Markets & Policy

Also in the brief: Fayetteville municipal buildings are two-thirds powered by solar, climate change is a defining issue for Nevada Democrats, Smithville, Texas approves 1 MW project, and more.

The U.S. ITC has released a report highlighting changes in the domestic solar cell and module manufacturing industry, showing that while there has been an increase in domestic module manufacturing, the overall program’s success, relative to the $740 million in tariffs, has created little measurable benefit.

Also in the brief: an 18 MW community solar portfolio proposed in Oregon, Sunnova partners with Generac and more.

Jinko shipped 14.2 GW of modules in 2019, up 33% from the previous year, the high mark in another year dominated by Chinese manufacturers.

Plenty of innovative hardware at the show that isn’t a module, battery or racking — as well as services and the Solar Games.

As a California installer has said, “I kind of compliment PG&E because they’re our best marketing department when it comes to battery storage. Now the challenge is there’s a very limited number of battery storage systems that are going to meet the reliability threshold.”

EMP/solar flare-hardened gear, storage-behind-the-PV-module and Generac made appearances at the Intersolar show in Southern California last week.

Idaho regulators have amended an earlier ruling, now stating that the legacy rate given to customers who installed residential solar systems before December 20, 2019 applies to the system, not the customer.

Also in the brief: Solar Support partners with SEMIKRON to tackle utility-scale inverter stack shortage, investors say changes at Hawaiian Electric can ‘happen fast,’ Dynamic Energy sells 11 MW solar + storage portfolio to Amp Energy and more.

Solar contractors added another 1.8 gigawatts of small-scale solar in the ten sunniest states last year. In Hawaii and California, solar groups described their ambitious policy goals to keep the momentum going.