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India’s residential rooftop solar market could see annual installations of 9 GW to 15 GW between 2026 and 2030, according to a new report by the Indian Solar Manufacturers Association (ISMA), with the PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana expected to remain a key driver of demand.
In its “Market Sizing and Growth Outlook” report, ISMA estimates the total residential rooftop solar opportunity at around 132 GW, of which around 115 GW remains to be deployed. The projected installation pipeline could support sustained demand for solar cells, modules, inverters and balance-of-system components, according to the report.
As on June 30, 2026, India had installed 30.1 GW of grid-connected rooftop solar capacity, with PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana adding 13.5 GW as of July 2026 and reshaping the residential market. The total residential rooftop solar installed capacity stands at around 17 GW.
PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana has emerged as a key driver of residential rooftop PV adoption, while also supporting demand for domestically manufactured DCR modules, creating business opportunities across the rooftop solar value chain—including manufacturers, EPC companies, installers, system integrators and other service providers—and contributing to employment generation across the ecosystem.
ISMA’s assessment indicates that around 8 GW of the potential residential solar market pays for itself without subsidy—mostly large consumption homes in states where power is expensive. The rest still needs support under PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana.
The report also highlights the “affordability affect,” showing that rooftop solar adoption is increasingly expanding beyond states where its economics are naturally strongest. PM Surya Ghar has helped bring rooftop solar within reach of households across larger residential markets, demonstrating the role of policy support in broadening adoption and creating a more sustained demand base for India’s domestic solar manufacturing ecosystem.
“PM Surya Ghar has played an important role in expanding residential rooftop solar adoption, particularly in markets where project economics remain challenging,” said Amit Manohar, Secretary General, ISMA. “As the current programme approaches March 2027, providing early clarity on its next phase, including consideration of PM Surya Ghar 2.0, preferably by December 2026, would help maintain market continuity and provide greater visibility to consumers and industry stakeholders.”
The report notes that policy continuity beyond March 2027 will be important to sustain demand and provide manufacturers and other stakeholders with the visibility required to plan investments, capacity expansion, and domestic supply chains.
The ISMA estimate is based on national residential electricity-consumption, government housing-suitability surveys and distribution-utility tariffs.
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ANN ARBOR — Like others living in Ann Arbor’s Bryant neighborhood, Todd Jensen has heard plenty of pitches from solar salesmen.
Their quotes came in as low as $30,000 and as high as $70,000 for an array that would power his home, garage, electric vehicle charger and hot tub.
“We see the solar people come along, and it’s like, ‘I don’t even want to talk to them, because I know I can’t afford it,'” Jensen said.
More: Michigan lawmakers could lower power prices, energy regulators argue
He thought twice when he noticed solar arrays going up around the neighborhood. A few weeks later, solar panels sat on the roof of Jensen’s home and the two he and his wife rent to tenants.
Jensen and his neighbors were among the first Ann Arbor residents to enroll in the city’s Sustainable Energy Utility, an ambitious and unusual program launched by the city in 2024 to offer people a way to access renewable power without the upfront cost. The city’s utility pays for the upfront costs of buying and installing the equipment. Residents pay a monthly fee and get to use the free power to offset their DTE Energy Co. bills.
The utility kicked off its services this year with a pilot project in the Bryant neighborhood, widely known as one of Ann Arbor’s few affordable areas.
“The model of utility that the Ann Arbor Sustainable Energy Utility … has not been tried anywhere else,” said Shoshannah Lenski, SEU executive director. “We’re the first of its type in the nation. So we’re figuring this out as we go, which is part of why we’re doing a pilot here in this neighborhood. We’re learning from it, and in 2027, we’ll be expanding city-wide.”
The idea to start a new power provider was born out of the city’s goal to eliminate Ann Arbor’s carbon emissions by 2030. To do it, the city needed to deploy renewable power faster than the investor-owned DTE, which serves Washtenaw County and southeast Michigan.
The SEU doesn’t replace DTE. Instead, it’s a secondary utility that helps residents access renewable energy for their households. The panels help residents reduce planet-warming carbon emissions, reduce the amount of electricity they buy from DTE and protect against power outages.
It’s an unusual approach for cities, which frequently develop climate action plans but rarely deploy such wide-ranging programs.
“Ann Arbor is not unique in terms of trying to reach carbon neutrality,” said Warren Leon, executive director of the Clean Energy States Alliance. “Having said that, Ann Arbor is a leader in terms of being especially ambitious and especially creative in what they’re doing and having quite wide-ranging initiatives.”
“They’re not just focusing on solar; they’re not just focusing on batteries; they’re also doing things with network geothermal. I do think they are both perceived and in actuality a national leader among municipalities.”
The average solar panel installation for an American home costs between $22,000 and $26,000, according to SolarReviews, an outlet that reports on home solar and develops cost calculators and other consumer resources. Arrays typically pay themselves off within 10 years and provide electricity for 15 years.
When arrays are installed, the power they generate is free, which reduces the amount of power residents have to buy from the grid. The panels produce more power when they aren’t shaded by trees and during summer when days are longer, sunshine is brighter and panels are never coated with snow. If they generate more energy than a household needs while the sun is shining, that energy can be stored in a battery and used when it’s dark or cloudy.
Ann Arbor residents who get panels through the SEU won’t have to pay those upfront costs, and most will save on their annual energy spending, Lenski said. Roughly a third of homeowners in the Bryant neighborhood have signed up for the program.
That’s clear from a short walk through the winding cul-de-sacs. House after house is topped with panels.
“You should have been on my street earlier today,” said Elaine Jordan, a Bryant neighborhood resident who signed up for the program, in mid-August. “Next door they were getting insulation, two doors down they’re getting a roof. It’s like the whole street is full as the neighborhood is being upgraded.”
The Bryant pilot program’s startup costs were funded by more than $8 million in grant funding from the Michigan Public Service Commission and the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity. The U.S. Department of Energy also granted Ann Arbor $10.8 million to work toward building a neighborhood-wide geothermal system, which would offset homes’ heating and cooling costs. The city will have to match those Department of Energy funds.
Grant funding paid for some additional programs in the Bryant neighborhood. In addition to solar and battery systems, people who enroll can get a home energy assessment and upgrades like insulation or a new roof.
Residents who enroll in the utility also fund the program through monthly fees of $75 in the summer and $25 in the winter. They don’t have to pay upfront costs for their renewable power systems — the city owns the panels, so it buys them and pays for installation. Residents get to use the solar power, and most are projected to get enough free renewable power to see annual savings on their DTE Energy Co. bills.
The savings can be modest and depend on each home. The average savings are projected to be about $200 per year, Lenski said.
The panels on Jensen’s home on Champagne Drive are projected to save $130 per year, between savings on DTE bills and fees paid for enrolling in the program. The panels will provide about half the home’s annual power usage, Lenski said.
“We were surprised at how economical it was,” Jensen said of the solar program. “Cost is a big barrier for most people, even if there is a payback in it.”
Solar panels and a battery do more than offset DTE bills, Lenski said. She said many of the people who have enrolled in the SEU so far are as keen on protecting against power outages as they are on saving money and reducing their personal carbon emissions.
Solar panels generate power even when the grid is down, and extra energy saved in a battery could help people keep their fridges or medical equipment powered.
“Power is not a nice-to-have luxury product. It really is a necessity,” Lenski said.
“If you think ‘I’m going to save one fridge full of food every year, or not have to go spend a night in a hotel, or refill a prescription,'” it adds to the value of the program, she said. “People will save money and have much improved quality of life from it.”
Michigan’s utilities were among the least reliable in the nation’s in 2023, according to a 2025 performance report from the Michigan Citizens Utilities Board. Outages in Michigan lasted longer than in almost every other state, a figure driven primarily by DTE and Consumers Energy outages. At the same time, the cost of power in Michigan is relatively high, the board found.
More: How DTE, Consumers customers can get $42 per day for power outages
Jensen’s power went out in early September when storms swept through southeast Michigan and cut the lights to roughly 280,000 homes. His panels were installed but not connected to the grid yet, since the process requires time for city and DTE workers to do inspections and issue approvals.
“It would have been nice to have solar and a battery backup,” Jensen said. “The outage was about a day and a half that we didn’t have any power, and we were running off generators. Luckily it wasn’t too hot outside, but it would have been nice to have power.”
The economics of renewable energy have changed drastically since Ann Arbor voters approved the SEU in 2024. That was when Democrat Joseph Biden was president, and lawmakers put significant federal funding toward tax incentives and other programs that would help replace planet-warming fossil fuels with renewable energy.
Republican President Donald Trump’s administration canceled or stalled many of those programs. The 2025 budget known as the One Big Beautiful Bill repealed the 30% residential clean energy credit after 2025, although Lenski said the SEU is still eligible for tax credits through next year.
In August, Trump levied tariffs on imports of polysilicon, a crucial component in building solar panels. China produces much of the global solar panel supply.
“There’s a lot of domestic solar manufacturing that’s happening now, but not enough to meet all of the demand,” Lenski said. “That (tariff) is expected to increase the raw costs of the equipment.
“So there are those types of headwinds, a lot of which are driven politically rather than anything fundamental with the technology.”
Those tariffs are expected to raise the price of equipment by 30%-40%, Lenski said. That will raise the price on each SEU solar array by 3%-4%, which means the utility will have to raise the rates it charges to customers by 3%-4% in response, she said.
The utility is still developing a rate structure that will be paid by residents when the SEU program rolls out city-wide next year.
The SEU’s rates are less likely to increase at the rate of DTE’s, Lenski argued, since the sun will remain free over the lifetime of the solar panels while prices of natural gas and coal will fluctuate.
She also anticipates saving money by buying equipment at scale and designing cookie-cutter solar arrays rather than custom ones for each home. The city also won’t put as much money into sales and marketing that private solar installers do, which she said should bring down the price for city residents who enroll.
While grant money helped the SEU finance its early planning and Bryant neighborhood pilot program, the utility will finance most of its work through selling bonds.
“The SEU needs to borrow money to finance these systems,” Lenski said. “They’re capital intensive up front. That’s what makes it hard for many people to access them, even though we know that over their lifetime they’re economically viable and even pay back for many folks.
“But the bond markets right now are kind of going crazy and the rate at which we’re going to be able to borrow is going to be really critical to the success here.”
ckthompson@detroitnews.com

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It is now legal to buy and use plug-in solar panels in Great Britain, but safety concerns surrounding them haven’t yet been addressed by the UK government. This is according to one of the leading engineering institutions, which says the legalisation has been rushed through without creating proper legal standards and has created an increased risk to life.
With plug-in solar panels, you simply buy a kit, place it in a sunny spot and plug it into a wall socket. There’s no installation cost, no certification and no planning permission. The devices are popular in many European countries and the UK government legalised them on 27 August to boost renewable energy generation and cut down on household bills.
Prior to this legalisation, Mark Coles, the head of technical regulations at the UK Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), told New Scientist about several potential issues. One surrounded residual current devices (RCDs), the safety devices found in fuse boxes that sense when current is leaking to ground – a sign of electrocution or a short circuit – and almost instantaneously cut power. Most RCDs used in the UK aren’t suitable for current flowing in both directions and so could malfunction if used with plug-in solar panels.
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Another of the IET’s concerns is what happens if there are multiple kits in use in an area and a power cut occurs. In theory, the plug-in kits should also shut down in order to prevent “islanding”, when one home’s power stays live. But if they are still generating power, then they could deceive each other into thinking the grid is live and keep running. The problem then is that power can jump past the fuse box and electrocute maintenance workers in the area fixing the outage. 
The IET made these concerns clear to the UK government both before and during the consultation by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) that ended on 30 June. But Coles says the issues weren’t addressed and now present a risk.
“It was a done deal before it went out, I’m sure,” says Coles. “It’s been rushed. There needed to be time to develop a proper standard for these things, because we feel under certain circumstances that there’s an increased risk to life.”
Plug-in solar is coming – how dangerous is it and is it worth it?
Coles says the risks emerge only when there’s a perfect storm of problems, but that this will inevitably lead to an injury or a death over time if plug-in solar panels are widely adopted.
Extensive scientific studies have been carried out to determine how quickly damage is done within the human body from electric shock. Based on that research, UK RCDs are required to trip and cut off current within 40 milliseconds. But there are no similar standards for plug-in solar panels, which Coles suggests could – if things go wrong, and in very limited circumstances – take longer to shut down.
“You could be exposed to the electric current for longer than you should have been,” says Coles. “You’re in the danger zone.”
The IET’s advice is to get an electrical inspection prior to committing to plug-in solar in order to minimise risk.
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A DESNZ spokesperson told New Scientist that “we have funded an independent contractor to fully test the electrical safety of plug-in solar devices on UK electrical house wiring practice, which found these products to be safe”.
The department added that it had looked at testing with older household electrical safety devices and found no evidence that their ability to provide protection was affected when used with the type of plug-in solar systems sold in Europe.
Coles agrees that tests were carried out, but says that they focused on plug-in solar kits sourced outside the UK, because none was legal here at the time, and with brand new RCDs. That has two problems: legal RCDs in the real world can be much older, and of older design, and there was no clear definition or regulation for plug-in panels that were tested, meaning that ones now for sale may act differently.
“They spent this money on getting these units tested, but these units were non-standard units,” says Coles. “So it’s not like I’m testing something that’s been made to a product standard and I’m seeing how it conforms to this product standard. So I don’t see the point of spending the money. From our point of view, it’s being rushed.”

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The selected contractor will undertake the project’s site survey, design, engineering, procurement, supply, installation, erection, construction and commissioning. The scope also requires the contractor to arrange suitable land on lease for 27 years and operate and maintain the solar plant for 10 years after commissioning.
Tender documents became available for download on September 7, 2026, at 4:45 PM IST. Bidders can submit queries in the prescribed format until September 17, while the deadline for downloading documents and submitting bids online is September 28 at 6:30 PM IST. Bids must remain valid for 180 days from the submission date.
The evaluation process is scheduled to begin shortly after the submission deadline. Preliminary evaluation will start at 6:31 PM on September 28, followed by technical bid evaluation at 6:35 PM and opening of the commercial stage at 6:37 PM. The process will assess preliminary compliance, technical qualification and commercial terms.
Gujarat Energy has set a non-refundable bidding processing fee of Rs. 5,900, including GST, and requires an Earnest Money Deposit or bid security of Rs. 6 mn. Where the deposit is submitted through a bank guarantee, the original document must be delivered to the Vice President–Materials at Gujarat Gas in Infocity, Gandhinagar.
Bidding will be conducted exclusively through the nProcure platform, and participants must hold a valid Class-III Digital Signature Certificate. Technical submissions must include Chartered Accountant certificates with UDIN, along with turnover, net worth and audited financial statements for FY24, FY25 and FY26. Performance Bank Guarantee requirements will follow the detailed tender conditions.
Gujarat Energy, operating under the Energy and Petrochemicals Department of the Government of Gujarat, has invited bids for a 10 MW AC grid-connected solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant for captive consumption in the state. The tender seeks an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractor under Tender ID 342606. The selected contractor will undertake the project’s site survey, design, engineering, procurement, supply, installation, erection, construction and commissioning. The scope also requires the contractor to arrange suitable land on lease for 27 years and operate and maintain the solar plant for 10 years after commissioning. Tender documents became available for download on September 7, 2026, at 4:45 PM IST. Bidders can submit queries in the prescribed format until September 17, while the deadline for downloading documents and submitting bids online is September 28 at 6:30 PM IST. Bids must remain valid for 180 days from the submission date. The evaluation process is scheduled to begin shortly after the submission deadline. Preliminary evaluation will start at 6:31 PM on September 28, followed by technical bid evaluation at 6:35 PM and opening of the commercial stage at 6:37 PM. The process will assess preliminary compliance, technical qualification and commercial terms. Gujarat Energy has set a non-refundable bidding processing fee of Rs. 5,900, including GST, and requires an Earnest Money Deposit or bid security of Rs. 6 mn. Where the deposit is submitted through a bank guarantee, the original document must be delivered to the Vice President–Materials at Gujarat Gas in Infocity, Gandhinagar. Bidding will be conducted exclusively through the nProcure platform, and participants must hold a valid Class-III Digital Signature Certificate. Technical submissions must include Chartered Accountant certificates with UDIN, along with turnover, net worth and audited financial statements for FY24, FY25 and FY26. Performance Bank Guarantee requirements will follow the detailed tender conditions.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has clarified that housing societies applying under its Occupation Certificate (OC) amnesty scheme must possess key approvals linked to the original construction. The requirements include a valid Intimation of Disapproval (IOD), an approved building plan and a Commencement Certificate (CC), along with a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the developer or original construction applicant. The Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) makes clear that the absence of an OC alone will not qualify a building for relief. Societies must establish that their build..
Gurugram is emerging as a potential hub for luxury senior living, supported by available land, healthcare infrastructure, connectivity and a concentration of affluent professionals, high-net-worth individuals and non-resident Indians. These factors could give the city an advantage over land-constrained metros such as Mumbai. A report by the Association of Senior Living India (ASLI) and JLL estimates that India’s organised senior living market could represent a $10.1 bn opportunity by 2030. The sector had about 25,050 organised units as of June 2026, while penetration stood at only 1.5 per ce..
Corrosion costs India an estimated Rs. 1.42 tn annually, equivalent to 4.3 per cent of gross domestic product, according to a report by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the National Research Institute. Infrastructure accounts for Rs. 142 bn of the annual burden, making it the sector with the largest absolute cost among those examined. The report, presented at the CII Annual Infrastructure Summit 2026, said the infrastructure-sector cost equals about 2.9 per cent of the sector’s gross domestic product. It estimated that effective measures could generate maximum savings of Rs. 495.8 bn..
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Renewable energy solutions provider Greenvolt Next, which is part of Greenvolt Group, has been selected by Voltclub to build a 12MW solar farm at Barryscourt in Co Cork.
Dublin-headquartered Voltclub is an Irish renewable energy developer and emerging independent power producer. Founded in 2020, it originates, funds, develops, constructs and operates renewable energy and energy storage infrastructure.
The company is building a portfolio of grid-connected projects and renewable energy networks incorporating solar, wind, battery storage and flexible generation.
The contract will see Greenvolt Next deliver almost 20,000 solar panels across the site, reaching a capacity of 12MW of solar energy.
The project broke ground at Voltclub Barryscourt, Co. Cork in the middle of August, with completed works anticipated across both sites by September 2027.
Greenvolt Next supports businesses and developers with their renewable energy transformations. It is responsible for some of Ireland’s biggest renewable energy projects, including Sanofi Waterford solar farm.
It also works with leading retailers including Lidl, Aldi and Tesco.
Greenvolt Next last year reduced customer CO2 emissions by 30,000 tonnes, with a further reduction of 150,000 tonnes of CO2 projected over the next three years as demand for renewable energy soars.
PTSB is the finance partner for Voltclub as it works with Greenvolt Next to develop Barryscourt Solar Farm.

