Photovoltaic solar panels on residential roof. Photovoltaic solar panels on residential roof. Sign blocking entry to trail to Tarzan Swim Hole. Taking a break at the Tarzan Swim Hole. Tarzan Swim Hole. Enjoying the Tarzan Swim Hole. Land clearing that leads to erosion and siltation near the Ylig River and Tarzan Swim Hole. Massive land clearing for solar panels near Tarzan Swim Hole. Lotz
Lotz Photovoltaic solar panels on residential roof. Photovoltaic solar panels on residential roof. Sign blocking entry to trail to Tarzan Swim Hole. Taking a break at the Tarzan Swim Hole. Tarzan Swim Hole. Enjoying the Tarzan Swim Hole. Land clearing that leads to erosion and siltation near the Ylig River and Tarzan Swim Hole. Massive land clearing for solar panels near Tarzan Swim Hole. Guam has recently experienced a rash of at least nine locations selected for photovoltaic solar plant facilities scattered about our island in surprising and odd locations. These are only permitted under the Guam Zoning Code under a “Zone Change” or “Conditional Use,” which essentially means an exemption to the acceptable uses from the designated zoning for the locations. One photovoltaic solar plant location of note is north of Cross Island Road, Route 17, just east of the Cotal Conservation Area, the location of the hiking trail to Tarzan Falls. Drive by and be shocked as the area has been extensively cleared and certainly subject to erosion that will result in heavy siltation of the Ylig River. The public used hiking trail to the Tarzan Swimming Hole that crossed this land is now closed by the project. The application for conditional use failed to state this public hiking trail exists and of the existence of the Tarzan Swim Hole. Apparently, this valid public use has just been ignored. Logically, failure to accurately state existing conditions in the application should invalidate the application and resulting approval. Did any Government of Guam agency, including the Department of Parks and Recreation, Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Statistics and Plans, or the Yona mayor, express this concern about Tarzan Swim Hole and the trail closing? Further, will this project impact and destroy the probable execution and burial site for three US Navy men, CMM L. L Krump, AGC L. W. Jones, and YN1 A. Yablonsky, by the Japanese on September 20, 1942? Is the Guam State Historic Preservation Officer aware of this historic site and has he commented on any government approvals or permits required? Then there is the former Guam International Country Club golf course in Dededo that received approvals to be converted to another photovoltaic solar plant and is opposed by the nearby community for impacts on water wells and their water recharge areas. An overall concern, is why are our lands, that should be and could be better utilized for CHamoru residences and for agriculture, now being used for photovoltaic solar plant facilities? Guam should have a program to place the solar panels on roof tops of building and residences, as illustrated by the accompanying photographs, and to construct vehicle parking shelters to protect the vehicles while placing solar panels on the shelter tops. This would serve two purposes on already developed land. The old system still used to notify residents of pending Guam Land Use Commission hearings and meetings no longer functions as intended. A while back notices were placed in the island’s newspaper that virtually everyone read first thing in the morning. This is no longer the case so the public notification requirement should change. The Department of Land Management should and can easily post applications to the GLUC to seek public comments and have a database for emails to use to notify interested residents of these postings, but this is obviously not being done. We need to have a community discussion on our solar contribution to power and their locations as compared to the current piecemeal government decisions that are not in the best interests of our community. Dave Lotz, a U.S. Navy veteran, is a vocal advocate for protecting Guam’s unique heritage, knowledgeable and long-time hiking enthusiast and environmental advocate, and critic of inept government. Lotz Your comment has been submitted.
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Ferrari has entered the all-electric vehicle market with the Luce, which debuted in early June and left a lot of people scratching their heads in confusion. Whatever you think of the Ferrari Luce, it’s a tech powerhouse, all the way down to famed Apple designer Jony Ive being involved. With that in mind, it shouldn’t be surprising that Ferrari is pushing hard on some tech-forward thinking, and CarBuzz recently found a patent that showcases an interesting idea. While having a solar panel on the roof of a car to keep batteries topped up is an old idea, Ferrari’s patent takes it a step further to try and maximize the solar panel’s effectiveness. The first time we saw a solar panel built into the design of a mainstream car, it was an option for the 2018 Hyundai Sonata Hybrid in the form of solar cells built into its roof. While a solar-equipped roof is becoming more common, Ferrari’s idea for solar panels is a lot more sophisticated. The patent is based around a roll-up photovoltaic panel that can be retracted and extracted from a chamber inside the roof through a slot. The reason Ferrari gives for extending the panel is that it can create shade to help keep the passenger compartment cooler when parked, as well as charge a battery. A new idea from Stellantis could literally blow up the performance on your future Dodge. Not only can the extendable solar panel be drawn out to shade the front window, but the patent drawings show a solar panel being drawn up from a compartment under the rear window at an angle. Crucially, it appears that Ferrari wants to hide and not use the solar panels when the car is moving, using sensors and weather data to automate how the panels react when the car is parked outside. According to Ferrari’s patent, the panel uses a U-shaped member and two support rods to extend the photovoltaic panel out from its roller. Compared with the idea of turning the roof of a car into a solar panel, this solution is complicated, and the photovoltaic panel can only convert sunlight into energy when the car is parked outside. The internet didn’t respond well, and it seems neither did investors. While the average Ferrari is unlikely to be parked outside in the sun often, the Luce is different, as it’s clearly designed to be a daily driver – although the car Ferrari shows in the drawings looks much sportier. While this looks like a bit of a throwaway idea, it shows Ferrari is actively thinking about the future of electric and hybrid vehicles. Solar panels aren’t the most efficient way of charging a car, but they’re getting better each year. Hyundai claims its solar roof can charge 30% to 60% of the battery per day, which is substantial. In ideal conditions, that would cover the average journey to and from work, assuming the battery has a range of over 200 miles when fully charged. Of course, the keywords there are “ideal conditions.” The effectiveness of solar power and charging are variable depending on weather conditions. But the real reason we suspect this won’t suddenly appear as a feature on Ferrari models is because adding weight (and complexity) to the roof of a car and affecting the center of gravity is antithetical to Ferrari’s pursuit of handling perfection and clean design. Patent filings do not guarantee the use of such technology in future vehicles and are often used exclusively as a means of protecting intellectual property. Such a filing cannot be construed as confirmation of production intent. Source: US Patent & Trademark Office We want to hear from you. Share your perspective in the comments below, and please keep the conversation respectful. Your comment has not been saved This space is open for discussion. Be the first to share your thoughts.
