Solar panel

St. Petersburg, Florida-based Climate First Bank, which claims to be the world’s first FDIC-insured community bank founded to fight the climate crisis, today launched an online solar lending platform for Florida residents.

If there’s one thing I love as much as playing with batteries, it’s charging them up from the sun. And when it comes to my electric bikes, which are kind of outdoor toys by definition, being able to charge in the field is a pretty darn neat trick for extending range when camping or just spending all day in the great outdoors. I recently had the chance to test out QuietKat’s all-in-one electric bike solar charger for just that purpose, and I can tell you that this is a really cool piece of gear to bring on your next e-bike trip.

Today Ultra-Yacht announced its first-ever All-Electric Duffy Boat featuring a solar charging option at the St. Petersburg Power and Sailboat Show in Florida. The Duffy Bayshore 18 is a zero-emission, low-maintenance boat that offers up to 12 hours of fun on the water.

It’s been a big week for Taco Bell fans who don’t want to admit they’re Taco Bell fans. Just days after the restaurant chain announced a first-of-its-kind taco subscription service, EV charging startup ChargeNet announced plans to bring a comprehensive charging solution to one of the restaurant’s south San Francisco locations later this month.

Researchers presented a new road map to create perovskite semiconductors that can be used in solar cells and LEDs. Perovskite could provide many advantages over purely silicon-based semiconductors, specifically due to its fault tolerance in manufacturing.

Sin City is going solar, thanks to MGM Resorts International ($MGM), who just launched a new 100-megawatt (MW) solar array capable of offering up to 90% of daytime power to the company’s 13 resorts scattered across the Las Vegas Strip. This includes hotels like Aria, MGM Grand, and The Mirage. The solar array will support the hospitality company’s climate-conscious goals set for 2030.

Singapore-based Maxeon Solar Technologies has announced that it will commercially release its Maxeon Air solar panels this summer. The company says the Air solar panels are frameless, thin, lightweight, and conformable, with efficiency and performance the same as standard solar panels.

The growth in building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) – solar PV modules that are flush with the existing roof and perform the waterproofing function of shingles or tiles – since Tesla announced its solar roof in 2016 has been largely disappointing. Since then, BIPV has been a niche part of the residential solar industry, perceived as too expensive or experimental compared to the cost of separately installing solar on top of a traditional roof.

But big drops in solar cost and an increase in panel efficiency over the past few years, combined with innovation in business models, mean that BIPV could become the most popular residential solar option soon.

Electrek‘s Michelle Lewis spoke with Martin DeBono, president of GAF Energy, about BIPV and the future of residential solar. GAF Energy is part of Standard Industries and is a sister company to roofing manufacturer GAF, the largest roofer in North America.

LG Business Solutions USA today announced the release of two new solar panels with even higher output. According to LG, they are the company’s most powerful and highest-performing modules to date.

Vote Solar, the Coalition for Community Solar Access, and solar provider Sunrun (Nasdaq: RUN) conducted a study that found that if just a quarter of US households were powered by local rooftop and community solar and storage, Americans would benefit financially and environmentally overall in a very big way.

Aurora Solar, a San Francisco-based SaaS company that develops tools that enable solar professionals to design and sell solar remotely — rather useful in a pandemic, eh? — announced yesterday that it has raised $50 million in Series B, bringing the company’s total investment to more than $70 million. This round, which Aurora says is the largest single investment in this market, was led by ICONIQ Capital.

Grist recently asked the pertinent question: What happens to solar panels when they’re no longer useable?

Many new EV owners (and solar customers) need to upgrade their electrical panel. That panel, which is so critical to your home’s energy, uses antiquated technology. It’s mostly a big dumb circuit breaker. Well, that was until Arch Rao came along to turn that panel into an intelligent, app-controlled energy gateway.

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Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have published a new paper in the journal ACS Photonics that says “anti-solar panels” can generate night solar electricity.

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Every now and again my news feed pushes something weird my way, and I’m always glad when it does. Today’s weird bit of news is a cool new product from a company called Motosola. They have developed a solar charging sun canopy for electric scooters that looks like it can actually put a significant amount of charge back into a vehicle.

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According to the IEA, the spot price for ‘mono crystalline’ solar panels fell from 72¢/W to 45¢/W over 2017. That 27¢/W drop represents a 37.5% fall.

Mono crystalline solar panels offer at least 10% more efficiency than poly crystalline in the same hardware package/size/weight, and today – in key markets – are only 6% more expensive.

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The solar panel industry is fighting physics’ stubborn hold on the secrets of photons exciting electrons – and the results of this atomic level focus are showing up for regular people.

A trio of solar efficiency records have been brought forward recently: Hanergy’s thin film unit developed a 25% solar panel, Trina Solar broke 25% with an IBC solar cell, and a lab in Europe has set an amazing record of a 26% solar cell using a standard, simple ‘p-type’ technology.

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Panasonic has announced their new HIT KURO (black) solar panel. The panel sports a black backsheet and a black frame, plus it hits a 19.4% efficiency, totaling a peak production value of 325W.

The panel seems the same (or very similar) as to what was announced by Tesla and Panasonic back in April of 2017 for the US market.

Panasonic brags that of the 4 million solar panels they’ve sold in Europe – only 148 of them have been returned for warranty issues.

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The Trump administration released its official ruling regarding the Suniva Section 201 case, and stated that they agree that the nation’s solar industry has taken damage as a result of global solar actions.

The administration has chosen to impose a 30% tariff on all imported solar cells and solar panels, decreasing 5% a year for four years. The first 2.5GW of solar cells imported will not be tariffed, to protect the domestic solar panel industry.

The tariffs are far below what Suniva and SolarWorld requested.

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There were approximately 98GW of solar power installed globally in 2017, versus 70GW in 2016. That represents 40% volume growth in a single year! Woo, yeah!

The top 10 module suppliers delivered about 57GW of those volumes – 58% of the total. Even though these groups mostly tilt toward utility-scale work, here we’ll talk about some of their residential solar panels to get you up to speed.

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