John Carty, CCO of Greenvolt Next Ireland and UK, said that Ireland’s energy demands continue to grow at a considerable rate and Greenvolt Next is delivering projects of scale that will enable businesses and providers to meet these energy needs.
“We are seeing continued demand for EPC projects and we’re proud of the confidence developers place in our ability to deliver projects with quality, speed and safety,” he stated.
James Goldsmith, CEO of Voltclub, said the start of construction at Barryscourt is a major milestone for Voltclub.
“The project demonstrates our ability to take renewable energy developments from origination and consenting through financing and into construction. Our ambition is to build a substantial portfolio of renewable generation and energy storage assets designed around the needs of Ireland’s electricity system and its large energy users,” he said.
“Greenvolt Next brings the technical capability and delivery experience required for projects of this scale, while PTSB’s support demonstrates the important role that Irish project finance can play in accelerating investment in new renewable infrastructure,” he added.
Paddy Ryan, PTSB Regional Head of Business Banking – South & East, said the country’s transition to a lower-carbon and more efficient economy will require continued investment in renewable generation and the infrastructure supporting it.
“PTSB is committed to playing an active role in this transition by providing tailored project finance solutions to developers and investors across Ireland’s renewable energy sector,” he added.
© RTÉ 2026. RTÉ.ie is the website of Raidió Teilifís Éireann, Ireland’s National Public Service Media. RTÉ is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
Images Courtesy of Getty Images.

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Anza Power, a solar project developer, has acquired the Karioi and Ongaonga solar farms from Helios Energy Limited in New Zealand. The Karioi Solar Farm has a capacity of 110 MW (AC) and is located in the Ruapehu region. The Ongaonga Solar Farm has a capacity of 95 MW (AC) and is located in Hawke’s Bay. Both projects have received the required consents and are construction-ready, with a combined capacity of 205 MW (AC). Once operational, the projects are expected to generate approximately 411,400 MWh of electricity annually, enough to power around 58,000 New Zealand homes. The acquisition adds to Anza Power’s project pipeline, which also includes the Somerton Solar Farm in Canterbury.
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SEIA and CCSA merge to create trade body to represent ‘every segment’ of US solar  PV Tech
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Greenvolt Next, part of Greenvolt Group, has today announced it has been appointed by Voltclub to construct a 12MW solar farm at Barryscourt, Co. Cork.
Voltclub is an Irish renewable energy developer and emerging independent power producer. Founded in 2020 and headquartered in Dublin, Voltclub originates, funds, develops, constructs and operates renewable energy and energy storage infrastructure.
The company is building a portfolio of grid-connected projects and renewable energy networks incorporating solar, wind, battery storage and flexible generation. Voltclub’s projects are developed with the end user and electricity system in mind, helping to increase renewable generation, manage grid constraints and support the energy requirements of large businesses.
The contract will see Greenvolt Next deliver almost 20,000 solar panels across the site, reaching a capacity of 12MW of solar energy. The project broke ground in mid-August, with completed works anticipated by September 2027.
Greenvolt Next secured the EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) contract for this project. Working in conjunction with Voltclub, who designed the project requirements, Greenvolt Next is responsible for implementation and delivery across this large-scale project, managing every aspect of the development from construction through to completion.
PTSB is the finance partner for Voltclub as it works with Greenvolt Next for Barryscourt Solar farm.
John Carty, CCO of Greenvolt Next Ireland and UK commented, “We are delighted to work with Voltclub to deliver this 12MW solar farm development in Cork. Ireland’s energy demands continue to grow at a considerable rate and at Greenvolt Next, we are delivering projects of scale and we’re proud of the confidence developers place in our ability to deliver projects with quality, speed and safety.”
James Goldsmith, CEO of Voltclub, “The project demonstrates our ability to take renewable energy developments from origination and consenting through financing and into construction.
“Our ambition is to build a substantial portfolio of renewable generation and energy storage assets designed around the needs of Ireland’s electricity system and its large energy users. Greenvolt Next brings the technical capability and delivery experience required for projects of this scale, while PTSB’s support demonstrates the important role that Irish project finance can play in accelerating investment in new renewable infrastructure.”
Commenting, Paddy Ryan, PTSB Regional Head of Business Banking – South & East, said, “Ireland’s transition to a lower-carbon and more efficient economy will require continued investment in renewable generation and the infrastructure supporting it. PTSB is committed to playing an active role in this transition by providing tailored project finance solutions to developers and investors across Ireland’s renewable energy sector.”
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LONDON, 17 September 2026: Actis, a leading growth market investor in sustainable infrastructure, today announced the launch of Yeltica Energy, a new greenfield renewable energy platform in Mexico targeting 2GW+ of generation capacity.
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Actis is one of the largest private energy investors in Mexico, having previously owned and exited Zuma Energia, Saavi Energia and Atlas Renewable Energy in the country and currently owning 3.2GW gas platform Valia Energia. Since inception, the firm has owned 7.3GW of generation capacity in the market.
Yeltica Energy is anchored by three solar-plus-storage projects, totalling approximately 330MWp of solar PV and 255MWh of battery storage, awarded under the first Mixed Investment Tender run by Mexico’s state utility, the Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE).
The three projects benefit from contracted 25-year, US dollar-denominated and inflation-indexed cash flows thanks to PPAs with an investment-grade anchor offtaker in CFE.
Yeltica Energy will look to scale beyond its anchor portfolio towards 2GW+ of solar, wind and battery storage capacity. It intends to grow through further participation in Mexico’s public tenders and through proprietary origination with developers and offtakers.
CEO José Luis García has more than 25 years’ experience in the energy sector, having previously held the role of CEO at Zelestra LATAM, where he built and divested a 1GW+ renewables platform across Chile, Peru and Colombia, and that of CEO at former Actis business Zuma Energia, where he developed and built 800MW+ of wind and solar assets in Mexico.
As part of its Plan Mexico reforms, Mexico looks to attract investment to its power sector. Its Power Sector Development Plan (PLADESE) 2025-2039 calls for around 75GW of gross new generation capacity, approximately 80% of it from clean sources.[1] This framework will see CFE and private investors partner together to meet rising energy demand driven by industrialisation and nearshoring.
Mexico is targeting a 38% renewable electricity share by 2030, up from c.20% today, as it seeks to add 32GW of new generation capacity by this date with 22GW coming from renewables.[2]
José Luis García, Chief Executive Officer of Yeltica Energy, added: “It’s an exciting moment for Mexican energy and there’s positive momentum. I have built in this market before, alongside Actis at Zuma, and returning to that partnership was an easy decision – the firm takes a long-term view, backs the team, and is interested in construction and operations, beyond capital deployment. Yeltica Energy begins with an anchor portfolio and a strong pipeline – a great start to meet our ambitions.”
In addition to Actis’ long track record in Mexican energy, the firm is also investing in the country’s data centers through Latin American hyperscale platforms Terranova and NextStream.
ENDS
 
[1] https://dof.gob.mx/nota_detalle.php?codigo=5770297&fecha=17/10/2025#gsc.tab=0
[2] https://www.iea.org/countries/mexico/electricity; Enerdata; PVMagazine
 

The statements contained herein, including those made by Alberto Estefan and José Luis García, are as of 17 September 2026 and represent the views of Actis which is not research and should not be treated as research. Historic market trends are not reliable indicators of actual future market behaviour or future performance of any particular investment which may differ materially and should not be relied upon as such. Nothing herein constitutes a guarantee, projection or prediction. References to Yeltica Energy’s capacity targets, participation in tenders, and origination activities are forward-looking statements, based on current assumptions and should not be relied on as assurances that such outcomes will be achieved.  Past performance is not a guarantee, projection or prediction and is not indicative of future results. Case studies, figures and other selected transactions herein are presented for informational purposes only and were selected to demonstrate the type of investments that Actis will seek to make. There can be no guarantee that transactions with similar characteristics will be available to Actis. Nothing herein should be considered a recommendation of any particular portfolio company or transaction. The strategies described herein may not be suitable for all investment goals. All investments carry a risk of loss.
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Summer has just ended, and almost every electric vehicle owner has had such a thought:
The sun is so scorching that the car is baked like an oven. It would be so nice if it could be charged by solar energy.
But anyone who has used a solar water heater will immediately feel something is wrong:
This gadget barely works to heat water. Using it to power a two-ton heavy metal car to move forward probably won’t get you very far, right?
But two recent pieces of news made me realize that this matter may need further consideration.
Fuyao, the leading player in the automotive glass sector, has launched a solar sunroof on its official website, stating that it is already capable of mass production.
Around the same time, FAW also unveiled a photovoltaic canopy prototype.
It seems that vehicle-mounted photovoltaic power generation is really coming!

But there are still many questions behind this matter.
Because they are not the first group to try this.
I can say responsibly that this initiative has failed several times already.
There were a number of companies in Europe that were established specifically for this purpose, raised funds, built cars, collected deposits, and then went bankrupt collectively. The most recent case was just over a month ago, at the end of July, when a German company named Sono Motors officially ceased operations.

The biggest difficulty in this matter is probably obvious to you: with such a limited space to deploy solar panels, the generated electricity is far from enough to support normal usage.
If you lay 1.5 square meters of photovoltaic panels on the roof of a car, with a peak power of 150 watts per square meter, and expose it to 3 to 4 hours of effective strong sunlight, you will get roughly 1 kWh of electricity a day. Based on the 15 kWh per 100 km power consumption of electric vehicles, the car can barely run 7 km, which is not even enough for a trip to the grocery store.
So no matter how you think about it, Fuyao and FAW are definitely not aiming for those few extra kilometers of range. Then what are they trying to achieve?
Today we will look into this matter in depth.

First of all, European companies have invested huge resources in environmental protection technologies over the years, and they have put a lot of effort into developing solar-powered vehicles.
They have a persistent obsession to extend vehicle range purely through photovoltaic power generation.
There is a Dutch company called Lightyear, we can simply refer to it as Guangnian. Its founding team is very experienced, with members coming from the World Solar Challenge.
This event is basically held in the Australian desert, where teams compete to see whose solar car can travel the longest distance. They have won the championship for several consecutive sessions, so they believe they have the determination and ability to solve this problem.

In 1983, Quiet Achiever crossed Australia with about 8 square meters of photovoltaic panels, and solar racing cars became an important technical source for later entrepreneurial teams | Source: IEA
Their solution was very straightforward: since they needed photovoltaic panels, they specially built a car to cover as many panels as possible. They laid panels on every available surface including the roof and hood, reaching a total area of 5 square meters, effectively creating a moving photovoltaic panel.
In order to make each kWh of electricity drive the car further, they designed a drag coefficient lower than that of sports cars, even using custom-made wheel hubs with small built-in in-wheel motors, resulting in a 0-100 km/h acceleration time of 10 seconds.
The final result is that under ideal conditions, the car can run 70 kilometers after a full day of sunlight exposure, which is already at the limit level.

The roof and front hood of Lightyear are almost entirely covered with photovoltaic modules, and the whole vehicle is designed around low wind resistance and expanded light-receiving area | Source: IEA
It must be admitted that they really tried their best, at least in the photovoltaic field, but their efforts stopped there. This car was priced at 250,000 euros each, equivalent to more than 2 million RMB, and they planned, note that it was only a plan, to produce a few hundred units in mass production.
Hearing this, everyone can tell something is wrong.
The end result was that the company burned more than 100 million euros in total. In January 2023, an investor who was about to take over the company withdrew at the last minute, and several related companies went bankrupt immediately. The Dutch court later stated in the investigation documents that the cost of building this car was simply too high.
However, the companies that took the low-cost route did not survive either.
A German company called Sono developed a model named Sion, also under the banner of environmental protection. Tens of thousands of people paid a deposit starting from 500 euros to wait for the car. In February 2023, the company ran out of funds, the Sion project was terminated, 70% of the employees were laid off. The company did not give up, cut the whole vehicle business and switched to pasting photovoltaic panels on buses and trucks, and struggled for another three years before officially ceasing operations on July 31 this year.
The same story repeated itself in many European companies.

The French C-ZEN prototype car lays photovoltaic panels in zones on the roof and front hood, intuitively showing how the limited body area can be fully utilized | Source: IEA

Source: IEA
After these companies went bankrupt, the International Energy Agency conducted a review and summarized three reasons for their failure: Building complete vehicles consumes endless capital, small companies face extremely high risks in mass production, and the money paid by users is completely disproportionate to the benefits they get.
Therefore, if no major changes take place in the world, the conversion efficiency of photovoltaic panels will only improve slowly rather than jump exponentially, the sun will not suddenly become brighter, and the power consumption of vehicles will remain at a similar level, it is indeed unrealistic to expect photovoltaic power generation to completely change the situation of electric vehicles.

Mars rover, fully powered by photovoltaic
But we don’t have to give up just yet.
In the current rapidly growing new energy market, one thing has been ignored by many people.
When the car is parked, it is actually consuming power all the time. Smart electric vehicles do not shut down completely. After you park the car, turn off the engine and lock the door, it is still running programs, the cameras keep recording, the communication module stays connected to the network, and the GPS reports its position every once in a while.

