The global solar panel oversupply plaguing the solar industry over the past year may be set to ease, thanks to “surprisingly high” demand from Germany, according to a report issued last week by industry research firm iSuppli Corporation. As a result of the Spanish solar bubble bursting in 2009, demand for solar panels fell, inventory [...]

Representatives of the German and Moroccan governments are scheduled to meet this week to discuss European investment in concentrated solar power and water desalinization in the North African country.

In 2007, Team Germany’s entry in the Solar Decathlon stole the show: fancy retractable floors, house-covering louvred panels that could be closed or open at a light touch to control air and light flow and just happened to be covered with thousands of tiny solar cells, a sleek but somehow organic design. And they’ve done [...]

Just as California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signs into law a statewide feed-in tariff (see Margaret’s post from a few hours ago), Bloomberg has reported that Germany’s new ruling coalition intends to reduce incentives for solar power generation: While talks “are still in a preparatory phase” on energy policy for the next four years, “we’ll definitely [...]

A change in how imported solar panels are classified may impose up to $70 million in unexpected tariffs. As reported Wednesday by the New York Times: The issue began with a short letter to United States customs officials last December from the small American subsidiary of a Spanish energy company. The subsidiary, GES USA, wanted [...]

In what may appear at first glance to be a self-defeating move, SolarWorld, Germany’s third-largest solar company in terms of revenue, has called for the German government to hasten its reduction of the lucrative solar subsidies that made solar so successful there in the first place. The announcement, which was made during the European Photovoltaic [...]

Not content to sit idle as their Chinese rivals implement aggressive pricing strategies overseas, German solar manufacturers are fighting back by looking to a higher power. BSW (Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft, the German Solar Industry Association) has stated that it will decide whether or not to request regulatory action by the end of the year over what [...]

In recent months, a state, a municipality and a public utility district have enacted policies that guarantee a premium price for electricity that’s generated from renewable sources. Lawmakers from a number of states — including South Dakota, California, Indiana, Minnesota and Michigan — are also considering creating so-called feed-in tariffs of their own. Such tariffs [...]