equity financing up to $42 million. The company will use the financing to expand its business operations.

On June 27, Colorado House Speaker Mark Ferrandino (D), along with representatives from Environment Colorado, Colorado Solar Energy Industries Association (COSEIA) and solar installers were on hand at an active solar installation near Denver to unveil a new report, A Million Solar Roofs for Colorado, commissioned by Environment Colorado showing why and how Colorado can add in 1 million solar rooftops by 2030.

If you’re thinking about going solar and own a business or commercial building in the Los Angeles area, get your ducks in a row now—if you want the best deal the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s (LADWP’s) solar feed-in tariff (FiT) incentive program has to offer! And it’s only being offered for four days. LADWP begins accepting applications for the second round of the FiT on July 8, and due to the anticipated response LADWP is set to close the program on July 12. After that the winning projects will be chosen by lottery.

Today (June 25), President Barack Obama (D) announced the White House’s new Climate Action Plan to curb carbon and other pollutants in the air. During a speech announcing the plan, he called for more solar and wind power projects to help curb the country’s appetite for fossil fuel and reduce the U.S.’s carbon pollution to 17 percent below 2005 levels. At the same time, he renewed calls to increase the amount of renewable energy installed in the U.S. and set forth new renewable energy goals for the federal government.

The majority of public schools in Campbell County, Tenn., are going solar in a bid to make $960,000 over 20 years, without raising any additional taxes. That’s under a new partnership with residential and commercial solar installer Efficient Energy of Tennessee (EETN), which is installing solar at 12 of the county’s 21 schools. 

Solar Power Rocks updated its “State Solar Power Rankings,” and Massachusetts—not California or New Jersey (the two largest solar markets)—took the top spot for its solar-friendly policies and incentive system. The rankings are a report-card of sorts that attempt to do provide an equal comparison based on each state’s solar policies and electric prices, including an estimated payback time for a 5 kilowatt PV array, and then ranks them on both a scale of 1-to-5 and a letter grade.