Electric vehicle owners may have noticed that if the sentry mode is turned on overnight, the power level will drop by several percentage points the next morning. Worse still, for those who park their cars at the airport for a long time when going on a business trip, if they are unlucky, the small 12V battery will be completely dead when they come back, and they have to call for rescue.
Someone tested 14 car models one by one. New cars generally consume 1 to 3 kWh of power per day. For early Tesla models whose architecture cannot be completely shut down, the whole vehicle stays active along with the cameras, and can consume 7 to 8 kWh of power per day.
The data reported by FAW’s canopy prototype shows that it can generate about 400 kWh of electricity a year, which is 1.1 kWh per day on average. Based on the 1 to 2 kWh daily power consumption of sentry mode, it is definitely not enough to power the car to drive, but it is just right to support all these passive power consumption scenarios.
Moreover, with this amount of power to support these functions, many details of car usage can become more flexible. For example, if the car has been exposed to the sun for half a day and becomes an oven, you could only turn on the air conditioner to cool it down after getting in the car before. But if this 1 kWh of electricity can drive the ventilation system when the car is parked to discharge the hot air first, you won’t be hit by a wave of hot air as soon as you get in, and it can also charge the small battery at the same time. These are not big functions, but all of them can be realized with just 1 kWh of electricity.
There is no need to guess what Fuyao and FAW are thinking. All the scenarios Fuyao demonstrated include dashcam operation, GPS anti-theft, ventilation, and connected car services.
FAW named its canopy technology “passive energy replenishment”, and the core scenarios it targets are parking air conditioning, on-board refrigerators, and sentry mode.
Both companies are focusing on the same thing: the power consumed by the car when it is parked.
In fact, there is another interesting point behind this matter: China’s photovoltaic industry itself is undergoing very important changes. Although it is not enough to make your electric car never need charging, the progress in technology and materials has indeed made vehicle-mounted photovoltaic a reality from another dimension.

Source: Fuyao
Crystalline silicon cells, which are used in the vast majority of photovoltaic panels today, originate from the semiconductor industry. Silicon materials are purified in furnaces at thousands of degrees Celsius, pulled into crystal ingots, and then cut into thin slices like sausages. The resulting products have properties similar to glass: hard, brittle, and cannot be bent.
They are really cheap. The average market price of mainstream modules in the middle of this year is 0.73 yuan per watt, and a 300-watt module costs more than 200 yuan. But there is a problem when installing them on cars: they can only be laid flat on small flat surfaces.

Conventional photovoltaic panels | Source: Wikipedia
If you want to cover the entire curved car body, you need to use some special high-tech solutions. For example, Toyota tried it in 2019, using 0.03mm thick aerospace-grade thin-film cells to cover the roof, hood and tailgate, which can replenish 44.5 km of range per day under ideal conditions.
The effect is indeed good, but those cells are originally designed for satellites, and are too expensive to be used in mass-produced cars. On one hand, crystalline silicon panels are cheap but cannot be bent, on the other hand, aerospace-grade cells can be bent but are extremely expensive. Vehicle-mounted photovoltaic technology got stuck at this stage in the crystalline silicon era.
Perovskite technology, which has gradually matured in recent years, uses a completely different approach: crystalline silicon is made by cutting, while perovskite is made by printing.
It is a type of artificially synthesized crystal material, and its biggest feature is that it can be dissolved. You can mix the raw materials into “ink”, and print it layer by layer on glass or plastic film with a coating machine just like printing a newspaper, then
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Photovoltaic sector faces layoffs while energy storage sector suffers talent shortage, making it urgent to build channels for workforce transition.
Foresee Energy notes that recent reports from Energy Storage & Power Market show the total number of employees of Risen Energy has dropped from 15,228 at the end of 2023 to 5,516 at the end of 2025, with a net reduction of 9,712 people in two years, a decline of 63.78%. The number of production staff was cut from 9,290 to 2,490, and the number of technical personnel decreased from 2,059 to 974.
This is not a crisis for a single enterprise. According to statistics from Black Hawk Photovoltaic, 139 listed photovoltaic enterprises have cut a total of 220,414 employees; according to the statistical caliber of New Energy Data DataBM.com, the total number of employees of 92 enterprises has decreased by about 208,700 compared with 2023.
At the same time, the Boss Human Resources Report predicts that the talent gap in the energy storage industry will increase to 78,000 in 2026. Jobs in the photovoltaic sector are disappearing, while jobs in the energy storage sector are waiting for suitable candidates.
The direct driving force of this round of layoffs is the widespread losses across the industry. According to the sorting out by Jiemian News, in the semi-annual reports of 13 mainstream photovoltaic enterprises, the total loss in the first half of the year reached 18.473 billion yuan. LONGi Green Energy lost 3.684 billion yuan, JinkoSolar and JA Solar Technology lost 3.076 billion yuan and 2.663 billion yuan respectively. Among them, LONGi’s net cash flow from operating activities in the first half of the year was negative 5.818 billion yuan.
Capacity utilization is a hard constraint. Taking Risen Energy as an example, in the first half of 2026, the module output was 2688.19MW, the sales volume was 2984.66MW, the annual production capacity was 30GW, and the capacity utilization rate was about 17.92%. When the production line cannot maintain full load, depreciation and labor wages will only be allocated to fewer products.
Quite different from the past, the cutting edge of corporate layoffs began to move deeper in 2026. In 2024, companies mainly shut down factories with low operating rates and eliminated redundant positions, while in 2026, even R&D teams started to shrink.
It is reported that Tongwei Co., Ltd. added 97.04 million yuan of severance benefits in the first half of the year, LONGi Green Energy paid 75.06 million yuan, TCL Zhonghuan paid 58.24 million yuan, and the total of the three companies is about 215 million yuan. The remuneration of key management personnel of Tongwei Co., Ltd. dropped from 11.1083 million yuan to 6.9497 million yuan, a decrease of 37.43%.
In this round of layoffs, technical personnel are in the most awkward position. The photovoltaic industry still needs technological iteration, and technical routes such as BC, TOPCon and HJT are still in competition, but a single company can no longer afford to launch too many technical projects at the same time. Moreover, Risen Energy recognized 4.2052 million yuan of severance benefits in the first half of 2026, a decrease of about 73% compared with 15.7178 million yuan in the same period of 2025. Foresee Energy believes that the decline in severance benefits does not mean that the personnel situation is stable, but that the large-scale headcount reduction has entered the final adjustment stage.
Foresee Energy’s sorting out shows that the laid-off employees are roughly divided into three categories at present.
Production line operators are the largest group. The number of production personnel of Risen Energy decreased by 6,800 in two years. The total number of employees of 40 main photovoltaic industrial chain enterprises in 2025 was 274,600, a sharp decrease of 195,700 compared with 2023, a decline of 41.61%. Some of these production workers have transferred to other manufacturing industries, some have returned to their hometowns to engage in distributed photovoltaic installation, and others are still waiting for job arrangements.
The flow of technical personnel and functional positions is more complicated. There is still demand for technical personnel in the photovoltaic industry, but fewer and more skilled talents are needed. Non-core positions such as administration and finance are facing more direct transformation pressure.
Energy storage is the most frequently mentioned direction for job transfer. China’s new energy storage market size reached 186 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 45.2%. What the energy storage sector lacks most is not production line operation experience, but capabilities such as BMS algorithms, power electronics, and system architecture. An engineer who has worked on module production line processes for eight years is proficient in yield ramping of texturization, diffusion, coating, and screen printing. The recruitment party usually gives a vague answer about how much these experiences can be converted for the energy storage system integration position. Cell technology is not equal to cell wafer technology, and energy storage system integration requires power electronics and grid connection capabilities.
On the other hand, job transfer is not completely impossible, because the photovoltaic and energy storage sectors are highly compatible in power electronics, grid connection technologies, and communication protocols. Positions such as energy storage power station operation and maintenance on-duty staff have relatively friendly threshold. With the on-duty shift supervisor providing on-the-job training, employees with excellent performance can apply to become full on-duty staff after half a year.
Policies are promoting job transfer. The Ministry of Education has included “Intelligent Operation and Maintenance Technology for Energy Storage Materials and Equipment” in 27 newly added majors in 2026, and enrollment will start in 2027, but the talent cultivation cycle is 3 to 4 years. The gap of county-level photovoltaic development positions is also concentrated, with more than 18,000 vacancies in Shandong, Henan and Zhejiang provinces alone.
Facing losses, layoffs are the most direct cost reduction method. In addition to leading enterprises such as Tongwei and LONGi that are clearly carrying out layoffs, many small and medium-sized enterprises are also downsizing. For example, in February 2026, many media reported that a photovoltaic enterprise in Jiangsu issued a layoff notice, and the economic compensation was calculated according to the minimum monthly wage standard of 2,660 yuan in Changzhou. The average monthly salary of the laid-off employees in the 12 months before dismissal was only 2,518.33 yuan, which was lower than the local minimum wage standard.
Many other enterprises choose to lay off employees in other ways. A photovoltaic factory in Anhui notified personnel related to the wafer business to take a 5-month vacation, during which only the minimum wage is paid with no allowances. For enterprises with all employees waiting for jobs, the living subsidy for waiting for jobs is paid at 70% of the local minimum wage standard starting from the second accounting cycle. Rotating rest system, waiting for jobs with minimum wage, transferring to remote bases, canceling welfare benefits, all these measures point to the same direction – not laying off employees directly, but forcing employees to resign voluntarily.
Foresee Energy believes that this practice can save compensation costs in the short term, but in the long run, the cost is that the industry’s talent reserve is consumed. The “Renewable Energy and Employment – 2025 Annual Review” jointly released by the International Renewable Energy Agency and the International Labour Organization shows that the number of jobs in this field increased by only 2.3% in 2024 compared with 2023, reaching 16.6 million, and the growth rate slowed down significantly compared with previous years. The number of people employed in photovoltaic related industries in China exceeds 4.2 million, of which about 2 million jobs are concentrated in the manufacturing sector. The 2 million jobs at the manufacturing end will not return to the 2023 level, not because the industry is not growing, but because the automation level and unit output efficiency are systematically improving.
Each enterprise calculates its own short-term accounts, but no one calculates the overall talent account for the entire industry. 220,000 people have left the manufacturing sector, the 78,000 job gap in the energy storage sector cannot be filled, and the 18,000 county-level operation and maintenance positions cannot recruit enough people. What is missing in the middle is not demand, but transition channels.
What is more worth asking is whether it is an effective strategy for photovoltaic enterprises to resist the downward cycle through layoffs? From the perspective of a single enterprise’s financial statement, reducing labor expenditure can indeed delay cash consumption. But from the perspective of the entire industry, the large number of laid-off workers are exactly the technical workers with production line experience, and it takes 3 to 5 years to rebuild such teams. When the next round of demand picks up, enterprises will find that the production lines are still there, but the people are gone.
Under the low operating rate, compressing non-core positions and allocating resources to HJT, energy storage and key technical teams is the common choice of leading photovoltaic enterprises. The problem is that no one makes career plans for the more than 5,000 laid-off employees.
The industry’s demand for “human resources” has not disappeared, but the demand for “this type of personnel” has disappeared. The photovoltaic industry is transitioning from the labor-intensive expansion period to the technology-intensive mature period. What really needs to be answered is whether the industry can establish talent transition channels during the contraction period, instead of letting each laid-off employee bear the transformation cost alone. Who will build this channel and how to build it is more urgent than discussing when the industry will recover.
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“I’m guessing from the comments here that our old microinverters have gone bad.”
Photo Credit: iStock
After moving back into a home with rooftop solar, one homeowner found that the panels were contributing far less than expected to their power bill.
For a 15-panel system, the output suggested the setup may have been underperforming unnoticed for a long time.
The problem came to light in a Reddit thread by a homeowner who said the house and array had been built in 2012. They purchased the property in 2019, later rented it out, and only questioned the system after moving back in and seeing a utility bill that listed just 82 kilowatt-hours over 30 days.
“This is going to be a really old Enphase system. Most installers you will call have never worked on a system that old,” one commenter warned. “Back then, Enphase microinverters were very unreliable. My guess is half your microinverters have failed and therefore only half your panels are producing.”
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Users advised checking simple issues before jumping to a major repair, such as the solar-specific breaker box and whether the system was connected to the internet.
“Luckily none of the breakers for the panels are tripped,” the original poster said in a comment.
Going solar is one of the best ways to save money on home energy. You can explore EnergySage to get free solar installation estimates and compare quotes.
The homeowner said there had been little reason to dig into the system since it appeared to be working when they bought the home. The previous owners had lost access details, and renters never reported problems with their bills, so the weak production did not become obvious until the owner saw a statement.
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After reaching Enphase support, the homeowner said they discovered the system had not been reporting production since 2021.
They also identified another issue, writing, “The gateway wasn’t working, but it’s way past warranty, so I ordered an Envoy S Standard to at least start troubleshooting.”
Monitoring is the first line of defense when it comes to protecting solar savings. Without it, a failed inverter, dead gateway, or networking issue can reduce performance while the homeowner pays more to the utility than expected.
Repairs may also be more attractive than a full replacement for another reason: net metering. 
💡Go deep on the latest news and trends shaping the residential solar landscape
The OP said the system was under an old arrangement, writing, “Upgrade/expansion would then put us into the new system, which I’d prefer not if possible.”
For homeowners with old solar systems, basic diagnostics can go a long way. Restoring monitoring, inspecting the dedicated solar breaker box, making sure the gateway has power and internet access, and checking an app for warnings or dark panels are important first steps.
As commenters noted, knowing what the system is doing makes it much easier to avoid an unnecessary replacement.
For anyone shopping for solar, EnergySage’s free services can remove much of the guesswork. EnergySage’s solar map shows the average cost of a home solar panel system by state along with details on solar panel incentives in each state, helping you find the best price for rooftop solar panels and access available incentives.
Adding battery storage to a solar setup is also one of the best ways to protect your home during outages, save money on energy, and go off-grid. Homeowners can explore EnergySage for information about home battery storage options, including competitive installation estimates.
“Use the monitoring system,” one Reddit user also advised.
The OP concluded, “I’m guessing from the comments here that our old microinverters have gone bad.”
These stories show what healthy production can look like and how homeowners weigh whether a system is worth repairing or replacing. They also add context on the cost questions that tend to come up once monitoring shows an old setup is no longer delivering the savings it should.
• In Ohio, a retired engineer used negative energy bills to show neighbors what optimized solar can do.
• One trader’s rooftop setup was good enough to send him a $500 utility bill credit.
• EnergySage’s COO broke down interconnected factors behind solar pricing to help homeowners avoid replacing aging equipment.
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US solar module manufacturer SEG Solar has started commercial-scale production of heterojunction (HJT) modules at its second US manufacturing facility in Tomball, Texas.
The first HJT module has rolled off the production line at the company’s Tomball facility in the Greater Houston area, expanding SEG Solar’s advanced module manufacturing capacity in North America to 6GW.
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SEG Solar said the HJT modules offer higher bifaciality, a lower temperature coefficient and lower degradation than conventional photovoltaic technologies, which can contribute to higher lifetime energy generation.
The company said it will continue to optimise its HJT products and improve module efficiency as it expands deployment of the technology.
Jim Wood, CEO of SEG Solar, said, “Facing the new policy challenges, SEG has doubled down on American manufacturing. With Tomball online and our domestic supply chain fully traceable, we are accelerating toward our goal of becoming America’s largest crystalline silicon module manufacturer.”
In August 2026, SEG Solar inaugurated the 4GW module manufacturing facility. At the time of the inauguration, the company said the facility represented a US$200 million investment and covered more than 500,000 square feet. SEG described it as one of the largest HJT module manufacturing facilities in the US.
The plant incorporates AI-enabled inspection and advanced production scheduling systems to support quality control, product traceability and manufacturing efficiency.
The start of HJT production at the Tomball plant is the latest stage of SEG Solar’s broader US manufacturing expansion. Jim Wood, SEG Solar’s CEO, recently spoke with PV Tech Premium about building HJT lines in the US (subscription required) and the company’s overall manufacturing roadmap in the US and in Southeast Asia.
The company commissioned its first 2GW manufacturing plant in August 2024 and shipped its first utility-scale module order from its Texas manufacturing operations to Avangrid in August last year.
In June 2026, the firm has announced plans for a third US module manufacturing plant, with 4.6GW of annual nameplate capacity, which is expected to take its total operational manufacturing capacity to 10.6GW.
The 1.15 million-square-foot facility was planned for Greater Houston, Texas, with construction targeted for completion by March 2027 and commercial HJT module production scheduled to begin in May 2027.
The Texas module plant follows the company’s December 2025 announcement of a 3GW ingot and wafer facility in Indonesia, with construction slated to start in Q2 2026.
Founded in 2021 and headquartered in Houston, Texas, SEG Solar has shipped more than 7.5GW of modules globally, according to the company. At the end of 2025, SEG had 6.5GW of annual global module production capacity.
The company is also developing a domestic solar manufacturing campus that will include US-based cell production targeted to start in 2028. SEG Solar said the campus is intended to establish vertical integration across the solar manufacturing chain, from ingots and wafers through to cells and modules.
The state of the US solar supply chain will be explored in detail at our annual PV CellTech USA conference in San Francisco on 13-14 October 2026. For full agenda and booking details, click the link above.

