First Solar is continuing to expand into community solar power with 121 megawatts of newly announced community solar projects with M+W Energy and other companies. The company is best known, perhaps, for its giant solar farms is increasing its presence in the community solar market, which is one of the fastest growing sectors of the distributed solar industry. 

The Independent Community Bankers of America (ICBA), a group that counts among its members more than 6,000 banks across the country, recently announced its 2016 ICBA National Community Bank Service Awards, with a solar project in Colorado winning its Grand National Award. The winning project in 2016 was awarded to the Alpine Bank in Glenwood Springs, CO, which has invested in five community solar projects since 2014.

Earlier this week (Aug. 1) New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) introduced a new renewable energy standard for the state, which was approved by the state’s utility commission. It will require its utilities to source 50 percent of its electricity from renewable resources by 2030. The new standard, which will require the state’s utilities to source 26.31 percent of their electric load from renewable energy like wind and solar power and will continue to ramp up the amount of renewable energy they source each year between now and 2030, all while keeping additional costs to most residential consumers below $2 a month.

Yesterday (Aug. 1) SolarCity’s board accepted Tesla’s offer to purchase the company for $2.6 billion, making Tesla not just an electric motor and battery company but a more full-fledged energy company. With the purchase of SolarCity it will become a solar panel manufacturer and owner of the largest residential solar installer in country. 

Throughout the last week of July the Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative introduced a series of posts under the umbrella of SunShot Spotlight: Solar and Real Estate to help people understand the myriad of opportunities for residential solar power. The blogs focussed on everything from myths about solar power, to new solar technologies and financing options. 

Now that the price of solar power is well on its way to reaching the SunShot Initiative’s goal of falling to 6 cents per kilowatt hour the Department of Energy (DOE) is supporting more innovative solar technologies. The initiative is investing $11 million into emerging solar technologies through its Small Innovative Projects in Solar (SIPS) in the hopes of further reducing the cost of photovoltaics and concentrated solar power (CSP). 

Imagine sucking carbon dioxide from the air and making it into fuel for a car with nothing but the power of the sun. That’s what researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago did, and they’re now bringing that vision into reality. 

Perovskite crystals are perhaps the most promising new technology that could produce low-cost solar panels at high efficiencies and around the world millions of dollars are being invested to bring this promising new technology to market. Case in point New York’s University at Buffalo and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) just won a grant from the Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative to investigate chalcogenide perovskites.

Solar Power World’s annual Top 500 Solar Contractors List is out now. It’s the leading magazine list of the nation’s best solar contractors. Once again, behind the list is analysis from SolarReviews.com, which curates the nation’s largest database of customer-generated reviews of solar installations and solar equipment. 

Minnesota is about to get a lot more solar. Minnesota utility Minnesota Power just issued a request for proposals (RFP) for up to 300 megawatts each of wind and solar power. The utility said it’s the first in a series of RFPs that it plans to offer.