By Andrew Mills and Ryan Wiser Recent declines in the cost of photovoltaic (PV) energy, increasing experience with the deployment of concentrating solar power (CSP), the availability of tax-based incentives for solar, and state renewables portfolio standards (RPS) (some with solar-specific requirements) have led to increased interest in solar power among U.S. load-serving entities (LSEs). [...]

Utility-scale soft costs were just 25 cents/watt According to a new study from NREL, in 2010 the average soft costs for residential systems averaged $1.50 per watt, or roughly 23 percent of system cost. For commercial systems, the median 2010 soft costs were $0.99/W for systems smaller than 250 kW (about 17 percent of system [...]

After nearly a decade of strategic collaboration, two regulatory dockets, more than 170 stakeholder comments, hundreds of hours of meetings, and a 6-inch regulatory archive binder, sunny Utah has made solar history. On October 1, 2012, the Public Service Commission of Utah approved Rocky Mountain Power’s (RMP) request to offer a significantly expanded solar [...]

(Press Release, Berkeley, CA, Nov 27) — The installed price of solar photovoltaic (PV) power systems in the United States fell substantially in 2011 and through the first half of 2012, according to the latest edition of Tracking the Sun, an annual PV cost-tracking report produced by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley [...]

DENVER RECOGNIZED AS FIRST SOLAR FRIENDLY COMMUNITY (Press Release, Nov 27) The City and County of Denver is the first municipality to be recognized as a Solar Friendly Community under an innovative new program designed to help bring down the costs of solar energy. Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock accepted the award at a ceremony [...]