Last week SunPower announced that it had started manufacturing in Oregon, under a year after announcing it would take over the SolarWorld facility. It’s just in time, too, as demand in the Northeast, Georgia and other states is growing. 

The electric grid operator for New England recently announced the results of its auction to meet peak demand in 2022 and 2023 and while prices were the lowest seen in six years, rooftop solar and energy storage also came in as a winner. That’s thanks to a new contract with Sunrun that allows it to provide 20 megawatts of wholesale power from its rooftop solar systems with energy storage, it’s a first for distributed solar. 

Five institutions in Buffalo, NY have come together to seek 100 megawatts of new renewable generation. Enough to provide about half of the energy used by the institutions. The University at Buffalo (UB) is leading the request for proposals (RFPs) for it and SUNY Buffalo State, SUNY Erie, the City of Buffalo, as well as Erie County as part of the Localizing Buffalo’s Renewable Energy Future initiative. 

Today (Feb. 7), less than a year after SunPower announced that is was purchasing SolarWorld’s manufacturing facilities in Oregon to boost its US manufacturing, the company is now producing its P-Series solar panels at full capacity there and will soon start fulfilling customer orders with US-made panels. It’s just four months after the sale was completed in October. 

In its 20-year plan with the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC) Georgia Power said it aims to expand its renewable energy generation, increase energy efficiency and reduce its use of coal-fired power plants. It’s a move that would bring it closer to parent company, Southern Company’s, goal of becoming a low-to no-carbon company by 2050 and one that was heralded by sustainability advocates. 

Last year almost every state took undertook policy actions on rooftop solar, changing incentives for homes and businesses. Meanwhile, companies across the world are upping their purchases of renewable energy with the majority of purchases coming from US companies, it’s just another way clean energy is growing. 

As solar power continues to grow across the US states are having to visit or revisit how home and business owners can install rooftop solar systems. Last year 47 states and Washington, DC, undertook such policy actions, which are becoming increasingly complex as solar reaches more in the US.

In Kenya only about 22.7 percent of homes are electrified through the grid and in Narok County that number falls to 5.6 percent. A new off-grid project in the Ilkimati community by World Vision and Panasonic is helping to change that. 

Companies are quickly becoming some of the world’s largest purchasers of renewable energy, beat only by utilities in terms of bulk purchases. A new study from BloombergNEF found that companies purchased 13.4 gigawatts of renewable energy through long-term power purchase agreements in 2018, more than double the 6.1 GWs of contracts they signed in 2017.

Adoption of energy storage systems coupled with solar power seems to be growing quicker than initial adoption of solar power in more places. Case in point, Michigan’s Consumer Energy just introduced its first hybrid rooftop solar and energy storage system, which has 500 kilowatts of solar power and 500 kilowatts of energy storage, enough energy to power about 100 homes.