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“Contractors are pushing equipment that’s more readily recognizable and easily approved by FPL.”
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A South Florida homeowner thought they had finally found a relatively reasonable solar deal until Reddit commenters zeroed in on how Tesla batteries could drive up the cost.
In the thread, the original poster explained that some providers had quoted “$80k and north,” making a $59,000 offer for an 18-kilowatt system seem reasonable.
In asking whether the bid was fair, the homeowner described a package that included labor and hardware, a gateway, one Tesla expansion pack, two Tesla Powerwall 3s, and 40 panels rated at 440 watts each. They would pay city permit costs separately.
The discussion centered on the battery hardware. Commenters said the figure did not appear unusual for a Tesla-based installation.
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“Half of that price is the PW3’s material cost. … The total price is actually low for Tesla hardware installed by a legitimate Tesla-certified installer,” one Reddit user wrote.
For this homeowner, though, Tesla was not a brand preference. They said utility approval and net metering with Florida Power and Light made alternatives hard to justify.
“I would, but in order for it to remotely break even in South Florida, I need to take advantage of net metering,” the homeowner replied. “Contractors are pushing equipment that’s more readily recognizable and easily approved by FPL. I’ve looked into Franklin and Anker, but one was same price point and the other does not net-meter.”
Going solar is one of the best ways to save money on home energy, but this pricing spread shows why comparison shopping is important. Homeowners considering panels can explore EnergySage to get free solar installation estimates and compare quotes.
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The higher quotes showed that equipment, storage, and configuration choices can swing pricing by tens of thousands of dollars.
Battery storage can be valuable, but it can also be expensive. In a storm-prone state such as Florida, backup power and a measure of energy independence can be especially appealing, but they can also lengthen the payback period if the system is oversize or tied to premium hardware.
After accounting for a tax credit, the homeowner estimated a break-even timeline of 10 years. 
Some commenters questioned that math, but one person argued, “You only need to save $30k to break even; you are still paying for electricity every month without solar.”
💡Go deep on the latest news and trends shaping the residential solar landscape
Multiple itemized bids can separate the cost of panels, inverters, batteries, backup equipment, labor, and permitting. Doing so makes it easier to see whether you’re paying a premium for solar generation — or for storage, branding, and utility-approval convenience.
Adding battery storage to a solar setup is one of the best ways to protect your home during outages, save money on energy, and go off-grid. You can explore EnergySage for information about home battery storage options, including competitive installation estimates.
You can also use EnergySage’s solar map, which shows the average cost of a home solar panel system by state as well as details on solar panel incentives in each state. Together, those resources can help people get the best price for rooftop solar panels and access available incentives.
Free comparison tools can be especially helpful when quotes are all over the map. With EnergySage’s help, the average person can save up to $10,000 on a solar purchase and installation. Its free services can also help shoppers compare installer credentials, equipment choices, and financing options before committing.
Brand choice, incentives, and installer benefits can change the math for homeowners weighing backup power, monthly savings, and a hefty upfront cost.
• Some Tesla homeowners earn $350 each month in grid revenue from Solar Roof systems.
• In Florida, one homeowner’s $800 power bill turned into a $300 credit.
Premium hardware can pay off in some setups, while in others the smart move is to get more quotes.
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JIEZOU POWER: A China Best Solar Plant Transformer Manufacturer with ISO 9001 and CE Certifications  EIN News
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For small-scale farmers, diesel is a recurring headache. A bill that swings with global oil prices and never really goes away. Battery power has been pitched as the fix for years, but it’s barely made a dent in the tractor market. GoSun thinks it has found a way to close that gap using an energy source most farms already have in steady supply, sunlight.
GosSn, the American company known for solar cookers, portable fridges, and off-grid water purifiers, has unveiled the Moonrider 27: a compact 4×4 electric tractor built by Moonrider in India and distributed by GoSun across North America. Rated at 27 horsepower (about 20 kW), it’s aimed squarely at everyday farm chores like mowing, tilling and hauling – the kind of work that has traditionally meant firing up a diesel engine.
The tractor’s standout feature is an optional 1,100-watt solar roof that trickle-charges the battery both while the machine is working and while it sits parked outside. The panel array doubles as a sunshade for the driver. GoSun is careful to frame this as a supplement rather than the primary charging method: when a faster top-up is needed, the Moonrider 27 can simply be plugged into a standard electrical outlet.
Ditching the combustion engine also strips out a chunk of routine maintenance: oil filters, air intakes, and exhaust systems all become unnecessary. And because there’s no exhaust to speak of, the tractor doesn’t expose animals or workers to combustion fumes.
GoSun says the Moonrider 27 will reach the market by early 2027, with reservations already open on its website. The starting price is US$19,995, a figure the company is pitching as competitive with similarly sized diesel tractors. It’s worth noting that there’s no independently verified data yet on real-world range, charging times, or how operating costs actually stack up against diesel.
“At GoSun, our vision has always been to build solutions that allow people to live, work, and thrive off the grid using the power of the sun,” said Patrick Sherwin, the company’s founder and CEO. “Small-scale farming and property management have relied on noisy, costly diesel utility vehicles for far too long. With our new All-Electric Tractor, we are empowering farmers and land managers to literally work on sunshine – reducing operational costs while protecting the soil and air. Electric tractors are a key part of the future of farming.”
The Moonrider 27 isn’t the first tractor to wear a solar roof – a handful of alternatives are already on the market. The Dutch E-Horse, built by Machinefabriek Boessenkool, is a lighter tractor for towing farm implements (plows, tillers, and similar attachments) that can add eight to twelve solar panels to its roof, claiming six to eight hours of runtime for tasks like weeding and seeding, though it costs a steep €99,500 (~US$115k).
At the other end of the spectrum, the American e2T from Renewables is a two-wheel electric tractor for small farms with a 5-kWh battery, starting around $7,500 (plus $1,900 for an optional 550-watt solar canopy). In Malawi, the Aftrak project takes a different tack entirely: a microtractor powered by solar microgrids (small, localized power networks not tied to a national grid), aimed at cooperatives and smallholders without reliable grid access, estimated at $3,500 per unit plus roughly $1,500 for solar panels.
Fully electric tractors still account for less than 1% of sales in the world’s major farming markets, but industry forecasts point to faster growth ahead. For now, the Moonrider 27 stands out on price and ambition, though the diversity of approaches on display suggests there won’t be a single winning formula. Farmers who want to ditch diesel entirely – and want their tractor’s roof to do more than throw shade – will likely choose whichever solar-electric setup fits their scale and geography.
Source: GoSun
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Canadian Solar Inc. (NASDAQ:CSIQ – Get Free Report) has received a consensus rating of “Reduce” from the fourteen research firms that are presently covering the company, Marketbeat reports. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, seven have issued a hold rating and three have assigned a buy rating to the company. The average 1 year price objective among brokers that have updated their coverage on the stock in the last year is $17.7473.
A number of equities research analysts have recently commented on the stock. Glj Research reaffirmed a “sell” rating and issued a $5.58 target price on shares of Canadian Solar in a report on Thursday, August 27th. Wall Street Zen cut Canadian Solar from a “sell” rating to a “strong sell” rating in a research report on Saturday, August 29th. Wells Fargo & Company reduced their price objective on Canadian Solar from $18.00 to $17.00 and set an “equal weight” rating for the company in a research note on Monday, August 31st. Mizuho decreased their price objective on Canadian Solar from $18.00 to $17.00 and set a “neutral” rating for the company in a research report on Friday, August 28th. Finally, Weiss Ratings downgraded Canadian Solar from a “sell (d+)” rating to a “sell (d)” rating in a research note on Thursday, August 27th.
Get Our Latest Stock Report on CSIQ

Canadian Solar Stock Performance

• MarketBeat Week in Review – 5/22 – 5/26

Shares of CSIQ stock opened at $11.34 on Thursday. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $14.38 and its two-hundred day moving average is $15.39. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.95, a quick ratio of 0.78 and a current ratio of 1.02. Canadian Solar has a 1 year low of $11.10 and a 1 year high of $34.59. The firm has a market cap of $769.99 million, a price-to-earnings ratio of -2.95 and a beta of 1.51.
Canadian Solar (NASDAQ:CSIQ – Get Free Report) last announced its earnings results on Thursday, August 27th. The solar energy provider reported ($1.40) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, missing analysts’ consensus estimates of ($0.18) by ($1.22). The firm had revenue of $1.21 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $1.17 billion. Canadian Solar had a negative net margin of 3.73% and a negative return on equity of 5.57%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was down 28.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the company earned ($0.53) earnings per share. Analysts predict that Canadian Solar will post -2.93 earnings per share for the current year.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Canadian Solar

• Solar Panel Demand Makes Canadian Solar a Buy-the-Dip Opportunity

A number of hedge funds and other institutional investors have recently bought and sold shares of the company. Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec purchased a new position in Canadian Solar during the 2nd quarter worth $2,262,141,000. Wellington Management Group LLP acquired a new stake in shares of Canadian Solar in the 2nd quarter worth $1,018,259,000. Deutsche Bank AG purchased a new stake in shares of Canadian Solar in the second quarter valued at about $722,850,000. Connor Clark & Lunn Investment Management Ltd. purchased a new stake in shares of Canadian Solar in the second quarter valued at about $676,361,000. Finally, BlackRock Inc. acquired a new position in shares of Canadian Solar during the second quarter worth about $85,219,000. 52.36% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.

Canadian Solar Company Profile

(Get Free Report)
Canadian Solar Inc NASDAQ: CSIQ is a solar technology and renewable energy company founded in 2001 by Shawn Qu and headquartered in Guelph, Ontario. The company designs and manufactures solar photovoltaic modules and provides related products, including battery energy storage systems, inverters and other equipment used in commercial, industrial and utility-scale renewable energy installations.
Through its CSI Solar business, Canadian Solar supplies solar modules and delivers integrated energy solutions, including engineering, procurement and construction services.

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A surge in clean energy has kept carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in check across India’s power sector, with no growth from the first half of 2024 to the same period in 2026.
Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) 
Anubha Aggarwal, India analyst at CREA
This is the first time in more than 50 years that there has been no growth in India’s coal power over a two-year period, even as electricity demand grew overall.
At the same time, both oil and gas consumption have fallen across the nation for two years in a row, helping alleviate the shock of the Hormuz crisis.
Nevertheless, the new six-monthly analysis for Carbon Brief shows that India’s emissions grew by 3.7% year-on-year in the first half of 2026, due to increases from steel, cement and other sectors.
Other key findings for the first half of 2026 include:
If the pace of India’s clean-energy expansion is to continue, it will need to upgrade its electricity grid, rapidly build out energy storage and boost the flexibility of coal power.
While clean-energy expansion is covering most or all of India’s power-demand growth, the fossil-fuel industry continues to pursue major capital investments.
This includes large amounts of new coal-power capacity, ambitious plans for the conversion of coal-to-chemicals and efforts to boost domestic coking coal production for the steel sector.
While CO2 output from the power sector is flat, with oil and gas in decline, India’s emissions still went up due to the contribution from industry.
India lags behind its competitors – including most large emerging economies – when it comes to electrifying its industrial sector.
Faster progress would enable clean electricity to substitute for fossil fuels in industry, as well as for power, offering the potential for India to cut its emissions overall.
Last year, India’s CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and cement grew at their slowest pace in two decades, according to previous analysis for Carbon Brief.
This sharp slowdown was due to rapid clean-energy growth and flat oil demand, combined with rising emissions from steel and cement.
The first half of 2026 marks a continuation of these trends.
Most strikingly, the ongoing surge in clean-energy generation means that emissions have flatlined in India’s power sector for two years, as shown in the figure below.
Power-sector CO2 was the same in the first half of 2026 as two years earlier, with a small decline in 2025 having been reversed over the same period this year.
Beyond electricity generation, India’s key emitting sectors continued to see divergent trends in the first half of 2026, as some saw ongoing decline while others reached new heights.
This is shown in the figure below, which compares year-on-year changes in emissions during the first half of 2026 with the same periods in 2025, 2024 and the average for 2021-23.
Specifically, emissions grew by 2.3% in the power sector, reversing last year’s decline, while demand for gas and oil products fell for another year.
The biggest increases were for steel and cement, where emissions growth accelerated to 8% year-on-year in the first half of 2026, well above the recent trend.
The period from the first half of 2024 to the first half of 2026 saw the largest increase in non-fossil power generation on record in India.
This enabled fossil-fuel consumption and CO2 emissions from the sector to stay flat, even as electricity consumption increased.
Indeed, this is the first time in more than 50 years that there has been no growth in coal power over a two-year period, even as electricity demand grew overall, as shown below.
Over this two-year period, India’s total power generation increased by 7%, some 63TWh, equal to the total consumption of Singapore or Switzerland.
The additional power requirement of 63TWh was met entirely by clean energy. Solar grew by 44TWh, alongside growth from wind (13TWh), nuclear (7TWh) and hydro (8TWh).
Together, clean-energy sources added 70TWh over two years, more than the net increase in demand.
(For comparison, China’s nuclear, wind and solar output increased by 485TWh in 2025.)
The figure below shows that new investments are more than sufficient to maintain this trend, as added power generation from new clean power capacity has stayed above average demand growth for the past 18 months.
Over the past two years, India added 77GW of new solar capacity, 11GW of wind, 5GW of hydro and 0.6GW of nuclear capacity.
Solar power continues to dominate clean-energy growth, but, collectively, the other non-fossil sources still contributed 40% of the overall increase in generation. 
One factor in electricity demand growth in 2026 is the El Niño, which delayed the monsoon and intensified heatwaves, driving up cooling demand.  
India is accelerating investment in energy storage, which will support further growth in clean power. The National Electricity Plan projected a requirement of 82 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of energy storage capacity by 2026-27 and 411GWh by 2031-32.
As of May 2026, the government has issued tenders for around 272GWh of energy storage capacity, including 142GWh of pumped hydro and 133GWh of battery storage systems. Current capacity is 7.5GWh of battery storage and around 60GWh of pumped hydro.
The fall in power generation from fossil fuels from the first half of 2024 to the same period in 2026 was concentrated in a few states.
Gujarat saw both the largest reduction in fossil-fuel generation and the largest expansion in clean power, as shown in the figure below.
After Gujarat, the largest increases in clean-power generation were seen in Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, which also saw reductions in power generation from fossil fuels.
Several other states saw declines in fossil-fuel generation due to higher net imports, rather than local clean power. These included Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Punjab. 
Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh also succeeded in increasing clean-power generation faster than power demand, thereby contributing to keeping fossil fuel-based power generation stable nationwide across the two-year period. However, they exported much of the increase and consequently saw local increases in power generation from fossil fuels.
The two states with the largest increases in power demand, Maharashtra and Telangana, managed to almost match the rise with growth in clean-power generation.
India’s oil consumption continued to fall during the first half of 2026, dropping 1.3% year-on-year, a slight acceleration from the 0.7% reduction in the same period last year.
While diesel and petrol consumption continued to grow, oil consumption was pulled down overall by declines in liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), petcoke (a solid derivative of oil used in the cement industry) and industrial feedstocks. Growth of aviation fuel use eased.
Diesel consumption growth accelerated from 1.8% to 4.1% in the first half of the year, supported by higher freight movement and increased agricultural demand, as the delayed monsoon led to greater use of diesel-powered irrigation.
Petrol consumption returned to growth, increasing 6.9% year-on-year after zero growth in the same period in 2025, reflecting sustained growth in passenger and two-wheeler mobility.

