By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent I can’t lie: I’d completely forgotten about poor ol’ Dan Simmons. In a previous engagement, I’d written about Simmons when President Donald J. Trump appointed him as the interim head of Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), a post in which he’s served ever since. And I must admit the reason he’s fallen off my radar is that he hasn’t done anything so horrific as to raise red flags. The EERE budget battles have raged on, with one side trying to slash the budget to the bone while Congress keeps reattaching the meat, … Read More →

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent It’s easy to get caught up in a solar + storage discussion that only focuses on batteries – but as independent power producers (IPPs) begin to realize how important solar + storage is going to be in their market, they are quickly realizing the question is far more complex than it seems on the surface. IPPs like Vistra, for example, just signed a deal with FlexGen, an innovative storage provider that is focusing on adding storage to C&I and utility-scale projects, to design and integrate a 10-megawatt/42-megawatt hour FlexGen energy storage system (ESS) at Upton … Read More →

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Another day, another set of new tariffs. In his ongoing attempt to start trade wars with every country around the globe, President Donald J. Trump has decided to impose around $50 billion in new tariffs on products coming in from China. And while initial reports suggested solar modules and cells would not be on the list, Roth Capital Partners issued its guidance on Friday saying they may be included. And the entire module industry shrugged at the news – with the exception of one module company that is planning on building a new facility in … Read More →

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Yesterday, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf signed legislation designed to open up more clean-energy investment in the state by creating a statewide Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program into law. PACE is a financing mechanism that enables low-cost, long-term funding for energy efficiency, renewable energy, and water conservation upgrades to commercial or industrial properties through property taxes. This allows businesses to invest in upgrades like renewable energy while paying no money upfront. In states where it’s available, PACE has proven to be a popular program. As Wolf said in his statement announcing the signing: This innovative … Read More →

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent It appears Suniva may finally be ready to undergo the sale we’ve all been anticipating for more than a year. SQN Capital Management, the company’s largest creditor and the one who once tried to get a $55 million payment from the Chinese Chamber of Commerce to make the trade case go away last May, announced that the bankruptcy court has finally awarded it full title to “the cutting edge technology, licenses, and manufacturing capacity” of the company. Which, most solar observers assume, means all that will soon be up for sale. It’s the only logical … Read More →

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent SunPower is proving that you can be everything to everybody without trying to be the expert in everything yourself – a business model that could bode well for the company’s future as the U.S. solar industry continues to grow. First, it purchased mid-tier module maker SolarWorld and announced plans to take over its Oregon manufacturing facility to broaden the scope of its module products. Tuesday, it announced it was selling its microinverter line to industry powerhouse Enphase and converting its AC module line to Enphase inverters instead of continuing to manufacture the products themselves. Which … Read More →

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Yesterday, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) commissioners appeared before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and told the Senators what the rest of the world already knows: Water is wet. The Pope is still Catholic. And the nuclear and coal plant bailout Trump demanded is entirely unnecessary. While the solar industry has been saying this since Trump first floated this Bob Murray special two years ago, Energy Law 360 reports that when asked if the bailout of failing nuclear and coal plants was important to national security, the crickets could be heard … Read More →

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent After the stock market closed, Enphase Energy – the once-struggling microinverter company that is seeing a resurgence under CEO Badri Kothandaraman, announced it was buying SunPower’s microinverter business for $25 million and 7.5 million shares of common stock. Enphase stock rose 16% after the announcement. The transaction means Enphase will now supply the microinverter technology for SunPower’s AC modules instead of SunPower producing the microinverters on their own. Tom Werner, SunPower CEO, tipped his hand about why the transaction took place in the release. He said the transaction will allow SunPower to “continue containing costs, … Read More →

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent Perovskites have been the hot solar technology for several years now without, frankly, a lot to show for it. But one company – Solar-Tectic – has reached the patent stage for its thin-film perovskite technology. Could perovskite modules be close behind? The answer is a definite maybe. According to the company’s release, the breakthrough is the width of the bottom layer in the tandem cell. The release says: Wafer sized bottom poly- and monocrystalline silicon layers in PERC, PERL, HIT, HJ, or perovskite/silicon tandem cells are typically 200-280 microns thick, whereas ST’s thin-film crystalline inorganic … Read More →

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent First the good news: The overall U.S. solar industry grew year over year by 13%, adding 2.5 GW-DC in the first quarter of 2018. Now the bad news: That’s a 37% quarter-over-quarter decrease. So the latest quarterly U.S. Solar Market Insights Report, put out by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and GTM Research, is a bit of a mixed bag. But the fact that the U.S. solar market has shown any growth at all, in light of heavy tariffs on module imports, flat residential growth and a significant decrease in “non-residential” installations, is a … Read More →