The residential solar company’s move in one of America’s most complicated solar markets may be a key to getting ready for a more complex future.

Jacksonville, Florida’s municipal utility has gotten rid of net metering and lowered the rate paid for excess solar produced electricity. Concurrently, the utility is pushing larger scale solar and energy storage programs.

This year’s version of Berkeley Lab’s Tracking the Sun report saw residential installs fall 6% to $3.50 / W, small business fall 11% to $2.90 / W and large business fell 5% to $2.20 /W in 2017, with light changes in early 2018. However, these averages cover wide price variances in different markets.

Ciel & Terre has completed its fourth and largest system in the United States for a California municipal waterworks. The project is also one of four floating solar projects, totaling 5.3 MW, to be completed in the nation this summer.

The long-term, steady income of solar power complements the higher revenue, but harder work of traditional farming. The Massachusetts SMART program looks to increase this trend with “agrovoltaic” incentives for solar co-located with crops.

The Korean-European PV maker has revealed that its new U.S. factory will make modules based on half-cut monocrystalline cells using passivated emitter rear contact (PERC) technology.

The role of SunPower’s planned purchase of SolarWorld Americas in getting a rare reprieve from the Trump Administration’s bellicose trade actions is unclear.

The final order from the U.S. Trade Representative includes an interim tariff rate of 10% set to start on September 24.

The SMA Sunny Boy-Storage is now shipping to the United States. The inverter offers 3.7/5.0/6.0 sizes and can accept up to three AC-coupled battery connections. SMA believes the solar + storage market will offer exponential growth.

The microinverter maker is shifting production to Mexico to avoid the pending Section 301 tariffs on inverters and other products from China.

A new report by the Smart Electric Power Association argues that a process called reverse demand response can allow utilities to minimize curtailment of solar while simultaneously lowering power prices.

The request for proposals issued last week by National Grid includes contract terms that are anything but favorable to renewable energy developers, and seeks projects so large that they will be difficult to site.

The company has committed to buying carbon offsets and RECs to create an entirely carbon-neutral rideshare service.

Australian real estate developer Lendlease is pushing forward on a 200 MW solar power project. No electricity off taker has been noted, but the project has secured town approval and a tax abatement.

Arizona Public Service has announced three new residential energy programs hoping to financially motivate customers to use cheaper daytime electricity via HVAC, energy storage and hot water heaters.

A measure allowing behind-the-meter batteries to get paid during periods of electricity oversupply was among the measures approved by CAISO last week. Several of the changes are expected to assist with the integration of higher levels of renewable energy.

Burns & McDonnell, a 6,000-strong engineering firm, is installing a Greenlots EV charging network and integrating it into the company’s campus network. The engineers hope to offer EV related services to their many electric utility customers.

The state’s recent passage of SB 100 and SB 700 is expected to spur a boom in solar and behind-the-meter battery deployment, and pv magazine has done the math on what we can expect.

Researchers from Michigan Technological University and Finland’s Aalto University say they have demonstrated that the cost per unit of power of black silicon PERC cells could fall 10.8%, despite an increase in cell processing cost.

A report analyzing the week of a heat wave in the Northeast estimates that solar power saved $30 million in wholesale electricity costs due to lowering demand at its peak during mid-day – including $6.7 million in savings on July 3rd.