A significant increase in ethanol blending shaved a full percentage point off the growth of petrol consumption. India achieved its 20% ethanol blending target five years ahead of schedule in 2025-26. (Ethanol blending has faced public opposition.)
Electric vehicle (EV) adoption in India is also gaining momentum, with EVs adopted in a widening range of categories.
In Delhi, an EV policy was launched to accelerate electrification of the vehicle fleet, with a particular focus on two-wheelers, three-wheelers (auto rickshaws), commercial vehicles and high-mileage segments, alongside expanded charging infrastructure. Higher EV adoption rates will moderate the growth in emissions from petrol consumption in India. 
In contrast, aviation fuel demand growth slowed down from 5% to 2%. The slowdown coincided with the strait of Hormuz and wider crisis, which disrupted international aviation through temporary airspace closures and flight cancellations to several Middle Eastern destinations. Elevated aviation fuel prices also increased airline operating costs, contributing to lower fuel demand. 
LPG consumption contracted by 7%, after 5.7% growth in the same period last year, amid disruptions in global LPG markets following the Hormuz crisis.
Petcoke consumption fell 9.9%, more than reversing a 9.3% increase in the same period last year. Rising petcoke prices encouraged cement manufacturers to switch to coal.
Consumption of other petroleum products continued to drop, although the pace of decline moderated from 14% in 2025 to 9% in 2026. 
Industrial feedstock use was affected by shortages and price increases.
Naphtha demand contracted as import prices nearly doubled and domestic prices increased by around 60%, prompting petrochemical manufacturers to reduce operating rates and suppress demand for imported naphtha.
Bitumen consumption remained subdued due to slower road construction, driven by persistent land acquisition challenges and higher bitumen costs.
Meanwhile, higher light diesel oil (LDO) prices and shortage of LPG led some industrial consumers to switch back to furnace oil in boilers and heaters, despite the higher air pollutant emissions. Supply of fuel oil to industry increased for the same reason.
Steel and cement output in India grew by 8% and 9%, respectively, year-on-year in the first half of 2026, despite rising input prices and weakening profitability.
The growth in steel and cement was supported in part by increased investment in India’s real estate sector, especially in the second quarter. Steel consumption growth outpaced production, implying that inventories built up last year were tapped.
Despite domestic demand growth, profit margins of Indian steel and cement manufacturers remained under pressure for much of the period due to elevated raw material costs – particularly imported coking coal – and higher freight costs stemming from the Hormuz crisis.  
The pressure on prices could dampen growth. Cement prices are expected to rise to levels last seen in the 2021-22 financial year, when Russia’s decision to cut back gas exports to Europe drove a sharp increase in fossil-fuel prices.
Outside the steel, cement and power sectors, coal-consumption growth accelerated to 14% in the first half of 2026, up from 3% last year, as the LPG shortage prompted a shift to coal.
Gas shortages resulted in some additional burning of coal for cooking in March and April. The government officially authorised the hospitality industry to use coal, refuse-derived fuel pellets, biomass and kerosene for one month.
The ceramic and tile industry also requested that the government allow the use of coal gasifiers amid the gas shortage. State governments including Delhi NCR, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Maharashtra also allowed industries to temporarily use alternative fuels, including coal. 
India’s industrial energy use is dominated by fossil fuels, particularly coal. Indian industry has the second-lowest electrification rate in the G20, as shown in the figure below. The share of electricity in total energy consumption in the sector also lags the world average, in terms of both current levels and the rate of increase.
The current low rates of electricity use in Indian industry imply that there is major potential for electrification, using technologies and processes already in place in other countries.
While the clean-power expansion is starting to meet most or all of India’s electricity demand growth, there are still large investment plans across the coal supply chain.
Some 43GW of coal-power capacity was under construction at the end of June. Additional coal-power capacity is seen as necessary to meet increasing peak loads, even as solar power and energy storage are already playing a role in covering daytime and evening peak demand, respectively. The expansion of energy storage will increase this contribution.
Outside the power sector, India has major ambitions to produce chemical-industry products, such as fertiliser and plastic feedstock, from coal through coal gasification, in pursuit of energy security.
The government is targeting a capacity to process 100m tonnes of coal per year in the next four years, despite the technology for coal gasification still being nascent in India. At present, the only operational use of coal gasification is at Jindal Steel Limited, which is reportedly using syngas in its steel-making process. 
Meanwhile, India plans to reduce its average CO2 emissions per tonne of steel by 25% by 2025-26, mainly by reducing the share of coal-based steelmaking.
At the same time, the government is aiming to increase the use of domestic coking coal, which it notified in January this year as a “critical and strategic mineral”. Coal miners and steel companies are reportedly planning to establish additional washeries for coking coal to make it suitable for blending with imported coal for use in steel production. 
India is also looking to invest in new coal mines in the near future. 
These continued investments in coal gasification, domestic coking coal and new coal mining capacity could lock in coal use across industry for several decades.  
Over the two-year period from the first half of 2024 to the same period in 2026, India has achieved its largest clean-energy expansion on record.
As a result, power-demand growth has been met entirely by clean electricity and CO2 emissions in the sector have flatlined.
This expansion of clean energy also allowed a reduction in fossil-fuel imports for power generation, with the use of imported coal falling 38% and the use of gas by 35%, supporting the energy security aims of the government and reducing exposure to the Hormuz shock.
In order to keep the clean-energy growth going, India would need to overcome multiple obstacles, including expansion of the electricity transmission network, improvements in grid flexibility to accommodate variable renewables and the timely completion of new projects. 
For example, renewable power projects totalling 5.3GW missed completion deadlines and are having to pay penalties to the grid operator in order to retain network access.
Curtailment has emerged as an issue, particularly for projects relying on interstate power transmission, pointing to the need to upgrade the network. (Curtailment refers to electricity generation that is “wasted” because it cannot be accommodated by the power network.)
Another obstacle to be overcome if clean energy is to keep growing will be making coal-power plants more flexible, so they can ramp down during high renewable output.
A flexibility plan for coal-power plants has been delayed by more than a year due to persistent regulatory bottlenecks, contributing to the curtailment of renewable energy. 
Expanding energy storage has the potential to ease grid and flexibility constraints, while reducing or eliminating the need for adding thermal-power capacity to meet peak loads.
The Central Electricity Authority has proposed that, after June 2027, all new government-owned solar and wind projects would have “mandatory” two-hour battery storage. (This mirrors a policy that was in place in China until early 2025 and was subsequently scrapped, in favour of more market-based approaches.)
For oil and gas, India’s consumption has been flatlining for the past two years, after half a century of continuous growth that was only briefly interrupted by Covid-19.
This has reduced the impacts of the Hormuz crisis on the country’s trade balance, helping close the gap between supply and consumption. But it has entailed disruptive shifts in many oil-dependent sectors.
For example, high prices and fuel shortages due to the Hormuz crisis led state governments to reverse their orders banning the use of dirtier fuels such as fuel oil, kerosene and coal in industries and commercial establishments.
Meanwhile, EV adoption has also begun to influence oil consumption. 
Despite the progress in the power sector and reductions in oil consumption, India’s total emissions went up over the past two years due to a major increase in industrial emissions.
Low levels of electricity use in industry mean that growing industrial output results in increasing direct fossil-fuel use and emissions.
Unless the rate of industrial electrification picks up, increases in heavy industry output will continue to translate into increases in fossil-fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.
This analysis is based on official monthly data for fuel consumption, industrial production and power generation from different ministries and government institutes. 
Coal-power emissions are estimated by combining plant-level coal consumption from the Central Electricity Authority’s (CEA) monthly coal reports with data on the calorific value and emission factors of coal used at different power plants from the CEA’s CO2 baseline database.
For each station and month, total coal consumption is split into domestic and imported coal using the imported share of coal receipts over a trailing two-month window, found to best reproduce the actual split in data available for 2023.
Consumption is converted to CO2 using each plant’s station-specific gross calorific value from the CEA database and IPCC emission factors for domestic coal, imported coal and lignite. The national-average calorific value is used for recently added plants, for which data is not available in the baseline database. 
Coal use at steel and cement plants, as well as process emissions from cement production, are estimated using production indices from the index of eight core industries released monthly by the Office of Economic Adviser, assuming that changes in total fossil-fuel use follow production volumes. These production indices were used to scale fuel use by the sectors in 2022.
To form a basis for using the indices, monthly coal-consumption data for 2022 was constructed for the sectors by combining the annual total coal and petcoke consumption reported in IEA World Energy Balances with monthly production data. This work was set out in a paper by Robbie Andrew, a researcher at Norwegian research institute CICERO, on monthly CO2 emission accounting for India. Monthly petcoke consumption was available from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell, while coal consumption by the cement industry was calculated by subtracting petcoke use from total fossil-fuel use.
Annual cement-process emissions up to 2025 were also taken from Andrew’s work and scaled using the production indices. This approach better approximated changes in energy use and emissions reported in the IEA World Energy Balances, than did the amounts of coal reported to have been dispatched to the sectors, showing that production volumes are the dominant driver of short-term changes in emissions.
For other sectors – including aluminium, auto, chemical and petrochemical, paper and plywood, pharmaceutical, graphite electrode, sugar, textile, mining, traders and others – coal consumption is estimated based on data on despatch of domestic and imported coal to end users from statistical reports and monthly reports by the Ministry of Coal, as consumption data is not available.
Coal consumption by “captive” coal-power plants – those supplying power to industrial sites, not to the public electricity network – was calculated based on capacity changes from Global Energy Monitor, assuming constant utilisation, as utilisation has been very stable year-to-year, as calculated from Central Electricity Authority data.
The difference between coal consumption and dispatch is stock changes, which are estimated by assuming that the changes in the amount of coal stored at end-user facilities mirror those at coal mines, with end-user inventories excluding power, steel and cement assumed to be 70% of those at coal mines, based on comparisons between our data and the IEA World Energy Balances.
Stock changes at mines are estimated as the difference between production at and dispatch from coal mines, as reported by the Ministry of Coal.
Coal consumption is estimated in two ways for sectors beyond power, steel and cement. Consumption of domestic coal in these other sectors is taken from the monthly reports by the Ministry of Coal. Their consumption of imported coal is estimated from the total imports of thermal coal reported by consultancy Kpler, by subtracting demand for imports at coal-power plants. The basis for this assumption is that steel and cement industries use little imported thermal coal, according to Ministry of Coal data.
Product-by-product consumption data for petroleum products, as well as gas use by sector, is from the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
As the fuel dispatch and consumption data is reported as physical volumes – such as tonnes or litres – calorific values are taken from IEA’s World Energy Balance and CO2 emission factors from 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories.
The emissions factor for motor oil or petrol was updated, based on the blending percentage of ethanol each year. The ethanol-blending percentage is as reported by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. 
Calorific values are assigned separately to different fuel types, including domestic and imported coal, anthracite and coke, as well as to petrol, diesel and several other oil products.
Published under a CC license. You are welcome to reproduce unadapted material in full for non-commercial use, credited ‘Carbon Brief’ with a link to the article. Please contact us for commercial use.
Published by Carbon Brief Ltd © 2026 – Company No. 07222041
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Renewables: projects worth €85 million funded in Sardinia  Il Sole 24 ORE
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Vault City targets energy self-sufficiency after major investment in solar generation  British Guild of Beer Writers
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A village that famously came together to save its pub is now exploring whether it could create what may be Suffolk’s smallest solar farm.
Westhall, near Halesworth, is at the centre of ambitious plans for a community-owned renewable energy project, with villagers set to meet later this month to discuss whether solar panels or even a wind turbine could generate electricity for local homes.
The idea has been put forward by Kim and Nick Hoare, who were also involved in the campaign to save The Racehorse pub.
A flashback photo of The Racehorse Community Pub that was purchased by villagers (Image: Newsquest)
The village secured a £96,000 government grant in 2021 to help purchase the pub, which is now community-owned and has become a thriving local hub.
The latest proposal is being developed with support from Halesworth Area Sustainability Hub and could particularly benefit locals in a village where more than half of households rely on oil or LPG for heating because there is no mains gas supply.
Mrs Hoare said: “What would be more exciting would be an energy project owned by the community itself which could be wind turbines or solar panels and which could generate electricity for the people of the village, entirely for the benefit of the community.
The idea has been put forward by Kim and Nick Hoare, who were also involved in the campaign to save The Racehorse pub. (Image: Supplied)
“They’d get a discount and a say over what the people of Westhall wanted, where they wanted it and what benefits they would like to see from it.”
Profits generated by the scheme could also fund wider community benefits, including electric vehicle initiatives and charging points.
The Racehorse Community Pub in Westhall had been purchased by the Race for the Racehorse campaign (Image: Newsquest)
Although five wind turbines built on nearby land owned by a Bernard Matthews poultry plant proved controversial with some locals, Mrs Hoare believes a community-owned alternative would be viewed differently.
“We all know green energy is the direction of travel, and it’s so much better to have ownership and control of it rather than have it imposed on you,” she said.
A workshop to discuss the proposals will be held at Westhall Village Hall on September 26.
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Firm taps solar for Cebu cold hub  SunStar Publishing Inc.
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LONGi and leading Romanian developer and EPC contractor Enexus have signed a landmark agreement for 50 MWh of liquid-cooled BESS to be deployed in Titu, Dâmbovița County.
Building on more than 200 MW of LONGi solar modules deployed across the company’s projects since 2025, the agreement marks Enexus’s first deployment of LONGi’s advanced BESS technology. It represents one of LONGi’s largest BESS orders in Romania to date and one of its most significant deployments in Europe, further strengthening the two companies’ relationship as they expand from a solar-module supply partnership into a broader utility-scale technology collaboration.
Romania is entering a decisive phase in its energy transition, with its updated National Energy and Climate Plan targeting approximately 5.8 GW of ground-mounted solar capacity and at least 2.5 GW of rooftop solar capacity by 2030. As renewable generation expands, utility-scale storage will be essential to manage solar variability, reduce curtailment and maintain grid stability.
By combining PV generation with Battery Energy Storage Systems, projects can shift surplus daytime electricity to periods of higher demand, improve the predictability of renewable output and provide fast-response balancing and ancillary grid services.
The hybrid infrastructure directly supports these needs by combining renewable generation with flexible storage capacity for a more reliable and grid-responsive Romanian power system. The deployment comprises two distinct PV-plus-storage projects in Dâmbovița County, designed to support energy shifting, capacity firming and broader grid-support functions:

Speaking on LONGi’s integrated solar-plus-storage vision, Dennis She, LONGi VP and President of LONGi Energy Storage, emphasized: “The next phase of the global energy transition demands a total departure from fragmented, multi-vendor systems. Energy storage is no longer just an add-on; it is an essential stabilizer of the modern power network. Historically, developers were forced to piece together PV panels, batteries, and conversion units from disparate suppliers, creating integration bottlenecks and blurred accountability. By combining our generation technology with fully integrated BESS architectures, we offer one coordinated, grid-ready ecosystem. Our milestone project with Enexus in Titu demonstrates how turnkey solar-plus-storage solutions maximize plant economics, streamline execution, and deliver true grid resilience.”
The two Titu projects demonstrate the benefits of combining high-efficiency solar generation with utility-scale storage within an integrated equipment ecosystem. The 50 MWh deployment comprises 10 units of LONGi’s liquid-cooled utility-scale BESS solution, paired with integrated medium-voltage (MV) skid systems.
The PV-plus-storage systems are designed to support energy shifting, capacity firming, and other grid-support services while simplifying system integration and operations. Uniform cell-temperature liquid cooling is designed to help extend system operating life, while pre-assembled, factory-integrated MV skid containers can reduce balance-of-plant (BOP) costs, accelerate field commissioning, and support rapid response.
Detailing the strategic choice behind the technology selection, Mesut Güler, Enexus Founder and CEO, commented: “Our partnership with LONGi reflects a strategic choice as much as a technical one. Integrated equipment means easier planning, faster delivery, and more predictable payment structures for our investors, while giving our clients access to Tier 1 PV technology. Integrating BESS in PV project design is a strategic direction we outlined since last year, and we are living up to this commitment – with LONGi entrusting us with one of its largest BESS projects in Romania so far. For us it is a clear signal of the trust and technical alignment behind this partnership.”
Reinforcing the regional significance of the transaction, LONGi Europe President Leon Zhang added: “Enexus has been a key partner for LONGi in South-Eastern Europe, having successfully deployed 200 MW of our high-efficiency PV modules. Expanding our collaboration into utility-scale energy storage with this 50 MWh deal in Titu demonstrates the immense value of a unified hardware and software ecosystem. By pairing our PV modules with our energy storage solutions, we are delivering a turnkey, grid-ready solution that maximizes yield, supports local grid stability and accelerates Romania’s transition to a decarbonized power system.”

