World

While the solar-specific charge was dropped as part of a settlement, the utility will increase fixed charges on its Texas customers.

The San Diego utility says that the battery systems will allow it to improve reliability and integrate higher levels of renewables. AES plans to finish the systems by the end of January 2017.

A revision request has now been received by the appropriate court in Michigan. SolarWorld has meanwhile filled further protective letters against Hemlock to various courts in Germany, as a precaution to prevent possible enforcement of any penalty in Germany. SolarWorld CEO Frank Asbeck is confident that the U.S. silicon manufacturer will not receive recognition of any judgements in German courts.

National Grid has filed to change the net metering rules in line with an earlier legislation, making net metering in the state even better than before.

This was another difficult week in the U.S. solar industry, with layoffs at SolarCity and the carving up of SunEdison’s empire, but also saw progress in policy and technology.

A bankruptcy court has approved the expedited auction of SunEdison projects with NRG as the “stalking horse” bidder, and NRG has separately announced the purchase of 26 C&I solar projects.

The yieldcos have until the end of August to submit a plan as to how they are going to get their financial reports on track, while TerraForm Global struggles with multiple legal proceedings.

The Austrian inverter specialist opens sales, product management and R&D center in San Francisco to better serve U.S. markets and commitments. Partnership with Tesla expected to be strengthened.

On the same day that the copmany announced that it will lay off workers and cut founder salaries, SolarCity initiated a bond offering at a record high interest rate of 6.5%.

The Chinese-Canadian solar firm shipped 1,290 MW of modules and posted net revenue of $805.9 million in the second quarter, with nearly half of its sales to the Americas.