Please contact our Customer Service Team if you are unable to log in at clientservices@accessintel.com or 1-888-707-5814. Darrell Proctor Technology giant Meta said it has expanded its partnership with major renewable energy developer RWE through a long-term corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) for the 298-MW Rabbit’s Foot Solar installation in North Texas. The companies on June 11 said it is the fourth PPA they’ve signed together since 2024. The Rabbit’s Foot project in Bowie County, Texas, began onsite construction earlier this year. Meta on Thursday said once Rabbit’s Foot comes online, expected by year-end 2027, it will support Meta’s goal of matching its operations with 100% clean energy. RWE and Meta have previously signed PPAs for projects totaling 574 MW of generation capacity, including the 274-MW Emily Solar project (formerly County Run Solar) in Illinois, the 100-MW Lafitte Solar project in Louisiana, and the 200-MW Waterloo Solar facility in Texas. The companies said that with Rabbit’s Foot Solar, they have now signed agreements totaling 872 MW over the past two years. “Our partnership with Meta continues to grow as we work together to deliver reliable power that supports their energy commitments. This agreement for the Rabbit’s Foot Solar project demonstrates how collaboration can drive meaningful economic growth and community benefits,” said Ingmar Ritzenhofen, chief commercial officer for RWE Americas. “By investing in Bowie County, we’re not only creating approximately 200 local construction jobs, but also generating substantial long-term tax revenue that will help support schools, technical education programs, emergency services, and critical road maintenance and infrastructure improvements across the community.” Amanda Yang, head of Clean and Renewable Energy for Meta, said, “Through our continued partnership with RWE, the Rabbit’s Foot Solar project will bring new generation to the Texas grid while creating local jobs and delivering lasting economic benefits to Bowie County. We’re proud to deepen our collaboration with RWE with our expanded portfolio.” RWE is a leading power company in the U.S. with 13 GW of generation capacity in operation across 27 states. The company on Thursday said it plans to add 9 GW of net new capacity by 2031.
—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER. Modern process industries are experiencing fluctuating market conditions and tight operational margins, leading chemical engineers to rely on real-time data to boost efficiency and reduce costs. Yet, many organizations are at different stages in their digital transformation journey. Some are just starting, while others are looking to optimize existing solutions. This webinar explores practical ways […] Sponsored by dataPARC Sponsored by RENTECH Sponsored by technosylva
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Editor This image depicts what these solar panels could look like once built. The Pine County Historical Society is working with All Energy Solar, a company based out of St. Paul, to install solar panels at the Pine County History Museum. Approval At the Askov City Council meeting, Pine County Historical Society President Roger Wallace and a representative of All Energy Solar, Danielle, explains to the council how these solar panels would benefit the museum. “We are working with the Pine County Museum for a ground-mount solar array to be located on the west side of the main building, just south of the maintenance shed,” Danielle says to the council. According to the plans, 194 solar panels, split into two arrays adjacent to each other, will be installed in what used to be the football field of the school. These panels will stand at nine and a half feet tall, pending approval with the utility company. “The system is designed just to offset the site’s electrical load, so it’s used for just having a clean, green resource for electricity,” Danielle adds. Wallace explains the historical society has a donation to go towards this project, and by doing the project at this time, they could get a 40% rebate. The total project amount would cost the museum around $350,000. “Right now,” Wallace says. “Our electric bill at the museum runs about $30,000 a year. This should take care 90% of the bill.” The panels will be facing the south but will be offset as to not block the train mural on that side of the building. City Council member Elinor Auge, who covers planning and zoning, says she has been poring over the zoning ordinances and regulations for the City of Askov about solar panels. She even attended the Finlayson City Council meeting where she had posed the question to the Pine County Zoning director about these types of projects. “I did ask if somebody wants to put up solar panels, do they need permits, and he said absolutely.” Danielle agrees with Auge, saying if the city itself would have any permitting requirements, the museum and All Solar Energy will abide by them. “Our zoning laws are very welcoming to solar, and it’s written in [the planning and zoning manuals] to do what we can do make solar as much as possible,” Auge adds. Auge recommends having an inspector come from either the county or Sandstone to inspect the building, land, and project area. This recommendation is to ensure everything is done correctly and for this project to begin. The council motions to approve the project and allow solar panels to be installed at the Pine County History Museum. Benefits All Energy Solar’s Director of Business Development Michael Thalhimer states on-site