The Minnesota State Legislature is considering a bold move to assist Minnesota’s fledgling solar industry. A new provision in the House transportation omnibus bill requires that any solar array installed on a building, highway, road, bridge, or land owned or controlled by the Minnesota Department of Transportation, must consist entirely of panels manufactured in Minnesota. … Continue Reading
SolarTech, a non-profit private/public consortium, recently announced the solar industry’s first engineering procurement and construction (EPC) contract template for solar financing. Whereas a PPA (power purchase agreement), loan agreement or operating lease agreement handle the front-end financing relationship, the EPC agreement handles the execution phase of the project. The template was developed by the SolarTech … Continue Reading
Today, the Department of Energy issued a Notice of Intent regarding funding of up to $50 million to test and demonstrate innovative technologies that will lead to cost-competitive solar energy technologies. The Nevada National Security Site will be the test site for cutting-edge solar technologies which can be deployed in the Southwest areas of the United States where there … Continue Reading
Morten Lund reports: The California Solar Initiative Handbook was updated June 8, 2010. The new version can be found by clicking here. Of particular interest are changes to Section 2.4 (warranty requirements). These changes are not necessarily substantively significant, but may require some manufacturers and contractors/installers to conform their warranty language in order to ensure … Continue Reading
The California Public Utilities Commission ("CPUC") has given the green light to a five-year solar photovoltaic program to develop up to 500 MW of solar PV facilities in Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s ("PG&E") service area. The program is designed to allow PG&E and third parties to develop PV facilities: Under the utility-owned part of the program, PG&E may install … Continue Reading
From our colleague Adam Walters: In February we blogged about Colorado HB-10 1001, a bill then pending in the Colorado legislature that would increase Colorado’s Renewable Energy Standard (RES) from 20% to 30% by 2020. The Democrat-sponsored bill was passed by the legislature on March 11 on a party line vote and yesterday it was … Continue Reading
