With the addition of Lee’s Summit, MO, fully 200 communities across 35 states are now designated as SolSmart communities. Communities that have taken actions to make it more affordable as well as easier and faster for people to solar. 

There’s already more than 734 megawatts (MWs) of community solar installed across the US, more than double the 347 MWs of community solar online by the end of 2016, according to a new report out from the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA). That’s a year-over-year growth rate of 112 percent. 

With 831.3 megawatts (MWs) of newly installed solar power in 2017 Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) topped the annual rankings in the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) Top 10 List for new solar power. In terms of new energy storage Southern California Edison (SCE) topped the list with 56.2 MWs installed—it also was second for new solar installed with 547.1 MWs of new solar.

Last week First Solar announced that it will triple its US manufacturing capacity with a new plant in Ohio, becoming the latest solar manufacturer to do so. While more manufacturing is coming to the US and solar is still growing some states are still failing on rooftop solar policies, according to a new report from The Center for Biological Diversity. 

First Solar is the latest solar manufacturer to announce that it will increase manufacturing in the US. The US based company announced that it will open a new facility in Ohio where it plans to produce 1.2 gigawatts of solar panels annually, bringing its total US production up to 1.8 GWs of solar panels a year. 

One of the contentions about renewable energy, like solar power, has been that utilities can’t rely on it to produce energy reliably like “baseload” sources. But increasingly that’s not the case and researchers at Georgia Southern University recently said they can accurately predict sunlight and the solar power that will be generated for four hours. 

More than 33 percent of the small buildings ideal for rooftop solar in the US are in 10 of the sunniest states that received an “F” in The Center for Biological Diversity’s latest “Throwing Shade” report. The report found that states including Florida and Texas, among others haven’t enacted policies that encourage rooftop-solar development or actively block it. 

The Sunshine State has been building its solar bonafides lately but until now its laws have largely prohibited the use of third-party ownership arrangements such as solar leases, which help homeowners go solar without paying large upfront costs for a solar system. But thanks to a new ruling from the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC) Sunrun can now offer its solar leases in the state. 

Last week was another interesting week for solar power as a bipartisan group of Representatives introduced a bill to repeal Trump’s tariffs on imported solar panels. To help SunPower reduce the impact of such tariffs it signed an agreement to purchase SolarWorld Americas. Meanwhile US companies have now surpassed 2.5 gigawatts of rooftop solar. 

Yesterday (April 19) a bipartisan group of legislators introduced the Protecting American Solar Jobs Act (HR 5571) to repeal the 30 percent tariffs President Trump imposed on imported solar panels, which is expected to cost about 23,000 US jobs in 2018. The bill was introduced by Nevada Rep. Jacky Rosen (D) and is supported by the solar industry and others.