solar projects like the system for the Pine County History Museum are designed to primarily help properties consume less energy from the grid–and for a long time. “By being less reliant on power provided by outside sources, not only will the museum enjoy generating clean energy to satisfy most of its electrical needs, but the reduced delivery of utility power will also save the museum significant operating costs.” With a useful life of over 40 years, systems like these solar panels are set up to provide decades of operational value. Pine County Historical Society’s Treasurer Paul Olesen says there’s been times the board wondered where they were going to get the money to pay the fuel bill. This would be a way to take the stress of the electrical bill away. The Project According to Wallace, the idea to utilize solar panels at the museum came from a grant search for non-profits. During that search, they contacted Mora’s historical society who told them about solar projects. “Paul, another board member, and I went to Osprey Wilds [in Sandstone] because they put up [solar panels]. They recommended this company [All Energy Solar]. That’s why we went with them.” Wallace reached out to Thalhimer for a quote. “We first connected with the museum back in July 2024,” explains Thalhimer. “Over a series of meeting with Roger and other members of the board in the year or so that followed, we ultimately settled on a plan for the current project in late 2025.” Thalhimer adds the installation of the 194 solar panels will take place this summer of 2026. Challenges With a project of this size, challenges are inevitable. According to Thalhimer, one of the challenges this project has to overcome is going from concept to a construction plan that is ready for installation. “[That] can always introduce challenges, especially related to obtaining the necessary local permits and securing the utility’s approval to interconnect the system.” Generally, Thalhimer states, once the project is past the stage of finalizing that design and those permissions, the main obstacle is working with mother nature. “We typically install ground mounted solar arrays like the museum’s systems between March/April and November here in Northern Minnesota.” Since the installations are entirely outdoors, the installation crew must work around the conditions of nature, which are somewhat unpredictable. Outcome With the goal of the solar panels to be completed and working by the end of summer 2026, the museum aims to eliminate 90% of their electrical bill, which will ultimately put money back into the museum’s operation and improvements. For more information on All Energy Solar, visit https://www.allenergysolar.com or by calling 1-800-620-3370. For more information on the Pine County History Museum, visit https://pinecountyhistory.org or by calling (320) 838-1607. Editor {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Your comment has been submitted.
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By: Luis Reyes Published: Jun 14, at 12:00pm ET Getting a new power line approved in the US is a multiyear slog of hearings, permitting, and the occasional lawsuit, all before a single steel tower goes up. China is running the opposite playbook, and the results are visible from orbit. Along the northern edge of the Kubuqi Desert in Inner Mongolia, solar panels are filling in a strip that planners want to run 250 miles end to end, part of a build the Chinese press has taken to calling a “solar great wall.” NASA’s Earth Observatory lined up two satellite frames of the same ground, one from December 2017 and one from December 2024, and the change between them barely needs a caption. Where there were bare dunes, there are now grids of panels wide enough to pick out from space. The full plan, which Chinese officials expect to wrap around 2030, calls for a band roughly 250 miles long and 3 miles wide with a maximum capacity of 100 gigawatts. NASA frames that as enough to power Beijing. As of the most recent official count, late in 2024, about 5.4 gigawatts of it was actually installed. So the wall is real, the satellite evidence is real, and the gap between what is built and what has been promised is real too. The images come from the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 and its successor on Landsat 9, shot over the same band of dunes just south of the Yellow River, between the cities of Baotou and Bayannur. Side by side, December 2017 and December 2024, they show the footprint going from a few scattered blocks to a near-continuous mosaic. It is the rare infrastructure project where the construction timeline is legible from low Earth orbit. One feature in the frames is hard to miss once you know to look for it. The 300-megawatt Junma Solar Power Station, built by State Power Investment Corporation and finished in 2019, was laid out in the shape of a galloping horse. It holds a Guinness World Record for the largest image ever made out of solar panels, and it pushes out roughly 2 billion kilowatt-hours a year, enough for the annual needs of 300,000 to 400,000 people. Junma means “fine horse” in Mandarin, which is the kind of detail that sounds like marketing until you see it from space and realize they actually built a horse the size of a small city. The single biggest chunk of the wall is the Three Gorges Kubuqi base, near Ordos, developed by state-owned China Three Gorges together with Inner Mongolia’s Mengneng energy group. Ground broke at the end of 2022 on an 80 billion yuan ($11.6 billion) project, and the detail that complicates