In a big win for clean local energy in California, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has agreed to include avoided transmission costs as part of the valuation of distributed energy resources (DER). The CPUC uses the Avoided Cost Calculator (ACC) as a key tool to calculate the valueRead More

First Solar signed two 15-year Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs) Monterey Bay Community Power (MBCP) and Silicon Valley Clean Energy (SVCE). The project will be powered by First Solar’s proprietary thin film module technology, designed and developed at the Company’s research and development (R&D) centers inRead More

Longroad Energy, a US-based renewable energy developer, owner and operator, will be starting construction of Little Bear Solar, comprising four separate projects totaling 215 MWdc in Fresno County, Calif. Additionally, two Danish pension funds, PKA and PenSam, represented by their investment manager AIP, announced today that they are investing inRead More

As of March 20, 2020 the California Public Utilities Commission has issued an extension of the CA Rule 21 compliance deadline, pushing the date to June 22, 2020. This includes the Smart Inverter Phase 2 communications requirement and Phase 3 smart inverter requirements. This marks yet another delay in theRead More

Aurora Solar, the solar industry’s leading software platform for distributed solar (and sponsor of this year’s Rooftop Report), is the first—and currently only—to formally receive the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) certification as an approved solar assessment tool for solar access verification for new home construction. As of January 1st ofRead More

The largest renewable energy installation ever built for a California Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) agency is officially online. Peninsula Clean Energy this month began providing more solar power to California’s San Mateo County from the 200-MW utility-scale Wright Solar Project located in the nearby Central Valley. Peninsula Clean Energy has anRead More

2020 – the dawn of the Solar+ Decade – kicks off with the official launch of California’s much heralded (and controversial) Building Energy Efficiency Standards Title 24 mandate that all new residential construction include a solar energy component. If you spent most of 2019 waiting out the end times inRead More

Not sure if you noticed, but California’s new home solar mandate is almost here (we’ve only written like 20,000 words on it so far, with more coming this week), but some homebuilders and utilities are still not that thrilled about it. Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) being the most notable afterRead More

Part IV of Solar Builder’s excellent Countdown to 2020 series about California’s new home solar mandate included this statement: “Speakers at the California Solar Power Expo… expect homebuilders to skip solar-only systems to comply with the Title 24 mandate and go straight to solar + storage systems.” Is that expectationRead More

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) voted yesterday to approve program implementation for the Disadvantaged Communities – Single-family Solar Homes (DAC-SASH) program. A major new investment in expanding solar access, DAC-SASH aims to increase the adoption of clean, affordable solar power by low-income households in disadvantaged communities. It builds offRead More