In 2009, the United States federal government converted a 30 percent tax credit for business owners who power their property with solar energy into a 30 percent treasury grant. What’s the difference? The property owners receive a check reimbursing them for 30 percent of the project’s cost within 60 days of completing the installation rather than waiting to use the tax credit against taxes they owe once a year.

According to a new study released today by Greentech Media Company (GTM), the U.S. market for utility-scale solar energy farms is expected to double each year between 2010 and 2015. The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based research group came to this conclusion after carefully reviewing all solar power projects that have been announced by developers and utilities to date.

Southern California Edison (SCE) – one of California’s three major utility service companies – is already the leading supplier of solar power of any utility company in the country.

The Rockville Ice Arena in Rockville, Maryland now houses one of the largest single rooftop solar energy systems in the entire state.

Primex Farms has gone nuts over solar energy. The Wasco, California-based pistachio processing plant now has a 1.108-megawatt (MW) solar photovoltaic (PV) energy system to power its pistachio producing operation thanks to Cenergy Power, a California commercial solar developer that will provide a decade of operations and system maintenance.

New England’s largest solar energy plant is complete and set to begin producing power by the end of November.

Dow Jones & Company is in the midst of a 4.1-megawatt (MW) solar energy installation at its corporate facility in South Brunswick, New Jersey – soon to be one of the largest single commercial solar energy systems in the United States.

A trio of companies are developing large capacity clean energy storage batteries in order to keep up with demand for larger plants that are being built throughout the country.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) – an international healthcare company – has begun installing what it says is North America’s largest photovoltaic (PV) rooftop solar energy system at its 500,000 square-foot Northeast Regional Distribution Center (RDC) in York, Pennsylvania.

A plan is in the works to transform a 216-acre chunk of empty private land in Colorado’s Alamosa County into a 30-megawatt (MW) solar photovoltaic (PV) plant that would be producing power by the end of calendar year 2012.