the “green wall” branding is the fuel mix. As Power magazine reported, the base was designed as a 16-gigawatt hybrid, with 8 gigawatts of solar, 4 gigawatts of wind, and 4 gigawatts of coal-fired generation, plus storage. The sun does the headline work. The coal is there to keep the grid steady when the sun is not cooperating. Progress on the flagship has been steady rather than instant. The first gigawatt of solar came online at the end of 2023. By 2025, a second 1-gigawatt phase had been connected, which Na Guiting, a deputy president at the Three Gorges Mengneng joint venture, described to Xinhua as turning more than 4,200 hectares of dunes into panels. That puts about 2 gigawatts of the flagship in service today, with reporting from EnergiesMedia putting it on track to reach 7,000 megawatts during 2026 as additional phases switch on. When the whole base is finished, the developer expects it to send roughly 40 billion kilowatt-hours a year east to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, more than half of that from clean sources. Power was never the only goal. Mounted a few feet off the ground and lined up in rows, the panels work as windbreaks. They slow the wind that pushes the dunes around, they cut evaporation by throwing shade on the sand, and that combination gives grass and crops a foothold where there was not one before. NASA points to published analysis of Landsat data showing solar projects have contributed to the greening of dry land elsewhere in China, so this is not a one-off claim from a press release. On the ground, the people nearby put it in plainer terms. One local farmer, Han Rongkuan, told Xinhua that “these projects shield us from wind and sand,” and that his village had cultivated more than 600 hectares (about 1,500 acres) of high-standard farmland in a single year, land that can bring in roughly 900 yuan ($128) per mu if it is leased out. China has run a version of this before, on the Tibetan Plateau, where a solar complex turned near-total sand into working grassland and ended up needing thousands of sheep to keep it in check. That is a different desert and a different story, but the underlying move, generate power up top and restore the land underneath, is the same one being scaled across the Kubuqi. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Privacy policy (opens in new window) The scale gap is not subtle. As of mid-2024, China led the world in operating solar capacity with about 386,875 megawatts, roughly 51 percent of the global total, according to Global Energy Monitor’s tracker. The US sat second at 79,364 megawatts, around 11 percent. Between 2017 and 2023, China was adding solar at an average pace of nearly 40,000 megawatts a year. The US averaged about 8,137 megawatts over the same stretch. Those are not numbers that close on their own. Building the panels is only half the job, though, and arguably the easy half. A gigawatt sitting in a remote stretch of Inner Mongolia does nothing for a city 800 miles away unless you can move it, which is why China has been stringing ultra-high-voltage lines from these bases toward the populated east and south. It is the same bottleneck that has US grid operators and Texas regulators arguing over transmission for years, just with a very different tolerance for how fast steel goes up. And because solar only works when the sun is out, the gigawatts need firming, which is its own engineering problem. China’s answer there runs from batteries to enormous pumped-storage “water batteries” that hold power behind a mountain and let gravity hand it back on demand. There is also a stranger wrinkle to covering this much ground with dark panels. A field this size can nudge the local environment in ways that go beyond shade and windbreaks. German researchers modeling large arrays have found that a big enough installation could shift rainfall patterns over a desert, and they are now running field tests in the UAE to see whether the atmosphere behaves the way the simulations say. None of that is settled, and none of it is specific to the Kubuqi, but it is a reminder that a wall of panels this size is not a neutral object dropped on empty land. The satellite images are the part of this story that needs no spin. Two frames, seven years apart, bare dunes turning into a grid you can resolve from orbit. The round numbers are softer. The 100-gigawatt figure is a 2030 target, the 5.4 gigawatts is what was counted as built more than a year ago, and the flagship that anchors the whole thing is a 2-gigawatt machine with a coal plant attached, climbing toward seven. “Enough to power Beijing” is a design spec, not a meter reading. What is already in the ground is a 250-mile test of whether you can generate serious power and hold back a desert with the same hardware, and the early frames suggest the answer is yes on both counts. Getting all those gigawatts to the cities that actually need them is the harder problem, and it is the one nobody bothers to photograph. Don’t bite your tongue. Speak up. Olivia Richman · Jun 4, 2026 Luis Reyes · May 24, 2026 Olivia Richman · May 25, 2026 Luis Reyes · May 20, 2026 Luis Reyes · Jun 7, 2026 Luis Reyes · Jun 12, 2026 Luis Reyes · Jun 14, 2026 Luis Reyes · Jun 14, 2026 Luis Reyes · Jun 14, 2026 Luis Reyes · Jun 14, 2026 Olivia Richman · Jun 13, 2026 Autonotion is the English-language automotive editorial by Autonocion.com — car news, reviews, and industry analysis for American readers. Other links Company Subscribe Get the latest car news in your inbox: By submitting your email you allow autonocion.com to send you news or promotions. More info
