Solar

Major clean energy breakthroughs are just around the corner, says Crane, who’s betting on distributed solar and new in-home natural gas “gizmos” to disrupt the utility model.

Swedish startup says its liquid nanowires boost solar panel efficiency 25%.

Energy storage and reliability are going to be the next big things.

NRG Solar will introduce a home-use solar electric system with energy storage, called Pergola, in late April.

The money, part of the state’s NY-Sun initiative, will add 52 megawatts to New York’s solar power capacity.

United States’ market share of the world’s installations increased from 5 percent to above 10 percent driven by cheap solar panels from China, says the Solar Energy Industries Association. The average cost of a solar panel has declined by 60 percent since the beginning of 2011. The utility sector had the biggest jump in solar installations, more than doubling compared with 2011. Meanwhile European markets, which used to drive global expansion, have pulled back from feed-in tariffs and stagnated.

The solar panel industry is reportedly creating millions of pounds of polluted sludge and contaminated water as a by-product of robust manufacturing.

Japan might become the third largest market for solar power this year, if its current government subsidy program stays in place.

The solar installation is the biggest for any automaker in North America.

Sunshine state regulators have reported that more than 1 gigawatt -- or 1,000 megawatts -- of solar power has been installed through the California Solar Initiative.