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PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) financing is a far under leveraged path to enable property (primarily building) owners to cost-effectively financed energy and resource efficiency along with clean energy.  In short, PACE financing makes the payback of loans part of the property assessment with extremely low interest rates available because this is generally bundled money through […]

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Donald Trump has created some buzz with discussing the potential for making the Mexico border wall a power plant:  covering it with solar panels. Amid Team Trump’s “Energy Week” (with nary a mention of wind or solar power, the fastest growing energy sources around the globe … and in the United States), a question to […]

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This guest post from Martin Smith provides a taste (and, truly, just a taste)  of the things happening around the world, related to clean energy and reducing fossil foolish dependences. If Team Trump would get their minds out of promoting 19th century energy, leveraging knowledge of 20th century energy, and turn to 21st century realities […]

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The UNHCR has announced that the Azraq refugee camp in Jordan is now 100% powered by solar energy. This is (putting aside, I guess, places that were ‘powered’ by burning wood …) “the first refugee camp powered by renewable energy.”   The 2-megawatt solar photovoltaic (PV) plant will allow UNHCR to provide affordable and sustainable […]

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The pace of global change accelerates with each passing year. Energy systems — which tend, even amid revolution (wood to coal, coal to oil, …), to change slowly — are struggling, globally, to adapt to how that pace of change is accelerating within them as well. Globalization combined with information technology reach combined with materials […]

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The Department of Energy just released a study that sparked this question: Can @SarahPalinUSA see #pv panels from her porch? https://t.co/if4vJ2080g For rural #Alaska, #solar is low cost path to reliable energy — A Siegel (@A_Siegel) February 22, 2016 Entitled Solar Prospecting in Rural Alaska, the study examines the return on investment for installing solar […]

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Last fall, the world learned that the Brightsource concentrating solar plant at Ivanpah, California, was killing birds. There was a rather huge outcry, much of it without a context of overall numbers and causes of bird deaths. While seeking to place the deaths in context, I wrote “the system can/should be improved”. Well, this has occurred. […]

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Around the world, solar prices are simply collapsing. With double-digit year-to-year growth rates and double-digit year-to-year price drops, solar electricity is reaching grid parity (and better) in new markets with virtually every passing day. For a long time, those fighting clean energy have argued PRICE! PRICE! PRICE! Those (including myself) arguing for the necessity for […]

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This morning’s twitter feed had this: Does the solar industry need a federal tax credit after 2016? We debate w/ @BCinnamon later today on @TheEnergyGang podcast. — Stephen Lacey (@Stphn_Lacey) March 26, 2015 Solar prices are plummeting. In area after area, the prices are getting to the point of an ability to compete directly against […]

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There are a series of arguments used by fossil-fuel defenders / pollution promoters to dismiss the utility of renewable energy electricity options. One standard is to dismiss wind and solar by saying that it only delivers X percent of the electricity. The intent of playing to that number, with the emphasis on “only”, is to […]

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