MANIKGANJ, Bangladesh — In a rice field in central Bangladesh, farm worker Dilip Kumar Biswas tends crops growing in the shade of solar panels, part of an experiment to see if one of the most densely populated countries can produce food and clean power on the same land. The nation of 175 million relies on imports for about 95% of its energy needs, a dependence made worse by rising costs caused by the war in the Middle East. One of the ways it is looking to diversify its energy supply is through more renewable energy. Solar is by far the biggest source of renewable energy in Bangladesh, but only accounts for about 4.5% of its total generating capacity. The problem is that solar panels are either installed on rooftops or on the ground, but roof space is limited and ground systems take up land that could be used for farming or housing. “For land-scarce Bangladesh, balancing the needs of food and energy is critical,” said Sohanur Rahman, executive coordinator of YouthNet Global, a climate justice campaign group. Researchers are now looking at the emerging technology of “agrivoltaics” where crops and livestock share space with solar panels. The Bangladeshi development organization BRAC and research organization the Institute of Governance and Development (BIGD) this year launched a research project to mount solar panels above farmland in Manikganj, some 50 km west of the capital Dhaka. The project is funded by the H&M Foundation, a non-profit linked to the Swedish clothing brand H&M. Unlike India and Pakistan, which have built large photovoltaic power parks in arid regions, Bangladesh has little non-agricultural land available for utility-scale solar. Previous proposals for solar parks have been scrapped due to concerns over loss of land and livelihoods. But at Manikganj, solar panels are mounted more than 2 meters above the ground, allowing varying amounts of sunlight to filter through to the crops below. Researchers measure rainfall, wind speed and other microclimate data and will compare yields with nearby control plots to assess which panel height, spacing and crop combinations best balance food production and power generation. Farm workers are paid about $7 a day, a normal wage for farm workers Bangladesh, to grow rice, coriander, pumpkins, bottle gourds and onions. “The shade helps preserve soil moisture while also making it comfortable for workers during hot summer days,” saidBiswas, one of the farm workers. Shade-tolerant vegetables like ginger and turmeric have performed well in agrivoltaic pilots in Manikganj run by the German development agency GIZ as well as in Chuadanga in western Bangladesh by the Wave Foundation, a non-governmental organization (NGO) working on poverty and climate challenges. Rearing goats and poultry has also been tested in agrivoltaic experiments in Chuadanga. But farmers in Bangladesh are more interested in growing rice, the country’s main staple, which requires a lot of sunshine, so the ongoing project is focusing on how to grow rice under solar panels, said BIGD assistant professor Rohini Kamal. Flood-tolerant rice varieties are needed in low-lying lands like Manikganj that are submerged during the monsoon, while the solar mounting structures have to be robust enough to withstand the strong storms that sometimes hit these areas, he said. The economic viability of agrivoltaic systems depends on a number of variables. Although agrivoltaic systems usually cost more to install than conventional ground-mounted solar, a 2024 pilot study in Chuadanga estimated that revenue from both crops and electricity could shorten the payback period for the panels from five or six years, to about three years under favorable conditions. Panels that are lower and closely spaced are cheaper to build, but cast more shade, while higher and more widely spaced structures cost more, but may be better suited to sun-loving crops such as rice, said Mehedi Hasan Bappy, an agronomist working on the Manikganj project. The rice yield so far looks good, Bappy said, but more data from more crop cycles were needed. Workers on the project are paid a daily wage, while the electricity generated is used to irrigate the nearby farmland. Once connected to the national grid, the project could export its surplus electricity, but existing rules would need to change for farmers or operators to receive direct payments for power generated by solar panels on their land, Ms. Kamal said. To ensure farming communities benefit from such projects, agreements should spell out the land lease terms, payment and profit-sharing policies, said Dipal Chandra Barua, the chairman of Bright Green Energy Foundation, a Bangladeshi NGO that installs small-scale renewable energy systems in rural communities. For now, researchers are waiting to see whether the rice harvest can match the promise of the solar panels installed above the crops. If the model works, Ms. Kamal said, the harder test may be scaling up agrivoltaics with arrangements that allow solar power companies, farmers, landowners and rural workers to share the benefits fairly. — Thomson Reuters Foundation
