Over the course of this strange year, American residential solar companies such as Sunrun, Vivint, SunPower and Tesla claimed they could weather the Covid storm with remote selling and new online strategies. It turns out they were right. BloombergNEF forecasts that Americans will install 3 gigawatts of solar on residential rooftops in 2020.

With the difficulties of launching a company exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, EnerVenue has been able to not only survive the challenges, but use them to the company’s advantage. pv magazine sat down with CEO Jorg Heinmann to discuss how the company leveraged risk into opportunity.

A new fund has been launched to provide microgrants of $3,000 to $10,000 to the women entrepreneurs and community organizations working to provide clean, reliable and primarily off-grid power to remote communities.

In Vermont and Utah, net metering is under attack — in danger of being significantly devalued or eliminated. In Arizona, the state’s rooftop solar export rates have been saved for at least another year. Outside of policy, Maine has announced the winners of the state’s largest-ever renewable solicitation.

Wood Mackenzie has responded to a criticized report, clarifying that Covid-19 impacts on residential solar finance are much less significant than initially expected — and that faster-than-expected recovery for investments in the industry have kept investor confidence high.

Solar marketing has a gender gap, says Matthew Hirsch, chief marketing officer at TerraCurrent. To sharpen its messaging toward women, the industry needs to consider the various social factors involved in converting female leads into customers and brand champions.

Scientists at two of America’s biggest automakers knew as early as the 1960s that car emissions caused climate change, a monthslong investigation by E&E News has found. The discoveries by General Motors and Ford Motor Co. preceded decades of political lobbying by the two car giants that undermined global attempts to reduce emissions while stalling […]

Significant solar developments are happening all across the country, with Wisconsin looking to add nearly 200 MW of utility-scale solar and AEP coming to terms on a power contract for a 50 MW project in Ohio.

The recent FERC order to open the country’s wholesale energy markets to aggregated rooftop solar, batteries and EVs, moves energy management technologies to the forefront of the transitioning electric economy.

The utility has announced three new, massive solar projects, set to be developed by subsidiaries of NextEra Energy Resources. With these projects confirmed, the utility has now secured roughly 1.4 GW of the 2.3 GW it is looking to bring on-line to replace its aging coal fleet.

Leading Edge Equipment Technologies falls in the kerfless solar wafer or direct solar wafer category. According to the company, its “drop-in” manufacturing technology reduces wafer costs by 50%, increases commercial solar panel power by up to 7%, and reduces manufacturing emissions by over 50%. It’s the emissions piece that might be winning over investors.

A scientist intimate with First Solar’s earlier efforts in CIGS makes the case for the CdTe pioneer to re-enter the technology.

Bigger PV module designs are now hitting the market, but the production of larger, more powerful solar panels is challenging. Canadian Solar is launching its new Series 7 modules with pv magazine in a webinar on Oct. 29. Our editorial team recently caught up with Canadian Solar’s chairman and CEO, Shawn Qu, and director of module R&D, Alan Xu, to discuss the company’s latest efforts to shake up the market.

Scientists led by NREL have developed a new stress testing protocol for PV modules, one designed to simultaneously expose modules to multiple stresses, as they likely would be in the field. Putting modules through this test, the researchers have already been able to reveal new information regarding backsheet degradation, and they promise new insights into other degradation mechanisms.

Also in the brief: Time to see how serious industry is about ESG and D&I versus LCOE. Plus Hawaii solar on the rise.

Increased net sales and income per share are coupled with 1.6 GW DC of bookings, reports of a 445 W module and environmental recognition for the Series-6 line, point to yet another successful quarter for the company.

The experts say yes. SPACs representing $53 billion in investments accounted for about half of all IPOs this year — providing a pathway to public markets for emerging clean tech companies developing disruptive, pre-revenue technologies.  

Also in the brief: Iberdrola’s deal worth $8.3 billion adds PNM Resources to its Avangrid business. The value of energy storage for military resilience. And Also emotional ownership is the key to delivering community solar.

Joe Biden, a U.S. presidential candidate, is encouraging an equitable energy transition, upgraded transmission infrastructure and rejoining the Paris climate accord.

“I think it’s somewhat unfortunate that the developers have focused so much of their attention on signing up well customers … as opposed to focusing on medical baseline or low-income residential customers,” said a CPUC commissioner.

A weekly round up of investments and exits in solar and energy transition technologies.

A report just released by the University of Texas at Austin’s Webber Energy Group has tackled how much solar each state could develop along interstate interchange and exit locations and how much this solar could potentially be worth.

Born from an Oxford research group, the startup is looking to make its name by developing all-perovskite tandems, something no other company has done.

Also in the brief: Macquarie Group and Siemens AG are forming Calibrant Energy, a venture that will invest in the energy-as-a-service sector in the U.S.

The startup claims to be “the world’s top supplier of graphene” and plans to release a non-flammable, environmentally friendly lithium battery that can charge “18 times faster than anything that is currently available on the market” — within the next year.