SunPower Corporation (NASDAQ: SPWRA) earned international recognition yesterday when six of 17 universities competing in Solar Decathlon Europe chose to use the company’s high-efficiency solar panels when competing in the solar home-building competition. Solar Decathlon Europe is one of the most prestigious solar home-building competitions in the world and is currently being held through June 27 in Madrid, Spain.

It’s increasingly evident that U.S. homebuilders are piling into solar energy for the long haul. In the past month, this blog has featured the “Vision Zero” solar home, the result of a joint effort between Cobblestone Homes and Dow Chemical, and the “eSMART Green” solar home from Beazer Homes. Cheesiness of the names aside, these [...]

Sun Power Corp. and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) have etched out a contract that will add 40 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaic (PV) energy capacity to a planned solar farm in San Luis Obispo County, California that, when complete, will be one of the largest solar farms in the world.

Solar powerhouse SunPower Corporation has announced plans to build two 1-Megawatt photovoltaic solar power plants, slated for completion by August 2010, in Italy’s southern region of Puglia. The San Jose, California-based manufacturer will undertake the projects in partnership with Italian investment and management company K6 S.a.S., with the electricity generated by the plants feeding into local [...]

At a shipyard in Germany today, PlanetSolar unveiled the world’s largest solar powered boat: a 30-meter long catamaran that will be powered exclusively by about 38,000 SunPower monocrystalline solar cells. Two sailors will circle the globe in a trip beginning early in 2011–this will be the first circumnavigation to be completed in an entirely solar-powered [...]

SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWRA, SPRWRB) will officially acquire European solar plant developer SunRay Renewable Energy in a $277 million deal expected to close in the first half of 2010. The companies have signed a “definitive agreement” under which SunPower will take on SunRay’s current project pipeline, which represents 1,200 MW of solar energy development. SunRay’s [...]

The 2010 Sedona Film Festival highlights a raffle for a 5.4kw SunPower solar panel array.

Solar stocks rose this week, and a new report says VC funding in clean energy and the solar market is doing well.

SunPower Corp., a leading manufacturer of high-efficiency silicon-based solar modules, announced yesterday the creation of the SunPower Foundation, a nonprofit organization “focused on empowering, inspiring and motivating a new generation of solar leaders in communities around the world.” The organization is the first of its kind, wholly funded by a major solar company. The foundation’s [...]