Qcells took a significant step in expanding U.S. solar manufacturing by beginning solar cell production at its Cartersville, Georgia, facility. The facility will become the nation’s first and only vertically integrated solar factory, where all the major components of a solar panel, from ingots and wafers to the finished module, will be manufactured under one roof. The company expects to reach full operating capacity during the third quarter of 2026. Once the expansion is complete, the facility will become the largest operating solar cell factory in U.S. history. With the start of cell production, Qcells is advancing its strategy to build a national solar supply chain capable of reducing dependence on imported components. According to Andy Park, global CEO of Qcells, the project will allow the main components of a solar panel to be manufactured in Georgia. The initiative aims to offer greater price stability, supply availability, and product traceability for developers, energy companies, and industrial customers. Furthermore, vertical integration allows control of each stage of the production process, from the manufacture of ingots and wafers to the final assembly of solar modules. Currently, the module assembly line in Cartersville is operating at full capacity and producing approximately 16,700 solar panels per day. The company estimates that by the third quarter of 2026 the plant will produce 3.3 GW of ingots, wafers and solar cells annually, along with 3.5 GW of photovoltaic modules. The installed capacity will also be complemented by the Dalton, Georgia plant, whose expansion increased module production to 5.1 GW annually. Together, both facilities will reach a capacity of 8.6 GW per year, equivalent to approximately 47,000 panels per day. According to the company’s estimates, that production could supply enough energy for approximately 1.3 million US homes for a year. Qcells’ investment in Georgia will also have a significant effect on skilled manufacturing employment. The company expects the Cartersville and Dalton operations to generate approximately 4,000 jobs. Of that total, around 3,800 will be direct jobs in Bartow and Whitfield counties. This growth strengthens Georgia’s image as one of the leading solar manufacturing centers in the United States and contributes to the development of industrial capabilities linked to the energy transition. The modules manufactured in Cartersville will allow developers and asset owners to more easily access the incentives associated with domestic content contemplated in the Investment Tax Credit. By producing the main components of each module in the United States, projects will be able to more clearly demonstrate compliance with the requirements demanded by federal programs. Furthermore, domestic manufacturing reduces exposure to international logistical disruptions, tariff volatility, and equipment supply delays, factors that have affected the solar sector in recent years. The Cartersville plant represents the first facility of its kind built in the United States in more than a decade. It will also house the largest ingot and wafer production plant developed to date in the country. Thanks to this infrastructure, Qcells seeks to strengthen an integrated solar manufacturing platform capable of supplying residential, commercial, industrial and utility projects using locally produced components. The company believes that the growing demand for solar equipment manufactured in the United States will continue to promote new investments in production capacity, strengthening the competitiveness of the national solar industry and expanding development opportunities for the country’s energy supply chain. Source and photo:Us.qcells Analyst and writer of news specialized in industrial technology, with a solid background in engineering. My work focuses on curating and synthesizing complex information, transforming technical advances and regulatory changes into journalistic reports. The GreenH2Atlantic project received conditional environmental approval to develop a 100 MW green hydrogen plant in Sines. ExxonMobil awarded Shearwater a DAS seismic program to monitor the Yellowtail offshore development in Guyana. Serica expands its offshore portfolio with stakes in Catcher and Golden Eagle in the North Sea. How PTFE improves sealing in valves and gaskets, reduces industrial leaks, and supports critical asset integrity systems. Planning in accordance with ISO 9001:2015 transforms quality into a driver of resilience, requiring an understanding of the organizational context to avoid reactive decisions. NACE MR0175 establishes material selection requirements to prevent H₂S-induced cracking in sour service environments. Its application is essential for protecting the integrity of pipelines, vessels, and critical equipment in the oil and gas industry. The integration of Apparition will optimize seismic studies and improve the visualization of deep structures. PXGEO and Equinor begin trials in Norway to validate subsea inspections using autonomous technology. The new infrastructure expands gas supply and strengthens the development of Port Arthur LNG on the Gulf Coast. INSPENET LLC Houston, TX 77018 hola@inspenet.com
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By: USA Today Network//June 12, 2026// By DUKE BEHNKE USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect The rooftop solar array planned for the Appleton Public Library is about to double in size.
The 2026 Appleton budget allocated $350,000 for the solar array, which is a collection of solar panels that are wired together to generate electricity. The city Finance Committee unanimously recommended on June 8 that another $350,000 be transferred to the project. Both amounts would be drawn from a $2.5 million elective pay reimbursement that Appleton received through the federal Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 for the installation of the library’s geothermal system for heating and cooling.
