From the perspective of homeowners and businesses looking to go solar, the bigger the solar rebate the better. From the perspective of the utilities and government agencies that finance those rebates, often the opposite is true. Usually, the decided upon rebate level ends up somewhere between these two parties’ preferences. That appears to be the [...]

Judging from a 2006 survey, a remarkable number of U.S. homeowners have become interested residential solar energy in recent years. As a result, more and more U.S. homebuilders are actively building out their solar-powered home offerings. Big-name builders like Pulte Homes, Meritage Homes and KB Home have all been jockeying for top spot as the provider [...]

With its ample sunshine and relatively high electricity rates, southern California offers what are arguable the country’s most favorable conditions for solar power. The decision makers at San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) seem to understand this — and are aiming to take advantage. In partnership with AMSOLAR Corporation, SDUSD will see some 23,000 solar [...]

Lakeside Dairy in California’s central valley has installed a big solar power system that will cut its use of conventional electricity by 75 percent. Developed, designed and installed by SPG Solar — one of the biggest commercial solar installers in California — the 891-kilowatt (kW) solar array comprises 3,240 Suntech solar panels and two big [...]

In an effort to provide solar home energy options to its customers, Lowe’s is teaming up with Sungevity, an Oakland, California-based company that leases the systems to homeowners in handful of states. The home improvement retailer has taken a minority stake in Sungevity that will help each company make up ground where it was previously [...]

Last month, we profiled a new lineup of energy-efficient homes from Meritage Homes. Not to be outdone, KB Home today announced plans to make solar panels a standard feature at its new community in southern California. Having recently acquired land in West Hills Village in Valencia, the company will build energy-efficient homes on 43 lots. [...]

The most efficient solar photovoltaic (PV) panel on the market today is capable of turning about 20 percent of the sun’s energy into electricity. This number is slowly but surely increasing, as technology continually improves. But in an ideal world, solar panels would convert a larger portion of the sun ray’s into useful energy. On [...]

Generally speaking, solar energy installations come in two flavors: small- and medium-scale systems that are installed atop roofs and in empty lots (broadly referred to a “distributed generation”); and large, utility-scale solar power plants that sit on acres and acres of land. A common critique of distributed generation is that, thanks to trees and other [...]

This morning, I got to tinkering around with some numbers from California Solar Statistics, a program of the state’s Energy Commission and Public Utilities Commission. What did I find? Well, beyond a wealth of details on system size, average installed cost and California solar incentives, I verified that most solar home energy systems in the [...]

This is by no means the first time we’ve seen IKEA install solar panels at one of its stores (just see here, here, here, here and here). But the furniture retailer’s latest project is somewhat noteworthy: at 290 kilowatts (kW) in size, it’s the third largest solar energy system of its kind in Burbank, California. [...]