Texas and California lead the latest energy storage surge with SolarMax and Spearmint advancing major projects, a Texas developer securing 10 GWh for data centers, and Ormat and Terra-gen commissioning 655 MWh of new capacity.

Construction is underway on two projects with a cumulative capacity of 400 MWh in Puerto Rico. Meanwhile, Hawaiian Electric has broken ground on a 160 MWh project – the island’s first of its kind.

The SOSA Energy Center is the first project to break ground under the company’s Asset Vault investment platform.

The project is developed on an active municipal wastewater drain field. It leverages First Solar bifacial modules and a dedicated 138-kV interconnection.

A water district serving the western San Joaquin Valley has established a long-term blueprint for developing solar, storage and transmission on lands that “can no longer sustain irrigated agriculture.”

The transaction involves Section 45X credits generated from solar module manufacturing through December 2025.

Trina Solar has completed the sale of its 5 GW US solar module factory to T1 Energy, exiting direct manufacturing while retaining a minority equity stake.

The company signed a three-year deal to supply solar modules assembled from its U.S.-manufactured solar cells.

Awendio Solaris says it plans to invest about CAD 1 billion ($726.7 million) in a vertically integrated solar cell and module manufacturing facility and research center in Montreal, Quebec, targeting the Canadian and U.S. markets.

Ford announced it will move on from its electric vehicle trucks, instead producing hybrid vehicles and manufacturing grid-scale energy storage for the rapidly growing datacenter market as well as an entry to residential energy storage.

Responding to increased state-level interest in plug-in solar, a nonprofit group has published an in-depth guidebook to help state policymakers navigate the path to allowing households to use the systems.

Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency, Francesco La Camera, says the “door for continued cooperation remains open” following announcement the United States is withdrawing its membership.

The investment supports the development of a 1.2 GW AI data center campus in Milam County, Texas, and integrated solar and energy storage infrastructure projects.

Governor Pritzker signed the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act into law, directing the procurement of 3 GW of energy storage in Illinois over the next two years.

pv magazine USA spotlights news of the past week including market trends, project updates, policy changes and more.

Power control and energy management systems (PCS and EMS) are powerful tools that will enable the next generation of electrical systems, and the way they are featured in the 2026 NEC is a testament to the ways they can unlock the capability of distributed energy systems and more fully utilize the capacity of electrical infrastructure.

The Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative in Hawaii, which deployed storage before grid-forming inverters became available, became a test case for diagnosing grid issues that can arise with older grid-following inverters, and how grid-forming inverters can stabilize a grid.

A new Perspectives research study on the future of the global PV supply chain outlines how module prices, performance, and lifetimes could evolve over the next 25 years. The work reflects a collaboration among leading solar research institutions worldwide. One of the study’s authors, the director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE), told pv magazine that solar module and cell efficiencies could exceed 35% by 2050, with panel prices expected to drop by a factor of two.

Data center developers are co-locating generation and storage to avoid interconnection queues, as the traditional grid is failing to meet power requirements of generative AI, said a report from Wood Mackenzie.

More than 25 GW of large-scale generating projects seeking an interconnection agreement in the ERCOT grid region reached that stage in 2024. Berkeley Lab said ERCOT’s “connect and manage” approach “is likely one reason” for the grid operator’s success.