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Search across reports, market insights, and blog stories.
The world possesses what a solar economy professor describes as unlimited potential for renewable electricity, and the key to unlocking it lies in profitability, according to pv magazine. Christian Breyer, a professor for Solar Economy at Finland’s LUT University, argued that positive business cases are what is needed to drive progress, invoking a 1990s campaign slogan associated with former US president Bill Clinton to illustrate the point.
Breyer’s position centers on the idea that renewable electricity generation faces no fundamental resource constraint, and that the decisive factor for deployment is the existence of favorable commercial conditions. The reference to a political campaign phrase from the 1990s served as a rhetorical device to emphasize that economic incentives, rather than technical limits, govern the pace of adoption.
The remarks come amid a broader calendar of industry activity. A conference is scheduled for Thursday, October 1, 2026, running from 14:30 to 15:30 CEST in Rome. A separate event is set for Tuesday, September 22, 2026, from 11:00 to 12:00 CEST, also in Rome. Another session is planned for Monday, October 26, 2026, from 10:30 am to 11:30 am CEST, with participation across Berlin, Paris, and Madrid.
Additional industry gatherings include a two-day conference in Austin, Texas, that brings together leaders in US solar manufacturing, equipment specification, and factory execution. In Saudi Arabia, the SunRise Arabia Clean Energy Conference 2026 in Riyadh is positioned to explore how solar PV and energy storage are powering the kingdom’s digital economy as the country accelerates its clean energy transition. Meanwhile, pv magazine USA hosts a multi-day virtual event covering US solar and energy storage, with topics spanning domestic manufacturing, distributed energy, and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting power demand.
The current issue of pv magazine Global is available in print and digital formats.
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University of Groningen
image: 

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The visual abstract of the paper in ACS Energy Letters, showing how two synergetic effects create a delay in the loss of energy from hot electrons:
1) The Hot Phonon Bottleneck
2) Band-filling, resulting in the Burnstein-Moss effect
 
Credit: ACS Energy Letters
Physics predicts that no more than 33 percent of the solar energy that falls on a solar panel can be converted into electricity. However, experiments and simulations by scientists at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) revealed a way to harvest extra energy from ‘hot electrons’, which could break this barrier.
When light falls on a solar panel, the energy of the photons brings electrons in the solar cell material into an excited state, thus transferring the energy to them. This reaction can free an electron from the solar cell material and create a voltage.
However, very energetic photons give the electrons extra energy, producing ‘hot electrons’. In theory, the extra energy these hot electrons carry could increase the voltage. In practice, the extra energy is lost as heat in a matter of picoseconds (0,000000000001 second). ‘This means that the energy is lost before the hot electron exits the solar cell material’, says Jan Anton Koster, Professor of Physics of Novel Semiconductors and Devices at the University of Groningen.
However, in an experimental setup, his colleague Maria Antonietta Loi, professor of Photophysics and Optoelectronics, managed to produce a delay in heat loss by hot electrons. She created a solar cell material called tin-based perovskite, and observed that the loss of extra energy is slowed down to nanoseconds, roughly a factor of 1,000. ‘The measurements were clear, but we didn’t understand the physics behind this’, says Koster. This led others in the field to question this claim. ‘We even started to doubt the measurements ourselves’, he admits.
In order to solve this conundrum, Koster and his PhD student Tim Faber used simulations to study the physics of this energy loss. They found that in perovskite solar cells, two different mechanisms combine to extend the time it takes hot electrons to lose the extra energy.
When energy is lost as heat, the environment surrounding the electrons will become warmer. Koster and Faber realised that this lingering heat can be reabsorbed by the electrons. ‘When we added this well-known process called Hot Phonon Bottleneck to the simulations, it slowed the loss of energy, but not enough to explain our measurements.’ This required adding a second mechanism to the simulation.
The extra energy of hot electrons can bring them into a number of excited states. Energy loss means that the excited state is reduced to a lower energy level in discrete steps. However, when the different steps in this process are already occupied, the way down to the lowest energy level is more difficult and takes more time. This is called the Burstein-Moss effect. Koster: ‘When we added this process to the simulation as well, we saw that energy loss was now in the nanosecond range, as seen in the experiments by Maria Loi.’
As both of these processes are present in tin-based perovskite solar cells, Koster and his team finally understood why the energy loss of hot electrons was slowed down. There are many other questions that still need answers, but in theory, this discovery could allow the creation of more efficient solar cells, beyond the theoretical limit of 33 percent.
Reference: Tim Faber et al.: The Physics of Ultra-Long Cooling Times in Metal Halide Perovskites. ACS Energy Letters, 11 September 2026.
ACS Energy Letters
10.1021/acsenergylett.6c00547
Experimental study
Not applicable
The Physics of Ultra-Long Cooling Times in Metal Halide Perovskites
17-Aug-2026
None
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
Media Contact
Rene Fransen
University of Groningen
r.fransen@rug.nl
Office: 50 3636951
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University of Groningen


Copyright © 2026 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Copyright © 2026 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

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D3Energy’s 6-megawatt system would have needed 30 acres of Huron County farmland. It floats on 12 acres of water instead.
MONROEVILLE, Ohio, Sept. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — D3Energy has energized a 6-megawatt floating solar array on the Village of Monroeville’s reservoir. It is the largest floating solar system in Ohio and among the five largest in the United States. The array spans 9,222 modules across three floating islands and feeds the village’s distribution grid.

Roughly a third of Ohio’s 88 counties have restricted utility-scale solar since a 2021 state law gave them that authority, and townships keep voting on it. Monroeville took a different approach. Its array floats on 12 acres of water the village already owned.
“Solar needs space, and in farm country there’s no such thing as spare ground,” said Stetson Tchividjian, Managing Director of D3Energy. “Monroeville had water sitting right there doing one job. Now it does two.”
The floating array is Monroeville’s second solar project. The village’s 4-megawatt ground-mounted array has been running since 2017. Between the two, the village of 1,300 has roughly 13 times as much solar per resident as the rest of Ohio, one of the highest concentrations per capita in the state.
Monroeville is D3Energy’s third Ohio project. It follows the Del-Co Water array in Delaware, Ohio, and the City of Lima’s array on Twin Lakes Reservoir, which was completed earlier this year. Together they give Ohio almost 10 megawatts of operating floating solar, all of it on water the host utilities already owned. That is more than any other state in the Midwest. D3Energy built the array with Gardner Capital, which owns the system and sells its output to the village, and Ohio-based contractor Appalachian Renewable Power.
“None of this happens without Monroeville’s forward-thinking leadership,” Tchividjian said. “Tom Gray, the recently retired village administrator, drove this project from the first conversation to the day it energized. This one is his.”
About D3Energy
D3Energy is the nationwide leader in floating photovoltaic (FPV) solar, having built more than half of all FPV systems operating in the United States. Working exclusively in FPV, it partners with utilities, municipalities, and private enterprises to bring solar online without consuming land. Visit www.d3energy.com.
Media inquiries: [email protected]. Aerial and drone imagery available on request.
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D3Energy, the U.S. leader in floating solar, today unveiled its exclusive statewide master lease with the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT)….
Nova Southeastern University (NSU) has become the first university in the nation to host a commercial floating solar photovoltaic (FPV) system. The…
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MISSOULA, Mont. — A new solar project is now up and running in Whitefish.
Flathead Electric Cooperative is inviting members of the media to a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday morning for Community Solar III.
The project expands access to local solar energy and includes battery storage technology designed to help manage peak electricity demand.
The ceremony is set for 10 a.m. Wednesday at 350 Monegan Road, next to the Whitefish Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Media members can tour the site and capture photos and video.

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A Sungkyunkwan University research team has analyzed how electricity is generated in organic solar cells and proposed design guidelines for more efficient materials. The study was led by chemistry professors Kim Tae-yeon and Ko Doo-hyun. It focused on non-fullerene acceptors and used ultrafast spectroscopy to examine femtosecond-scale charge-generation processes. The findings were published in ACS Nano.
From left are Kim Tae-yeon and Ko Doo-hyun, chemistry professors at Sungkyunkwan University, and researchers Ji Seung-hyun and Lee Chi-hyung. Courtesy of Sungkyunkwan University
A Sungkyunkwan University research team has analyzed an ultrafast process through which electricity is generated in organic solar cells, offering design guidelines for developing more efficient materials.
The university said Monday that the team, led by chemistry professors Kim Tae-yeon and Ko Doo-hyun, conducted the analysis, providing insights for the development of higher-performance solar cell materials.
Organic solar cells are a next-generation clean energy technology prized for their flexibility and transparency.
The silicon solar panels commonly seen on rooftops are heavy and rigid. Organic solar cells, by contrast, use lightweight, thin films that can be bent and shaped, making them a promising technology that could be integrated into windows or even clothing.
More recently, non-fullerene acceptors have emerged as a new class of materials that can significantly improve the efficiency of converting sunlight into electricity.
However, exactly how electricity is generated in these materials at the moment they absorb sunlight has remained uncertain.
To unravel this mystery, the research team systematically analyzed these materials by combining various ultrafast spectroscopy techniques that can observe changes in matter on the femtosecond scale — an extraordinarily brief period equal to one quadrillionth of a second.
Ultrafast spectroscopy is like using an extraordinarily fast camera to capture a sequence of images in rapid succession, allowing scientists to track otherwise invisible movements of tiny particles.
Schematic illustration of charge dynamics in non-fullerene acceptor-based organic photovoltaics and the corresponding ultrafast spectroscopic techniques used to probe these processes. / Courtesy of Sungkyunkwan University
The team carefully compared the strengths and limitations of different measurement techniques and standardized complex technical terms that scientists around the world had been using in different ways.
It also identified why experimental results had differed across previous studies, finding that the discrepancies stemmed from factors such as the wavelengths of light used in different laboratories and the conditions under which the films were fabricated.
Furthermore, the team systematically reviewed existing findings on how molecular structure and nanoscale organization affect charge generation and loss processes. Based on these findings, it proposed design guidelines for high-efficiency organic solar cell materials.
The findings were published in ACS Nano, a leading international journal in nanoscience and materials science, under the title “Carrier Dynamics in Nonfullerene Acceptor Organic Photovoltaics through Ultrafast Spectroscopy.”
Researchers Ji Seung-hyun and Lee Chi-hyung were the paper’s first authors, while professors Kim and Ko served as corresponding authors.
“This paper provides a clear and consistent framework for understanding the complex phenomena that occur in the blink of an eye, offering important guidance for developing higher-performance organic solar cells,” Kim said.
He added, “We hope that the lightweight and flexible nature of organic solar cells will enable their use in a wider range of applications, including wearable power sources and building-integrated photovoltaics.”

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India’s rooftop solar market could reach 132 GW by 2030: ISMA
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New Delhi: India’s rooftop solar market could expand to 132 gigawatts (GW) by 2030 from the current installed capacity of 17 GW, with annual installations estimated at 9-15 GW during the period, according to the Indian Solar Manufacturers Association (ISMA), ANI reported.
The association said nearly 115 GW of untapped potential remains in the residential rooftop segment. This potential could create significant demand for domestically manufactured solar cells, modules, inverters and other balance-of-system components.
ISMA’s projections take into account national residential electricity consumption patterns, household housing characteristics and tariff structures offered by distribution utilities. According to the association, the residential rooftop segment has entered a sustained growth phase and is positioned for significant expansion between 2026 and 2030.
An annual installation rate of 9-15 GW could provide a sizeable market opportunity for Indian component manufacturers while supporting efforts to reduce dependence on overseas supply chains.
The report also highlighted the role of the Centre’s PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana in improving the affordability of rooftop solar systems. According to ISMA, the scheme has helped extend adoption to regions where installations were previously driven largely by natural economic viability.
The broader reach of the scheme has expanded the consumer base and supported the development of local supply chains, the association said.
ISMA Secretary General Amit Manohar said central government interventions had influenced the development of residential rooftop solar markets across different regions.
“PM Surya Ghar has played an important role in expanding residential rooftop solar adoption, particularly in markets where project economics remain challenging,” Manohar said.
He also stressed the need for greater clarity on the policy framework as the current programme approaches its scheduled end in March 2027.
“As the current programme approaches March 2027, providing early clarity on its next phase, including consideration of PM Surya Ghar 2.0, preferably by December 2026, would help maintain market continuity and provide greater visibility to consumers and industry stakeholders,” he said.
ISMA said continued policy support beyond March 2027 would be important to sustain the deployment momentum in rooftop solar, according to ANI.
The association noted that long-term policy visibility is also necessary for manufacturers to make capital investments, expand production capacity and establish local supply chains across the domestic solar manufacturing ecosystem.
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Solar Street Light Manufacturer: TX Solar’s Custom Lighting Solutions for Roads, Highways and Urban Areas  EIN News
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UAE state-run renewables developer Masdar has signed an agreement with renewables developer Azerbaijan Green Energy Company (AGEC) to explore the development of new renewable energy projects in Azerbaijan.
Under the collaboration agreement, the companies aim to expand Masdar’s 230MW Garadagh Solar PV project – which began operations in 2023 – by at least 350MW, while adding up to 200MWh of battery energy storage system (BESS).
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The two companies will also explore the development of a 100MW round-the-clock (RTC) renewable energy project in the country. According to Masdar, the project would build on its work in Abu Dhabi, where it is developing a 5.2GW/19GWh RTC solar-plus-storage project that represents a total capital investment of US$6.1 billion.
“We believe that the development of renewable energy is not only an investment opportunity, but also an important contribution to the country’s economic resilience, energy security and future generations. We see significant potential for collaboration with leading global energy companies,” said Jamal Pashayev, CEO at AGEC.
Concurrently, Masdar also reached financial close on the 315MW Neftchala Solar PV project it is developing with SOCAR Green, a subsidiary of Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR. Financing for this project has been secured with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
In addition to the Neftchala solar PV project, Masdar is also developing another solar PV project with SOCAR Green, the 445MW Bilasuvar solar project, which also received financing from the AIIB, EBRD and ADB in 2024.
Moreover, the UAE state-run developer secured last year a 1GW module supply agreement with Chinese PV manufacturer JA for the Bilasuvar and Banka solar projects in the country.
Masdar has been one of the leading developers in Azerbaijan to build utility-scale solar projects in the country and has been present since the beginning of the decade.
Back in 2022, the company signed an agreement with the country’s Ministry of Energy to develop up to 10GW of renewables in Azerbaijan in two phases.

