It’ll be short and sweet today, with minimal asides and unsolicited comments from yours truly (collective sigh of relief). Here’s what’s news in solar energy today:

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), America’s largest municipal utility, is on the verge of passing a 5-percent rate increase, in part to fund incentives for residential and commercial solar installations, via NYTimes.com. The article starts with a great lede: “Los Angeles averages more than 300 days of sunshine a year, and it often seems as if environmentalists outnumber rattlesnakes in many parts of the sprawling city. It would seem, then, that solar energy would be a thriving local industry here.” Bottom line: despite L.A.’s fiscal woes, solar power may soon be getting a big boost in LADWP service territory.

Detroit-based utility DTE Energy is working on a plan to install 15 megawatts of solar power in its service territory, reports MLive.com. That’s a big leap from the one megawatt of solar currently in place across Michigan. The utility is looking for “schools, universities and other visible properties interested in hosting large-scale solar arrays.” In related news, check out this post on SolarCurrents, DTE Energy’s solar rebate program, from GetSolar’s Connie Zheng.

Chinese solar-panel maker Trina Solar (NYSE:TSL) will open its European headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, viaTradingMarkets.com.

In other Euro-China solar news, Munich Re today announced it will cover the performance warranty of solar modules made by LDK Solar Co. (NYSE:LDK), via CNNMoney.com. With so many solar-panel manufacturers out there, we cannot stress enough the importance of warranties, insurance and reinsurance.

Via The Huffington Post, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) offers his overview of where, and how, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been successful. He talks about weatherization projects in Ohio; advanced batteries in Massachusetts, Michigan and Ohio; solar innovation in Georgia and solar installations across the country; and wind power in Maine, New York and Utah. Whether you think the Recovery Act has been good, bad or ugly, we can’t keep skirting the discussion about how to best structure the American economy for the next 100 years.

We’ll wrap it up today with some sunny California solar news: Ventura County has completed the installation of two brand-spankin’ new solar-panel systems, reports MarketWatch. The rooftop photovoltaic (PV) installations — sized at 334 kilowatts (kWs) and 157 kWs DC — are expected to product 728,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity during their first year of operation, providing “the County with a hedge against rising electricity rates for years to come. In addition, the systems will also provide the County with significant environmental benefit, producing an environmental offset that is the equivalent of removing 523 pounds (242.27 metric tons) of CO(2) from the environment during their first year of operation.”

That’s all for this afternoon. Hang in there, it’s almost Friday. Be sure to stay plugged in with GetSolar. We’ll see you at sunrise.