Research

With tortoise-sized openings at the bottom of the fence, and improved growth of plants vital to tortoise survival, a solar farm in Nevada can provide better habitat than the surrounding desert. First Solar found similar habitat gains in California.

Venture capital is still flowing to energy storage startups and the march to improve a wide variety of battery chemistries continues.

DNV’s report sees federal policy as muddled, but individual provinces, states and cities are pushing electrification of buildings and transportation, significant per-capita efficiency increases, 30% less energy use overall, and coal going away in just over a decade.

NREL’s 2019 Standard Scenarios Report looks at 36 models to project what energy sources the USA might use going forward, and what variables might drive that – with the mid-case projections suggesting wind+solar power meeting 28% of all electricity demand.

Alta Devices has not located a white-knight investor to save the company and resume its PV cell production. That means no health care or COBRA for its furloughed employees.

To get long-duration storage costs down to 5 cents per kilowatt-hour, research teams funded by ARPA-E are pursuing breakthroughs in flow batteries, hydrogen storage and other technologies—even thermovoltaics.

Government researchers find that Florida has dethroned California as the largest market, trackers dominate, solar+storage compensation diversity, and a lot more in Berkeley Labs annual utility-scale solar power report.

Certain articles at pv magazine catch fire and capture the imagination of our solar colleagues as well as a wider, equally nerdy, audience. Here are the most widely read pieces of the year at pv magazine USA.

A Pew Research Center survey shows that support for distributed generation and a desire for a residential installation of one’s own is up 6% nationally since 2016.

Deer fence installed upside down lets foxes and other small wildlife through to forage and pursue prey. Solar developers in Tennessee and North Carolina have the photos to prove it.