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ANN ARBOR — Like others living in Ann Arbor’s Bryant neighborhood, Todd Jensen has heard plenty of pitches from solar salesmen.
Their quotes came in as low as $30,000 and as high as $70,000 for an array that would power his home, garage, electric vehicle charger and hot tub.
“We see the solar people come along, and it’s like, ‘I don’t even want to talk to them, because I know I can’t afford it,'” Jensen said.
More: Michigan lawmakers could lower power prices, energy regulators argue
He thought twice when he noticed solar arrays going up around the neighborhood. A few weeks later, solar panels sat on the roof of Jensen’s home and the two he and his wife rent to tenants.
Jensen and his neighbors were among the first Ann Arbor residents to enroll in the city’s Sustainable Energy Utility, an ambitious and unusual program launched by the city in 2024 to offer people a way to access renewable power without the upfront cost. The city’s utility pays for the upfront costs of buying and installing the equipment. Residents pay a monthly fee and get to use the free power to offset their DTE Energy Co. bills.
The utility kicked off its services this year with a pilot project in the Bryant neighborhood, widely known as one of Ann Arbor’s few affordable areas.
“The model of utility that the Ann Arbor Sustainable Energy Utility … has not been tried anywhere else,” said Shoshannah Lenski, SEU executive director. “We’re the first of its type in the nation. So we’re figuring this out as we go, which is part of why we’re doing a pilot here in this neighborhood. We’re learning from it, and in 2027, we’ll be expanding city-wide.”
The idea to start a new power provider was born out of the city’s goal to eliminate Ann Arbor’s carbon emissions by 2030. To do it, the city needed to deploy renewable power faster than the investor-owned DTE, which serves Washtenaw County and southeast Michigan.
The SEU doesn’t replace DTE. Instead, it’s a secondary utility that helps residents access renewable energy for their households. The panels help residents reduce planet-warming carbon emissions, reduce the amount of electricity they buy from DTE and protect against power outages.
It’s an unusual approach for cities, which frequently develop climate action plans but rarely deploy such wide-ranging programs.
“Ann Arbor is not unique in terms of trying to reach carbon neutrality,” said Warren Leon, executive director of the Clean Energy States Alliance. “Having said that, Ann Arbor is a leader in terms of being especially ambitious and especially creative in what they’re doing and having quite wide-ranging initiatives.”
“They’re not just focusing on solar; they’re not just focusing on batteries; they’re also doing things with network geothermal. I do think they are both perceived and in actuality a national leader among municipalities.”
The average solar panel installation for an American home costs between $22,000 and $26,000, according to SolarReviews, an outlet that reports on home solar and develops cost calculators and other consumer resources. Arrays typically pay themselves off within 10 years and provide electricity for 15 years.
When arrays are installed, the power they generate is free, which reduces the amount of power residents have to buy from the grid. The panels produce more power when they aren’t shaded by trees and during summer when days are longer, sunshine is brighter and panels are never coated with snow. If they generate more energy than a household needs while the sun is shining, that energy can be stored in a battery and used when it’s dark or cloudy.
Ann Arbor residents who get panels through the SEU won’t have to pay those upfront costs, and most will save on their annual energy spending, Lenski said. Roughly a third of homeowners in the Bryant neighborhood have signed up for the program.
That’s clear from a short walk through the winding cul-de-sacs. House after house is topped with panels.
“You should have been on my street earlier today,” said Elaine Jordan, a Bryant neighborhood resident who signed up for the program, in mid-August. “Next door they were getting insulation, two doors down they’re getting a roof. It’s like the whole street is full as the neighborhood is being upgraded.”
The Bryant pilot program’s startup costs were funded by more than $8 million in grant funding from the Michigan Public Service Commission and the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity. The U.S. Department of Energy also granted Ann Arbor $10.8 million to work toward building a neighborhood-wide geothermal system, which would offset homes’ heating and cooling costs. The city will have to match those Department of Energy funds.
Grant funding paid for some additional programs in the Bryant neighborhood. In addition to solar and battery systems, people who enroll can get a home energy assessment and upgrades like insulation or a new roof.
Residents who enroll in the utility also fund the program through monthly fees of $75 in the summer and $25 in the winter. They don’t have to pay upfront costs for their renewable power systems — the city owns the panels, so it buys them and pays for installation. Residents get to use the solar power, and most are projected to get enough free renewable power to see annual savings on their DTE Energy Co. bills.
The savings can be modest and depend on each home. The average savings are projected to be about $200 per year, Lenski said.
The panels on Jensen’s home on Champagne Drive are projected to save $130 per year, between savings on DTE bills and fees paid for enrolling in the program. The panels will provide about half the home’s annual power usage, Lenski said.
“We were surprised at how economical it was,” Jensen said of the solar program. “Cost is a big barrier for most people, even if there is a payback in it.”
Solar panels and a battery do more than offset DTE bills, Lenski said. She said many of the people who have enrolled in the SEU so far are as keen on protecting against power outages as they are on saving money and reducing their personal carbon emissions.
Solar panels generate power even when the grid is down, and extra energy saved in a battery could help people keep their fridges or medical equipment powered.
“Power is not a nice-to-have luxury product. It really is a necessity,” Lenski said.
“If you think ‘I’m going to save one fridge full of food every year, or not have to go spend a night in a hotel, or refill a prescription,'” it adds to the value of the program, she said. “People will save money and have much improved quality of life from it.”
Michigan’s utilities were among the least reliable in the nation’s in 2023, according to a 2025 performance report from the Michigan Citizens Utilities Board. Outages in Michigan lasted longer than in almost every other state, a figure driven primarily by DTE and Consumers Energy outages. At the same time, the cost of power in Michigan is relatively high, the board found.
More: How DTE, Consumers customers can get $42 per day for power outages
Jensen’s power went out in early September when storms swept through southeast Michigan and cut the lights to roughly 280,000 homes. His panels were installed but not connected to the grid yet, since the process requires time for city and DTE workers to do inspections and issue approvals.
“It would have been nice to have solar and a battery backup,” Jensen said. “The outage was about a day and a half that we didn’t have any power, and we were running off generators. Luckily it wasn’t too hot outside, but it would have been nice to have power.”
The economics of renewable energy have changed drastically since Ann Arbor voters approved the SEU in 2024. That was when Democrat Joseph Biden was president, and lawmakers put significant federal funding toward tax incentives and other programs that would help replace planet-warming fossil fuels with renewable energy.
Republican President Donald Trump’s administration canceled or stalled many of those programs. The 2025 budget known as the One Big Beautiful Bill repealed the 30% residential clean energy credit after 2025, although Lenski said the SEU is still eligible for tax credits through next year.
In August, Trump levied tariffs on imports of polysilicon, a crucial component in building solar panels. China produces much of the global solar panel supply.
“There’s a lot of domestic solar manufacturing that’s happening now, but not enough to meet all of the demand,” Lenski said. “That (tariff) is expected to increase the raw costs of the equipment.
“So there are those types of headwinds, a lot of which are driven politically rather than anything fundamental with the technology.”
Those tariffs are expected to raise the price of equipment by 30%-40%, Lenski said. That will raise the price on each SEU solar array by 3%-4%, which means the utility will have to raise the rates it charges to customers by 3%-4% in response, she said.
The utility is still developing a rate structure that will be paid by residents when the SEU program rolls out city-wide next year.
The SEU’s rates are less likely to increase at the rate of DTE’s, Lenski argued, since the sun will remain free over the lifetime of the solar panels while prices of natural gas and coal will fluctuate.
She also anticipates saving money by buying equipment at scale and designing cookie-cutter solar arrays rather than custom ones for each home. The city also won’t put as much money into sales and marketing that private solar installers do, which she said should bring down the price for city residents who enroll.
While grant money helped the SEU finance its early planning and Bryant neighborhood pilot program, the utility will finance most of its work through selling bonds.
“The SEU needs to borrow money to finance these systems,” Lenski said. “They’re capital intensive up front. That’s what makes it hard for many people to access them, even though we know that over their lifetime they’re economically viable and even pay back for many folks.
“But the bond markets right now are kind of going crazy and the rate at which we’re going to be able to borrow is going to be really critical to the success here.”
ckthompson@detroitnews.com

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by Jason Hurst
MISSOULA, Mont. — A new solar project is now up and running in Whitefish.
Flathead Electric Cooperative is inviting members of the media to a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday morning for Community Solar III.
The project expands access to local solar energy and includes battery storage technology designed to help manage peak electricity demand.
The ceremony is set for 10 a.m. Wednesday at 350 Monegan Road, next to the Whitefish Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Media members can tour the site and capture photos and video.

2026 Sinclair, Inc.

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The number of Home Energy Management Systems in Europe and North America reached 6.0 million at the end of 2025  TyN Magazine
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The San Diego County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday approved a controversial solar power and battery storage project for the unincorporated desert community of Boulevard, despite concerns from residents who argued clean energy projects put their safety at risk.
First proposed by the developer in 2022, Starlight Solar will industrialize about 588 acres near Old Highway 80 in unincorporated East County. The project includes a solar farm capable of generating up to 100 megawatts and a 217-megawatt battery energy storage system, constructed in two phases.
County leaders voted unanimously to approve the project, with several amendments to address residents’ concerns — though not all of their concessions were met.
Officials cited concerns that state energy regulators could greenlight the project if the county denied the proposal, noting state approval likely wouldn’t include benefits for the community.
That sentiment is shared by locals who have advocated against the development. While opponents of Starlight Solar have reiterated their support for renewable energy, they also say the backcountry has become a “sacrifice zone” for clean energy projects.
“We’ve learned over the years what happens when we say no to a development project,” Anthony Ralphs, a member of the Boulevard planning group, said. “The development project happens anyway and the affected community is often left out of important safety discussions.”
The county’s approval will require baseline groundwater monitoring and testing for water quality and levels ahead of construction, with additional testing and remediation if a fire occurs.
Officials also directed the developer to pursue funding through the Disadvantaged Communities Green Tariffs Program to provide additional benefits to the community, prior to construction.
Their recommendations did not require the developer to relocate the project’s phase two battery storage facility from its original northern location. Residents of Boulevard have pushed to relocate the battery storage farther south, primarily due to fire safety and evacuation concerns.
The project is the latest in a series of utility-scale renewable energy developments transforming East County’s rural backcountry. It will join many existing solar, wind and battery facilities in nearby unincorporated communities, such as JVR Energy in Jacumba.
While opponents of Starlight Solar secured some concessions — including groundwater monitoring, community benefits and additional fire safeguards — they urged the board not to approve the project at all, noting the county is actively drafting its own regulations for battery storage facilities.
“The reality is, no one knows the details because this is new technology and this is an extreme risk,” said Thomas Wall, a 10-year resident of Boulevard.
Fire risk is not hypothetical in the case of Starlight Solar, he said.
Boulevard has experienced three wildfires in the last 90 days, which opponents said only underscores the need for further evaluation before one of the state’s largest battery storage energy systems is added to the desert town’s landscape.
The town is designated a High Fire Hazard Severity Zone by CAL Fire, and opponents say it is nearly guaranteed Starlight’s battery system will catch fire over its 30-year operating life.
Battery fires are particularly hazardous. A single overheated unit can spread flames to adjacent ones, creating a fire that can burn for days, is resistant to water suppression and releases toxic gas.
The developer agreed to a labor agreement that will ensure the use of local union workers for the project’s construction. The benefit agreement will fund renovation of Boulevard’s resource center, which is estimated to cost $903,579.
The board’s approval also requires the developer to provide a community benefits package at a rate of $22,114 per megawatt, equal to about $6.2 million total. The fund is intended to go toward paying for a portion of Boulevard residents’ electricity bills, and other locally determined uses.
“This is hard, we obviously need reliable, affordable electricity,” Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer said. “All these projects have problems, and they each have varying degrees of risk. I think that’s what we’re really grappling with today.”
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ANI
16 Sep 2026, 17:59 GMT+10
New Delhi [India], September 16 (ANI): Saatvik Green Energy has bagged a major order from Solar Energy Corporation of India Limited (SECI) worth Rs 1,041.63 crores, as per an exchange filing shared by the company on Wednessday. 
The company said in the exchange filing, it would execute the order by December 2027.  
“Saatvik has been awarded a 600 MWp capacity package, with an aggregate order value of INR 1,041.63 crores,” the company said in the exchange filing.  
As per the filing, the order covers  the manufacturing, testing, packing, supply and transportation of solar PV modules. The company will develop these modules using domestic solar cells, in line with the tender’s requirements.
“Saatvik Green Energy Limited today announced that it has been selected by Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) as one of the bidders under a tender for the manufacturing, testing, packing, supply, and transportation of domestically manufactured solar PV modules using domestic solar cells.”
Saatvik is a solar photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturer. As of September 16, the company had a market capitalisation of Rs 5,316.80 crore as per the data available on BSE.
At the time of reporting, shares of Saatvik Green Energy were trading at around Rs 418.30, up 28.65 points or 7.35 per cent against the previous close of Rs 389.65 per share. 
Commenting on the development, Prashant Mathur, CEO, Saatvik Green Energy Limited, said, ‘The 600 MWp order from SECI, under a tender requiring domestically manufactured solar cells, is significant not only for its scale but for what it represents for India’s renewable energy ecosystem. It reflects the growing momentum behind domestic manufacturing and the shift towards a more integrated and self-reliant solar value chain an evolution that Saatvik has been strategically building for.”
“With our 4.86 GW module manufacturing facility in Ambala and our integrated manufacturing expansion in Odisha comprising 2.4 GW of cell and 4 GW of module capacity in Phase I, with a further 3.6 GW of cell capacity proposed in Phase II, we are building the capabilities required to participate meaningfully across the solar manufacturing value chain. As our Odisha cell facility progresses towards ALMM List-II enlistment, we are strengthening our ability to meet evolving domestic-content requirements with greater depth and scale,’ he added further. (ANI)

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LAS VEGAS (FOX5) — A new financing program in Nevada is aimed at helping homeowners lower the cost of going solar, even after the federal residential tax credit expired.
The Nevada Bright Program uses a prepaid lease model for solar and battery systems.
Organizers say the prepaid lease model can lower the cost of a system by 15 to 25 percent without the typical upfront expense. It also provides a pathway to ownership, service and warranty coverage.
MORE ON FOX5: Las Vegas City Council delays discussion on Clark County islands interlocal agreement
One Las Vegas homeowner said his monthly power bill dropped after installing solar.
“The process was just seamless. They did their inspection of the house. I’ve saved hundreds of dollars just on my monthly bill. Like, my monthly bill now is $23, $18 to $20,” Darryl Rogers, a solar customer, said.
The program also includes battery storage, which organizers say can help provide backup power and limit exposure to future rate increases.
Copyright 2026 KVVU. All rights reserved.

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New York stands apart as US community solar growth clusters in states with stronger rules  Yahoo
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In places without established programs, development has been held back.
Photo Credit: REC Solar
In the United States, community solar is expanding, but most of that momentum is coming from a relatively small number of states with supportive rules.
For renters and for homeowners whose roofs are shaded or otherwise not a good fit, those policies can determine whether community solar is even an option for lowering power bills.
A new snapshot of the U.S. non-utility community solar market shows that the second-quarter 2026 growth was not broadly shared nationwide.
Community solar is an option that lets households sign up for a shared project and receive bill credits, which can be especially valuable for renters and for people whose homes are not a good match for rooftop solar. 
Want to go solar but not sure who to trust? EnergySage has your back with free and transparent quotes from fully vetted providers in your area.
To get started, just answer a few questions about your home — no phone number required. Within a day or two, EnergySage will email you the best options for your needs, and their expert advisers can help you compare quotes and pick a winner.
For households that are able to install their own system, adding rooftop panels remains one of the best ways to save money on home energy. Homeowners can explore EnergySage to get free solar installation estimates and compare quotes.
But community solar is an excellent alternative when that’s not an option. Many states that are promoting community solar use it to help lower-income families decrease their utility bills and cut pollution at the same time.
Unfortunately, though, there is not uniform access to these programs across the U.S. Instead, according to PV Magazine and the latest Institute for Local Self-Reliance Community Solar Tracker, most of the recent community solar expansion came from just a few states.
Only New Jersey, New York, and Oregon topped 1% quarter-over-quarter capacity growth, and they have done so for three straight quarters, per PV Magazine. 
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Want to go solar but not sure who to trust? EnergySage has your back with free and transparent quotes from fully vetted providers that can help you save as much as $10k on installation.
To get started, just answer a few questions about your home — no phone number required. Within a day or two, EnergySage will email you the best local options for your needs, and their expert advisers can help you compare quotes and pick a winner.
Of that group, New York was the clear outlier. It added 202 megawatts of community solar capacity in the second quarter of 2026, equal to 7% growth, and it was the lone state to pick up speed versus the first quarter, per the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.
The snapshot of community solar across the U.S. suggests that most solar panels are lumped together in a few places, not spread out across the country. Figures from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory indicate that roughly 91% of all community solar capacity in the country is found in just 10 states, per PV Magazine.
And, as the Institute for Local Self-Reliance reported, only 18 states, alongside Washington, D.C., actually allow community solar.
In places without established programs, development has been held back by interconnection queues, regulatory holdups, and bill-credit structures that offer limited value.
💡Go deep on the latest news and trends shaping the residential solar landscape
As community solar growth becomes increasingly concentrated in a small number of states, the strength and stability of programs can determine how widely lower-cost clean energy is shared. When those policies are weak or unreliable, many households, especially renters and low-income families, can be left with fewer chances to benefit.
Still, many households across these 18 states may be able to subscribe to a community solar project, slashing their energy costs, while others may find that rooftop panels make more sense. 
EnergySage’s free tools, including its solar map, show the average cost of a home solar panel system on a state-by-state level, along with details on solar incentives in each state. Homeowners who take advantage of these services can save up to $10,000 on an installation.
By adding a battery backup, you can save even more over time in day to day energy costs, as well as going off-grid or becoming more resilient in an outage. EnergySage offers information on battery backups as well.
These stories add useful context on why some states are moving faster than others on solar access. They look at how policy choices, permitting rules, and rapid build-outs can affect whether cheaper clean power reaches more households.
• In Connecticut and Virginia, new advocates target cheaper power by speeding home solar approvals.
• Across the country, states leading the U.S. solar race are reshaping energy markets.
• In Florida, installing more solar panels than any other state in recent years is testing the grid.
These stories also underscore why policy design and project pipelines matter when solar savings are unevenly distributed.
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Summer has just ended, and almost every electric vehicle owner has had such a thought:
The sun is so scorching that the car is baked like an oven. It would be so nice if it could be charged by solar energy.
But anyone who has used a solar water heater will immediately feel something is wrong:
This gadget barely works to heat water. Using it to power a two-ton heavy metal car to move forward probably won’t get you very far, right?
But two recent pieces of news made me realize that this matter may need further consideration.
Fuyao, the leading player in the automotive glass sector, has launched a solar sunroof on its official website, stating that it is already capable of mass production.
Around the same time, FAW also unveiled a photovoltaic canopy prototype.
It seems that vehicle-mounted photovoltaic power generation is really coming!

