Solar visionary, Jigar Shah, will join AltaTerra Research and RenewableEnergyWorld.com on September 23 to discuss the current state of the U.S. solar industry and where he sees the industry heading in 2011 and beyond, in a national and international online conference.

What is the future for utility scale solar? According to recent reports and commitment from utilities in the Southwest and East coast USA, the future is optimistic. SEIA recently announced that utilities' solar megawatts added to the grid grew from 169 MW in 2008 to 279 in 2009, a growth of 66 percent in a year when electricity demand as a whole declined as the result of an economic downturn.

What is the future for utility scale solar? According to recent reports and commitment from utilities in the Southwest and East coast USA, the future is optimistic. SEIA recently announced that utilities' solar megawatts added to the grid grew from 169 MW in 2008 to 279 in 2009, a growth of 66 percent in a year when electricity demand as a whole declined as the result of an economic downturn.

What is the future for utility scale solar? According to recent reports and commitment from utilities in the Southwest and East coast USA, the future is optimistic. SEIA recently announced that utilities' solar megawatts added to the grid grew from 169 MW in 2008 to 279 in 2009, a growth of 66 percent in a year when electricity demand as a whole declined as the result of an economic downturn.

What is the future for utility scale solar? According to recent reports and commitment from utilities in the Southwest and East coast USA, the future is optimistic. SEIA recently announced that utilities' solar megawatts added to the grid grew from 169 MW in 2008 to 279 in 2009, a growth of 66 percent in a year when electricity demand as a whole declined as the result of an economic downturn.

What is the future for utility scale solar? According to recent reports and commitment from utilities in the Southwest and East coast USA, the future is optimistic. SEIA recently announced that utilities' solar megawatts added to the grid grew from 169 MW in 2008 to 279 in 2009, a growth of 66 percent in a year when electricity demand as a whole declined as the result of an economic downturn.

The Peace Corps announced late last month that the U.S. Department of State will provide $1 million to fund the program in support of the Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA). The money will help Peace Corps efforts that increase rural access to energy, mitigate the effects of climate change, and support the use of renewable energy and energy efficient technologies in Central and South American communities.

In June 2009, the Department of Interior announced a fast-track program for renewable energy and transmission projects on public lands under BLM management. The agency designated fast-track projects as those "where the companies involved have demonstrated to the BLM that they have made sufficient progress to formally start the environmental review and public participation process."

What is the future for utility scale solar? According to recent reports and commitment from utilities in the Southwest and East coast USA, the future is optimistic. SEIA recently announced that utilities' solar megawatts added to the grid grew from 169 MW in 2008 to 279 in 2009, a growth of 66 percent in a year when electricity demand as a whole declined as the result of an economic downturn.

What is the future for utility scale solar? According to recent reports and commitment from utilities in the Southwest and East coast USA, the future is optimistic. SEIA recently announced that utilities' solar megawatts added to the grid grew from 169 MW in 2008 to 279 in 2009, a growth of 66 percent in a year when electricity demand as a whole declined as the result of an economic downturn.

What is the future for utility scale solar? According to recent reports and commitment from utilities in the Southwest and East coast USA, the future is optimistic. SEIA recently announced that utilities' solar megawatts added to the grid grew from 169 MW in 2008 to 279 in 2009, a growth of 66 percent in a year when electricity demand as a whole declined as the result of an economic downturn.

CSP Today speaks to Babul Patel, senior consultant at Nexant Inc., about the cost implication of plant cooling options and how to operate plants effectively under increasingly stringent water restrictions.

What is the future for utility scale solar? According to recent reports and commitment from utilities in the Southwest and East coast USA, the future is optimistic. SEIA recently announced that utilities' solar megawatts added to the grid grew from 169 MW in 2008 to 279 in 2009, a growth of 66 percent in a year when electricity demand as a whole declined as the result of an economic downturn.

Usual suspects Spain and the USA lead the industry with a combined market share of over 90% of projects under construction. New markets open up in MENA, Australia and India where 1.9 GW of CSP have been announced, according to a new report by CSP Today.

Standard Solar, Inc., a premier full-service developer, integrator and installer of solar electric systems for commercial, government and residential customers, today announced that the company was named to the prestigious Inc. magazine Top 500 Fastest Growing Companies in America list, a compendium of the most entrepreneurial and fastest growing companies in America. Standard Solar ranked 73rd out of 500 and was the highest ranking renewable energy company on the list.

SMA Solar Technology AG continues to expand its technological lead over the competition, and has set the course for the increased use of transformerless solar inverters in the United States. The leading manufacturer of solar inverters has become the first company in the world to receive certification from Underwriters Laboratories® (UL) for transformerless inverters. The certification applies to SMA transformerless Sunny Boy 8000TL-US, Sunny Boy 9000TL-US, and Sunny Boy 10000TL-US inverters and was granted as a result of complying with "UL Standard 1741 for PV and Battery-Powered Inverters," which, for the first time includes requirements on transformerless inverters.

Using solar energy, Butte College in Oroville, Calif., plans to be one of the first colleges in the U.S. to produce more energy than it consumes. While the college has been using solar energy for three years, the board of trustees approved its Phase III solar project which is expected to be completed by May 2011. Butte College will install more than 14,000 Mitsubishi Electric solar modules capable of producing 3,481,920 kWh of clean energy per year. This 2.7 MW DC installation is an addition to the 10,000 solar panels the college already has, making the total system size 4.55 MW DC.

Utility scale parabolic trough solar concentrators harness the sun's energy to make steam for electricity generation. The more efficiently that a trough can harness the sun's energy and convert it to steam, the more electricity it will be able to make.

Coming on the heels of yesterday's announcement that California is moving closer to setting grid energy storage mandates for utilities in the state, today Pike Research released a new report that says the grid energy storage market could reach as much as $35 billion by 2020.