“We weren’t expecting quite that much, so that was really nice to see,” Parks and Recreation Director Tom Flick said of the federal money. The $700,000 will pay for the installation of a 280-kilowatt solar system, estimated to cost $675,000, and for targeted energy-efficiency adjustments and upgrades at the library, estimated to cost $25,000. Flick said Appleton expects to receive a $200,000 rebate on the solar array, lowering the net cost to $475,000. The solar array and efficiency upgrades will reduce the library’s utility costs by an estimated $72,100 annually, resulting in payback period of 6.9 years. The solar panels have an estimated life of 30 years. If the city were to stay with a smaller $350,000 solar array, the savings would be $31,500 annually, and the payback period would be 7.8 years. Appleton Project & Resiliency Manager Steven Schrage said the library’s solar system will include about 500 solar panels and will generate about 364,000 kilowatt-hours annually. That’s the equivalent of powering about 35 homes, he said. The Common Council will consider the $350,000 transfer on June 17. “While it does have an upfront cost, it’s going to allow us to have lower operational costs and does really have the benefit both financial as well as the environmental impact,” council member Brad Firkus said. With council approval, Schrage said the installation could begin later this year, depending on the lead time for the solar panels. “I would love to have it done by the end of the year, but that’s being really optimistic,” Schrage told The Post-Crescent. A rooftop solar array was part of the planning for the new library, which opened in 2025, but it wasn’t included in the construction. Early on, officials had expected We Energies would fund, own and maintain the solar array as part of the company’s Solar Now program, but the program was at full capacity, and the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin voted not to expand it. The new solar array will be owned by the city. Flick said the library construction finished $300,000 to $400,000 over its $40.4 million budget. The money received through the Inflation Reduction Act will cover the overrun. “The rest of the money was not allocated to go toward any specific project or improvement” other than the solar array, Flick said. Share this! Tom Boldt, who joined the family business in 1976, officially retired in June. He was among the fourth generat[…] June 12, 2026 Maxon Industries, Inc. will buy land from the city to support a $2.8 million expansion, where it plans to more[…] June 11, 2026 A hotel planned for downtown Milwaukee’s west side is no longer happening, the owner of the proposed project s[…] June 11, 2026 A delayed affordable apartment building planned for Milwaukee’s Harbor District is proceeding, despite not sec[…] June 10, 2026 Glendale officials paused zoning changes for plans to redevelop the North Shore Library, sharing concerns over[…] June 10, 2026 Kaeding Development Group’s 12-story, 200-unit apartment building at 234 S. Water St. in Milwaukee’s Third War[…] June 9, 2026 Sign up for your daily digest of The Daily Reporter Daily News.
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Scientists are always pushing the boundaries of solar cell efficiency – how much of the available sunshine gets turned into electricity – and a new approach to the technology has resulted in an astonishingly high 130 percent ‘quantum yield‘. It’s important to note that this is a quantum-level energy return, so we’re not talking about a solar panel converting sunlight into electricity at a 130 percent rate. However, the breakthrough is an efficiency improvement in terms of how often a specific event occurs per photon absorbed by the system. To break through the 100 percent barrier, the new approach splits the energy harvested from a single incoming light photon into two, which then powers two excited states (known as excitons) in the receiving material. It’s a process known as singlet fission, and as the international team behind the research explains, it prevents excess energy from being lost as heat. That loss is part of the reason that solar cells typically max out at around the 33 percent mark in terms of overall efficiency, a restriction known as the Shockley-Queisser limit. “We have two main strategies to break through this limit,” says chemist Yoichi Sasaki, from Kyushu University in Japan. “One is to convert lower-energy infrared photons into higher-energy visible photons. The other, what we explore here, is to use singlet fission to generate two excitons from a single exciton photon.” The researchers used an organic molecule called tetracene to act as the splitting material here, through which singlet fission can work. Its properties make it suitable for splitting one high-energy packet into two lower-energy packets through electron excitation. Singlet fission isn’t a completely new concept, though, and is only half of the story here. A major stumbling block in previous experiments had been giving singlet fission enough time to work before the energy was lost or transferred elsewhere. This is where the metallic element molybdenum comes in, again chosen for its particular properties. By mixing it with tetracene, the team was able to catch the split excitons in the molybdenum compound. At the tiniest quantum level, the molybdenum acts as what’s called a spin-flip emitter. First, it locks in energy, and then it uses a quantum spin-flip to turn the invisible states into light. That gave the team the breakthrough result: 1.3 molybdenum-based metal complexes excited per photon absorbed. “The energy can be easily ‘stolen’ by a mechanism called Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) before multiplication occurs,” says Sasaki. “We therefore needed an energy acceptor that selectively captures the multiplied triplet excitons after fission.” It’s worth emphasizing again that these are early lab tests. The next steps are to convert the liquid solution used here into a solid form that can be fitted to a solar panel, reliably and effectively – which the researchers themselves admit will be quite a challenge. There’s also the issue of the molybdenum complexes hanging onto the energy long enough for it to be useful, as well as capturing it in the first place. This “decay process” is something else the study addresses. Related: New Solar Panels Can Heal Themselves From Damage in Space However, those future practical concerns shouldn’t take away from the excitement of the research: It clearly sets out a path towards solar panels that can go above and beyond the efficiency limits of today, and there are multiple ways that this proof-of-concept can be tweaked and experimented with going forward. With solar energy a vital part of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels and slowing down climate change, being able to substantially improve conversion rates on solar panels would potentially be transformative for the energy industry – especially when paired with new energy storage mechanisms. “This work represents a significant step toward developing exciton/photon amplification materials by combining singlet fission materials with transition-metal complexes, advancing the application of singlet fission beyond conventional limitations,” write the researchers in their paper. The research has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Sunshine early followed by cloudy skies this afternoon. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. High 89F. Winds SSW at 10 to 15 mph.. Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. A stray shower or thunderstorm is possible. Low around 60F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph. Updated: June 14, 2026 @ 11:13 am
