Editors’ Blog

The Solar America Cities Program was launched as one of the biggest efforts at the Department of Energy aimed towards the adoption of renewable energy in a country with one of the largest carbon boot prints in the world. The program, which saw partnership with 25 cities, made for a huge amount of success as 40 individual solar projects were eventually erected. The time has now come for the DOE to build on this success as it brings out a must-have resource for prospective cities: 'Solar Power in Your Community: A Guide for Local Governments.' Speaking with Charlie Hemmeline, head of the project based at the Department, I delved beneath the surface of the next stage of the Solar America Cities Program.

Many industries worldwide are paying more attention to their energy supply, moving slowly but surely down renewable avenues. One industry some may be surprised to find investing in the green energy sector is the multi-billion sports industry. Over the last couple of months, more and more sports companies have announced the use of renewable, and in particular solar PV, installations. Among the most recent to announce these initiatives are the UK's Sheffield Wednesday, Barcelona's RCD Espanyol football club and Italy's Bentegodi Stadium in Verona.

Cabot Consultants, the national search firm with practice areas in technology, clean tech, and renewable energy, has announced its first annual list of "Women to Watch in Solar Energy."

Take any market research firm’s data on end-user demand for solar modules and compare that with manufacturing supply and there is a massive gap to the negative, pushing prices lower from bare wafers to modules. Last week, Q-Cells binned its forecast for revenue for 2009, citing continued lack of demand and falling prices due to the competitive landscape caused by overcapacity.

After a slow start, this year’s PV Industry Forum, the traditional opening conference of Intersolar Week in Munich, finally got going during the last session of the day with a resounding call to action from none other than Q-Cells’ boss, Anton Milner. The conference opened with the usual slides and the usual suspects giving their views of the overall solar market. The obligatory emerging market was given lip service--this time it was India--while the rest of the presentations mostly failed to engage the audience in a meaningful way. Things changed during the afternoon....

News that amorphous thin-film competitors Sunfilm and Sontor are to merge due to the competitive landscape, overcrowded market, and the dominance of First Solar-- both from a capacity and conversion efficiency standpoint--could be the first of many such consolidations, as the solar market stalls because of the global current economic climate.

Congress has passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 with the support of senators Obama and McCain. The news is welcomed by the solar industry but unusually was met by traders with a plunge in the value of solar stocks. While most will focus on the financial implications of the bailout bill the solar industry can finally plan ahead...

23rd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition held in Valencia, Spain last week was one of the best events I have attended in over 15 years of attending trade shows in most parts of the world.

It is a tale of two strategies when dealing with the U.S. solarmarkets, be they consumer or business markets. Both Akeena Solar andFirst Solar have announced their first quarter financial resultsrecently. The scale of each company is worlds apart and theirapproaches to a growing market segment are at polar opposites, and itshows. These two companies cannot be directly compared; using these twocompanies is purely to highlight a growing trend among many solarcompanies of focussing on certain end-user segments of the solar market.