But there are still many questions behind this matter.
Because they are not the first group to try this.
I can say responsibly that this initiative has failed several times already.
There were a number of companies in Europe that were established specifically for this purpose, raised funds, built cars, collected deposits, and then went bankrupt collectively. The most recent case was just over a month ago, at the end of July, when a German company named Sono Motors officially ceased operations.

The biggest difficulty in this matter is probably obvious to you: with such a limited space to deploy solar panels, the generated electricity is far from enough to support normal usage.
If you lay 1.5 square meters of photovoltaic panels on the roof of a car, with a peak power of 150 watts per square meter, and expose it to 3 to 4 hours of effective strong sunlight, you will get roughly 1 kWh of electricity a day. Based on the 15 kWh per 100 km power consumption of electric vehicles, the car can barely run 7 km, which is not even enough for a trip to the grocery store.
So no matter how you think about it, Fuyao and FAW are definitely not aiming for those few extra kilometers of range. Then what are they trying to achieve?
Today we will look into this matter in depth.

First of all, European companies have invested huge resources in environmental protection technologies over the years, and they have put a lot of effort into developing solar-powered vehicles.
They have a persistent obsession to extend vehicle range purely through photovoltaic power generation.
There is a Dutch company called Lightyear, we can simply refer to it as Guangnian. Its founding team is very experienced, with members coming from the World Solar Challenge.
This event is basically held in the Australian desert, where teams compete to see whose solar car can travel the longest distance. They have won the championship for several consecutive sessions, so they believe they have the determination and ability to solve this problem.

In 1983, Quiet Achiever crossed Australia with about 8 square meters of photovoltaic panels, and solar racing cars became an important technical source for later entrepreneurial teams | Source: IEA
Their solution was very straightforward: since they needed photovoltaic panels, they specially built a car to cover as many panels as possible. They laid panels on every available surface including the roof and hood, reaching a total area of 5 square meters, effectively creating a moving photovoltaic panel.
In order to make each kWh of electricity drive the car further, they designed a drag coefficient lower than that of sports cars, even using custom-made wheel hubs with small built-in in-wheel motors, resulting in a 0-100 km/h acceleration time of 10 seconds.
The final result is that under ideal conditions, the car can run 70 kilometers after a full day of sunlight exposure, which is already at the limit level.

The roof and front hood of Lightyear are almost entirely covered with photovoltaic modules, and the whole vehicle is designed around low wind resistance and expanded light-receiving area | Source: IEA
It must be admitted that they really tried their best, at least in the photovoltaic field, but their efforts stopped there. This car was priced at 250,000 euros each, equivalent to more than 2 million RMB, and they planned, note that it was only a plan, to produce a few hundred units in mass production.
Hearing this, everyone can tell something is wrong.
The end result was that the company burned more than 100 million euros in total. In January 2023, an investor who was about to take over the company withdrew at the last minute, and several related companies went bankrupt immediately. The Dutch court later stated in the investigation documents that the cost of building this car was simply too high.
However, the companies that took the low-cost route did not survive either.
A German company called Sono developed a model named Sion, also under the banner of environmental protection. Tens of thousands of people paid a deposit starting from 500 euros to wait for the car. In February 2023, the company ran out of funds, the Sion project was terminated, 70% of the employees were laid off. The company did not give up, cut the whole vehicle business and switched to pasting photovoltaic panels on buses and trucks, and struggled for another three years before officially ceasing operations on July 31 this year.
The same story repeated itself in many European companies.

The French C-ZEN prototype car lays photovoltaic panels in zones on the roof and front hood, intuitively showing how the limited body area can be fully utilized | Source: IEA

Source: IEA
After these companies went bankrupt, the International Energy Agency conducted a review and summarized three reasons for their failure: Building complete vehicles consumes endless capital, small companies face extremely high risks in mass production, and the money paid by users is completely disproportionate to the benefits they get.
Therefore, if no major changes take place in the world, the conversion efficiency of photovoltaic panels will only improve slowly rather than jump exponentially, the sun will not suddenly become brighter, and the power consumption of vehicles will remain at a similar level, it is indeed unrealistic to expect photovoltaic power generation to completely change the situation of electric vehicles.

Mars rover, fully powered by photovoltaic
But we don’t have to give up just yet.
In the current rapidly growing new energy market, one thing has been ignored by many people.
When the car is parked, it is actually consuming power all the time. Smart electric vehicles do not shut down completely. After you park the car, turn off the engine and lock the door, it is still running programs, the cameras keep recording, the communication module stays connected to the network, and the GPS reports its position every once in a while.

Electric vehicle owners may have noticed that if the sentry mode is turned on overnight, the power level will drop by several percentage points the next morning. Worse still, for those who park their cars at the airport for a long time when going on a business trip, if they are unlucky, the small 12V battery will be completely dead when they come back, and they have to call for rescue.
Someone tested 14 car models one by one. New cars generally consume 1 to 3 kWh of power per day. For early Tesla models whose architecture cannot be completely shut down, the whole vehicle stays active along with the cameras, and can consume 7 to 8 kWh of power per day.
The data reported by FAW’s canopy prototype shows that it can generate about 400 kWh of electricity a year, which is 1.1 kWh per day on average. Based on the 1 to 2 kWh daily power consumption of sentry mode, it is definitely not enough to power the car to drive, but it is just right to support all these passive power consumption scenarios.
Moreover, with this amount of power to support these functions, many details of car usage can become more flexible. For example, if the car has been exposed to the sun for half a day and becomes an oven, you could only turn on the air conditioner to cool it down after getting in the car before. But if this 1 kWh of electricity can drive the ventilation system when the car is parked to discharge the hot air first, you won’t be hit by a wave of hot air as soon as you get in, and it can also charge the small battery at the same time. These are not big functions, but all of them can be realized with just 1 kWh of electricity.
There is no need to guess what Fuyao and FAW are thinking. All the scenarios Fuyao demonstrated include dashcam operation, GPS anti-theft, ventilation, and connected car services.
FAW named its canopy technology “passive energy replenishment”, and the core scenarios it targets are parking air conditioning, on-board refrigerators, and sentry mode.
Both companies are focusing on the same thing: the power consumed by the car when it is parked.
In fact, there is another interesting point behind this matter: China’s photovoltaic industry itself is undergoing very important changes. Although it is not enough to make your electric car never need charging, the progress in technology and materials has indeed made vehicle-mounted photovoltaic a reality from another dimension.

Source: Fuyao
Crystalline silicon cells, which are used in the vast majority of photovoltaic panels today, originate from the semiconductor industry. Silicon materials are purified in furnaces at thousands of degrees Celsius, pulled into crystal ingots, and then cut into thin slices like sausages. The resulting products have properties similar to glass: hard, brittle, and cannot be bent.
They are really cheap. The average market price of mainstream modules in the middle of this year is 0.73 yuan per watt, and a 300-watt module costs more than 200 yuan. But there is a problem when installing them on cars: they can only be laid flat on small flat surfaces.

Conventional photovoltaic panels | Source: Wikipedia
If you want to cover the entire curved car body, you need to use some special high-tech solutions. For example, Toyota tried it in 2019, using 0.03mm thick aerospace-grade thin-film cells to cover the roof, hood and tailgate, which can replenish 44.5 km of range per day under ideal conditions.
The effect is indeed good, but those cells are originally designed for satellites, and are too expensive to be used in mass-produced cars. On one hand, crystalline silicon panels are cheap but cannot be bent, on the other hand, aerospace-grade cells can be bent but are extremely expensive. Vehicle-mounted photovoltaic technology got stuck at this stage in the crystalline silicon era.
Perovskite technology, which has gradually matured in recent years, uses a completely different approach: crystalline silicon is made by cutting, while perovskite is made by printing.
It is a type of artificially synthesized crystal material, and its biggest feature is that it can be dissolved. You can mix the raw materials into “ink”, and print it layer by layer on glass or plastic film with a coating machine just like printing a newspaper, then
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US-headquartered I Squared Capital-backed energy developer Anza Power, established in Australia in January 2026, is acquiriing the 110 MW Karioi and 95 MW Ongaonga solar farms in Aotearoa New Zealand from utility-scale solar farm developer Helios Energy.
The construction-ready consented solar projects, with battery energy storage system (BESS) generation capacity, are expected to produce approximately 411,400 MWh of clean electricity annually or the equivalent demand of 58,000 homes.
Karioi Solar Farm
The North Island-based Karioi Solar Farm, located approximately 280 kilometres north of Wellington holds local council consent, following a two year planning, design and stakeholder engagement application process.
The project will connect to New Zealand transmission operator Transpower’s Tangiwai substation, with the site chosen for its high solar insolation and cooler ambient air temperatures.
The site is to be leased from a local farming family and will remain in agricultural production through ongoing sheep grazing, alongside deer grazing on surrounding paddocks.
The project design also preserves natural wetlands and provides for new native vegetation planting along site boundaries.
Ongaonga solar farm
The 95 MW Ongaonga solar farm is also on the North Island, approximately 250 kilometres northeast of Wellington, and will connect to Transpower’s nearby Waipawa substation.
Both projects have been shaped by consultation with mana whenua (the territorial rights, power and authority over the land by Māori or hapū people), and other stakeholders.
Anza Power Chief Executive Officer Carlo Frigerio said the projects add 205 MW to Anza’s New Zealand Pipeline.
These include the 42 MWdc Somerton Solar Farm in Canterbury, where Anza signed its first New Zealand offtake agreement with Fonterra in June 2026.
In Canterbury, Anza is also advancing the 100 MW Norwood Solar Farm, and the 70 MW Highfield Solar Farm at Charing Cross, together representing a further 170 MW of solar capacity with BESS optionality at the Highfield site.
Anza now holds a portfolio across Australia and New Zealand of approximately 1.5 GW of solar PV and 3.5 GWh of battery energy storage.
The Helios team has delivered over 600 MWac of consented development projects across the North and South Islands of New Zealand.
Helios Energy Managing Director Jeff Schlichting said Anza gives both projects the strongest possible pathway to construction and operation.
“For the Helios team, seeing these projects built is an important milestone, and we couldn’t ask for a better custodian to take them forward,” Schlichting said.

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Vikram Solar has signed a domestic PV cell supply agreement with Avaada Electro as it seeks to expand its presence in India’s growing domestic content requirement (DCR) market and strengthen its long-term supply chain.
Under the agreement, Avaada Electro will supply 1 GW of ALMM-compliant domestically manufactured half-cut n-type G12R TOPCon solar cells for Vikram Solar’s module manufacturing operations. Deliveries are scheduled to commence in September 2026. 
The agreement also complements Vikram Solar’s backward integration strategy. The company is setting up 9 GW high-efficiency solar cell manufacturing facility, which is scheduled for commissioning in Q4 FY27. 
“The next phase of India’s solar growth will be won or lost on supply chain depth, not just manufacturing scale,” said Gyanesh Chaudhary, chairman & managing director, Vikram Solar. “This arrangement is another step in that direction- one that widens our supplier base, strengthens our hand on DCR, and gives us the confidence to commit to India’s energy security with fewer variables outside our control. Atmanirbhar Bharat won’t be built by any single partnership; it’ll be built by companies that keep making these choices, year after year.” 
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Chinese-made photovoltaic panels cost 12 cents a watt in 2026, down from $5-$6 at the turn of the millennium, and that price collapse is now powering rooftop solar installations from Pakistani cement plants to Philippine homes and Australian suburbs, according to the Financial Times. A Pakistani cement giant has cut its power costs by up to 40% with solar at its production sites, and rooftop solar capacity in the Philippines has nearly doubled in a year. At the same time, Africa is on pace to install record gigawatts, and Australia has installed panels on more than 4 million homes. Previously, we reported that India is on track to become the first country ever to industrialize using solar energy instead of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, thanks to rapidly falling solar costs, generous government subsidies and favorable geographic factors. Last year, India added a record-breaking 44 GW of solar power, taking its installed solar capacity to 154 gigawatts with projections that solar will meet half of the country’s electricity demand growth through 2030. However, India is hardly the only country that’s betting big on solar. The wide availability of cheap Chinese photovoltaic panels is fueling the rapid rise of small-scale, individual power generation for homes, businesses and factories across the globe, in both developed and emerging economies.
Related: Saudi Arabia Discovers 110 Million Tonnes of Uranium-Bearing Ore
Pakistan’s Bestway Cement Limited, one of the country’s largest cement manufacturers, is deploying ground-mounted solar farms across five production units to cut its reliance on Pakistan’s unstable power grid. At its Chakwal plant, 26 MW of installed photovoltaic capacity already generates over a quarter of the electricity powering the facility.
“It’s the only way we can compete,” says Abdul Waheed, GM at the Chakwal plant, according to the Financial Times. “Our rivals have already gone in this direction.” The Chakwal facility produces over 3 million tonnes of cement per year.
Distributed solar is seeing major growth in regions where power is scarce, unreliable or expensive. Ember estimates that rooftop solar capacity in the Philippines almost doubled over the 12 months to April, with residential solar panels now able to pay for themselves in just over three years. Meralco, the country’s electricity distributor, estimates that rooftop solar in the Philippines generated 372 gigawatt hours in the first half of 2026 alone.
Likewise, Ember projects that Africa is on track to install a record 17 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity in 2026, good for a robust 45% Y/Y increase, with about three-quarters of this growth driven by distributed, small-scale systems on commercial and industrial rooftops.
Decentralized solar is proving to be a major hit in India, too. Launched in February 2024, India’s government-sponsored rooftop solar program has put panels on more than 5.5 million homes and is adding roughly 500,000 more each month. With an initial budget of roughly $9 billion, the scheme transfers Central Financial Assistance (CFA) directly into the homeowner’s bank account within 30 to 45 days of inspection, based on installed capacity, and the government has partnered with banks to offer collateral-free, low-interest loans covering part of the installation cost for lower-income families. The program also uses net metering, letting homes sell excess solar power back to the grid.
But developed countries are also benefiting, as we’ve seen with Australia, which currently leads the world in rooftop solar adoption, thanks to an overabundance of sunshine, high electricity costs and strong government incentives. Over 4.3 million homes and small businesses in the country (~43% of total) have solar panels, making it the highest per-capita adoption rate worldwide and double the runner-up and nearly 10 times the global average. Australia’s total rooftop solar capacity recently reached 28.3 GW, outstripping the country’s coal-powered generation, which stands at roughly 22.5 GW. However, such a high level of solar adoption can also lead to major grid instabilities, as Australia is now finding out.
Meanwhile, plug-and-play solar (aka balcony solar or plug-in solar), has become a big thing in Europe. These panels allow users to generate electricity by mounting a small panel and plugging a microinverter directly into a standard household wall socket. Great Britain officially legalized plug-in solar systems in August this year, permitting a maximum AC output of 800W connecting directly to standard wall sockets.
By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com
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Ninfa Saavedra, Digital Content Specialist
T.J. Parker, Reporter
Published: September 15, 2026 at 9:23 AM
Ninfa Saavedra, Digital Content Specialist
T.J. Parker, Reporter
A proposed Tesla project worth more than $10 billion could bring thousands of jobs to Fort Bend County if the company moves forward with plans to build a large solar manufacturing facility.
Lamar Consolidated Independent School District trustees are expected to consider a property tax incentive for Tesla Tuesday night as the company explores more than 3,000 acres near FM 762 and FM 1994.
The proposed project would involve an estimated $10.1 billion investment to build a facility capable of manufacturing solar cells and solar panels.
Tesla says the project could eventually create nearly 10,000 permanent full-time jobs.
A key part of Tesla’s plans involves a potential tax incentive from Lamar CISD.
Under the proposed agreement, Tesla would receive a reduction on a portion of its school property tax bill for a set period of time.
The company would still be responsible for paying other applicable school property taxes.
The incentive is being considered as Tesla evaluates the Fort Bend County site for the massive manufacturing project.
Two major steps are expected Tuesday night.
First, members of the public will have an opportunity to weigh in on the proposed project and tax agreement during a public hearing.
The Lamar CISD Board of Trustees will then consider whether to move forward with the proposed property tax agreement.
The public hearing is scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m.
Tuesday night’s vote does not mean Tesla has officially decided to build the facility in Fort Bend County. Instead, it would move the proposed tax agreement forward as the company continues evaluating the project.
If completed, the proposed Tesla facility could represent one of the largest economic-development projects in the region and bring thousands of new jobs to Fort Bend County.
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T.J. Parker joined KPRC 2 in June 2023 and is happy to be back in Houston. Before coming back to the Lone Star State, T.J. was a reporter in Miami at WSVN Channel 7. There he covered all things up and down the south Florida coast.
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