The PV Market Alliance (PVMA) anticipated that when all is said and done the world will have installed 75 gigawatts of photovoltaics (PV) in 2016 reaching 300 GWs of solar installed internationally. That’s a jump of 50 percent over the 50 gigawatts of solar installed in 2015. The alliance also found that 2017 could see as much new solar installed in 2017 but could slump to as few as 65 new gigawatts of solar.

Duke Energy and its subsidiaries are on what’s looking like a solar power binge. The utility brought on roughly 500 megawatts of solar power in North Carolina in 2016 and it plans to bring another 460 MWs of solar power online in the state in 2017. It’s also bringing large solar plants online in Florida and buying solar projects in California.

With a new 28-megawatt solar photovoltaic and a 20-MW energy storage system project in the works on the Hawaiian island of KauaÊ»i, the island will be getting more than 50 percent of its electricity from renewables. Moreover, the latest system and its energy storage system will provide electricity at rates cheaper than the island’s utility can get from fossil fuel sources. 

New York’s green bank to support renewable energy and energy efficiency projects committed $250 million into a total of 13 transactions in 2016. Those investments are being met by $677 million in private sector investments, amounting to $927 million in clean energy projects, like solar power, that are creating jobs in the Empire State.

If you’re worried about solar panels taking a ‘snow day’ in the winter time, don’t be. That’s according to the Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office Director Charlie Gay who works in the Energy Department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. 

In what’s being called a reverse renewable portfolio standard, a group of state lawmakers in Wyoming have kicked off the 2017 legislative session with a decidedly draconian, anti-renewable energy stance. They’re going as far as penalizing utilities for installing wind and solar projects. 

The Global Solar Council (GSC), an international consortium of solar advocacy organizations, manufacturers and more founded in 2015, has introduced its first quarterly report. The report includes national and regional policy and market updates from across the world and focusses on efforts to speed and increase the adoption of solar power on a wide-scale.

It was a busy week for the solar industry last week as rooftop solar companies announced new partnerships and funding. Likewise, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) announced a new president to help move the US solar industry forward into the future.

Together, solar and wind power now employ 366,000 workers across the US showing they are becoming an increasingly large sector of the US’s energy employment. Today (Jan. 13) the Department of Energy released its 2017 U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) tracking what sectors of the energy industry are employing workers. 

By signing contracts and purchasing for renewable energy and energy efficiency upgrades, the federal government will save taxpayers $8 billion in energy spending over the next 18 years, according to the White House. The company largely exceeded the goal through performance contracts.