Electrek morning green energy brief: New York solar incentives, solar + battery apartment building, record wind production & more

[Editor’s note: We’re trying a new morning green energy briefing which should deliver every day by 9am ET. Please comment below]

New Yorkers have ~$50,000,000 in solar incentives coming to them – The State of New York gives up to $5,000 to home solar installations. The state put out a press release reminding people of the money and also noting that the number of solar installations has grown 730% since the beginning of 2012 through the end of November 2016. Good job NY!

Tesla continues to get investments ($241M this time) in Residential Solar PV portfolios – People with hundreds of millions of dollars at a time keep wanting to invest in Tesla’s solar portfolios. These portfolios consist of the residential solar lease contracts that SolarCity specializes in. A 20 year long, consistent investment in people paying their electricity bill.

Apartment building design with solar, batteries and food integrated (see main image) – One question is how do we get solar power into building dense regions that have little open space. Building integrated solar power (BIPV) is coming harder everyday and designs like this will drive it.

Cold front in Texas leads toward record wind electricity production – Wind energy peaks during the winter, solar during the summer. Cold, blustery nights generate the most wind globally. Texas, on December 19th, increased their wind output record by 10% because of those windy conditions.

Hawaii solar permits down 40% – Yesterday we noted that Hawaii was looking to increase their $/kWh to help further develop the electricity grid for solar power. Today we see what happens as net metering caps are hit. Hawaii, like Germany and other highly developed states, are teaching the rest of the world the dynamics needed to integrate intermittent energy sources into the grid.

Solar Power has grown for ten straight years – From 20GW/year to almost 80GW in 2016 after 30%+ growth. And no reason to assume a slowdown as India ramps up and price continues to fall.

Stability challenges in perovskite solar cell technology – This week in solar cell research: Perovskite seems to be the hottest in the lab technology for solar cells, however, unlike standard silicon that can last decades, perovskite has issues breaking down before it pays for itself. A challenge. Watch this technology though – its getting serious research focus globally.

And on Christmas Eve…remember boys and girls:

Considering residential solar? Understand Solar will connect you with one local contractors with you. Full disclosure: I get a commission. Tweet me for feedback on pricing.

For more electric vehicle, autonomous transport and clean technology news, make sure to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to get our latest articles.