The solar industry experienced another polysilicon price shock in August, as news outlets reported Tongwei halting production at its 20,000-ton polysilicon facility in Sichuan, China, following flood warnings. Joseph C. Johnson, technology and quality senior analyst at Clean Energy Associates, describes what affects the price of PV solar cells and how long these prices will last, in a two-part series for PV Tech.

Ares Management Corp’s 525 MW Aviator wind farm in Texas had to navigate some COVID-related turbulence, but the private equity firm was ultimately able to bring on board a pair of very different buyers and land the deal safely last month.

The global pandemic of 2020 has slowed down demand for oil and gas but provided a big boost for renewables, said Mona Dajani, partner and global head of energy and infrastructure at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP in New York.

Fossil-fuel companies that saw oil futures drop below zero in April are pivoting toward wind and solar in a big way, Dajani, one of the leading deal makers in the renewable energy industry, said in a phone interview with BloombergNEF in June. She is also seeing storage increasingly bundled into packages with wind and solar.

Cape Elizabeth town officials are moving forward with a new solar panel project that is expected to provide three-quarters of municipal electricity needs and save the town $900,000 in energy costs over the project’s 20-year lifetime.

The Town Council voted at its July 20 meeting to allow Town Manager Matthew Sturgis to begin negotiations with Vermont-based Encore Renewable Energy to build the project.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted our lives in immeasurable and lasting ways, but now more than ever we need to do better. Now is the time to build a reliable carbon-free grid with solar and wind power paired with robust energy storage and control technologies. Now is the time to electrify our thermal and transportation sectors. And now is the time for action, as we need to do all of the above in a very short amount of time to stave off the worst impacts of climate change that will be experienced by our kids and their kids

In Wood Mackenzie’s newest report, “US microgrid forecast H1 2020: Coronavirus delays projects and impacts origination,” the organization shares that 546 microgrids were installed in the United States during 2019, more than any other year.

One of these forthcoming renewable microgrid projects will be used to power the Santa Barbara Unified School District in California. The District, in collaboration with Sage Energy Consulting, has issued a request for proposals (RFP) for the design, installation, operation and maintenance of solar-driven microgrids across 15 sites.

The following statement is from Mona Dajani, Partner at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP and ACORE Board Member, regarding ACORE’s latest analysis on their campaign to reach $1 trillion by 2030 in private sector investment in renewable energy and enabling grid technologies. Mona is co-leader of Pillsbury's Energy and Infrastructure Projects Team and also leads the Renewable Energy practice.

The campaign being led by the American Council of Energy (Acore) to lock in private sector commitments of $1trn in renewable energy projects by 2030 will need to pull in investment of almost $88bn a year through to the end of the decade to meet its goal, the advocacy body said in its latest progress-tracker report on the project.

Clean Energy Associates, a leading solar and storage supply technical advisory, released its first-quarter. PV Supplier Market Intelligence Program Report 2020. The report, available by subscription, is authored by CEA’s Technology and Quality team and includes insights gathered from 1-on-1 interviews with the technical leaders at many of the industry’s leading suppliers.

To enable this type of analysis, my colleagues and I have collected a decade-plus of weather and price data from an array of sources for 15,000 operating projects and greenfield locations across the U.S. We’ve harnessed that information to map and analyze the value and risks of our clients’ next wind or solar project. For the first time, we’re making this market transparency and asset insight available by subscription through our Renewable Energy Market Analytics Platform — or “REmap” for short.

Solar and storage supply technical advisors Clean Energy Associates (CEA) released its first-quarter PV Supplier Market Intelligence Program Report for 2020, tracking new developments in large wafer adoption by PV module manufacturers.

The renewable energy industry has taken a big hit from the Covid-19 shutdowns and from an accompanying drop in consumer confidence. Nearly 600,000 people who work in the clean energy sector nationwide have lost their jobs since the crisis began in March, according to several renewable energy groups.

Encore Renewable Energy, a leading commercial renewable energy company, is pleased to announce the following promotions. Blake Sturcke is now President and Chief Financial Officer and Jesse Stowell is now the Chief Commercial Officer.

Vermont Public Power Supply Authority (VPPSA) and Encore Renewable Energy recently announced that construction has begun on a new solar array in Morrisville, Vermont.

The land is currently being utilized for corn silage.

Encore is evaluating the potential for establishing pollinator-friendly wildflower groundcover to provide support for bees, butterflies and other creatures.

Companies across the energy sector have condemned police brutality and racism, but black leaders say they're still waiting for real action.