The Rockingham County Board of Supervisors rejected a proposal to create a solar farm near Timberville at a meeting Wednesday evening. Summit Ridge Energy, a solar developer based in Arlington, requested a special use permit to build a solar farm on land zoned for agriculture near the Legion Hills neighborhood, about a quarter-mile from Plains Elementary School. The board of supervisors voted 4-0 to deny the request. Board chair Leila Longcor was absent. Several Timberville residents came to oppose the request. Many were residents of the Legion Hills neighborhood and said they were concerned that stormwater runoff or other pollution could negatively impact the area’s soil, which is prime for agricultural use. David Mewellski, who lives in Legion Hills, said the work required to build the solar farm would be slowed by the area’s rocky terrain. He also said that if the board approved the project, it would run counter to the county’s stated goal of supporting local agriculture. “They’re not going to be able to just pound poles in the ground,” Mewellski said. “The property they’re planning on putting it on is on nothing but rock. This is going to be, literally, in my backyard.” Jim Johnson, of Timberville, said solar projects also tend to use large quantities of municipal water. “I’ve also seen some of these projects; what they don’t say upfront is that they require substantial amounts of municipal water, because they have to keep the system cool to keep it running properly.” Johnson said. Don Driver, who owns a farm about 150 feet away from the proposed solar site, was worried about how the project could affect property values in the area. “You hear a lot of folks talking about how nice it is to see the cattle, the corn fields and so forth,” Driver said. “Those are all values that are important to us. I began wondering, a little down the road from that, how do those values then turn into dollars?” Driver cited a Virginia Tech study showing that homes and other real estate near solar projects often lose more value than at other sites, which could result in less revenue for the county. Ben Gillespie, director of project development for Summit Ridge, said there would be no significant impact on property values in the area. “We have a third-party analysis, a comprehensive tool,” Gillespie said. “They concluded that the proximity to solar farms does not negatively change the property values of properties close to the project.” The request came before the board shortly after the opening of a controversial battery facility near Craney Island Road. Vice Chair Matt Dale was critical of Summit Ridge, asking the applicant’s representatives whether they planned to use new state regulations to convert the solar site into a battery facility. After the meeting, Dale also questioned the motives of Dewey Ritchie, supervisor for District One, which includes Timberville and the site for the proposed solar farm. Dale said Ritchie had been a strong supporter of agriculture in the past, but now was attending openings for solar and battery facilities. “I was happy that Mr. Ritchie decided to motion to deny this,” Dale said. “However, I didn’t think that was going to happen, because he has voted in favor of all 466 acres worth of large solar facilities in the county. This morning, he spoke at the ribbon-cutting for the largest battery storage facility on the east coast, which is 24 acres worth of batteries.” Dale criticized Ritchie for supporting utility-scale energy storage and solar power projects while not supporting additional funding for Rockingham County Fire and Rescue, which he said could struggle to contain a fire at a facility like the one on Craney Island Road. “Our firefighters have neither the tools, training, nor resources to contain such an emergency on a parcel that size,” Dale said. “Mr. Ritchie is highly against using additional resources to fund anything, as evidenced by his disposition during our budgeting process and tax rate hearing. My question is: why are you in favor of large-scale utility solar and large battery installations while allegedly being in favor of our farming communities and public safety? That doesn’t add up.” Ritchie could not be reached for comment. Contact Richard H. Hronik III at rhronik@dnronline.com, 540-208-3278, or on Twitter @rhronikDNR An unscientific take on an issue in the news. A YouTuber and his wife recently ended a pregnancy after a Down syndrome diagnosis, kicking off intense ethical debates on social media. Does terminating a Down syndrome fetus constitute eugenics? Find the best the Valley has to offer, as voted in the Best of the Valley, with Valley Hometown Guru. For Sale: Matching couch & love seat, $250. 540-246-4325 after 5pm. 2016 Toyotal P/U 4×4, V6, automatic, off-road pkg, 111K miles, extra cab, rear access doors, $18,000 or $17,000 cash.… Church Street, Timberville Older Victorian home for the fixer-upper loaded with charm! Sitting on 1.457 acres with pu… Lot E, Church Street, Timberville 0.906 acre building lot zoned for duplex lots. Lots of possibilities for this prope… Your browser is out of date and potentially vulnerable to security risks. We recommend switching to one of the following browsers:
By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Curating Life’s Luxuries Since 1976 Subscribe for full access to Robb Report. Includes the digital edition. Sign up for our newsletter and go inside a world of luxury. By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy. We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Digital Editor Pioneer Yachts will make a very quiet entry into the marine industry next month. The new German shipyard, founded by engineer and entrepreneur Mike Frank earlier this year, has announced that the first unit of its new solar-electric catamaran is entering the final stages of construction. The inaugural PY60, christened Pioneer One, is set to hit the water in July, with a full debut scheduled for the Cannes Yachting Festival in September.
Frank established Pioneer with the goal of creating a reliable solar-electric yacht for continuous use at sea. Rather than convert a traditional motor yacht to electric propulsion, the team developed a unique catamaran centered on efficiency, autonomy, and simplicity. The practical platform was designed around energy generation and storage, with the propulsion system a clear focus, rather than an afterthought. Designed by two Italian firms—Cossutti & Ganz for the exterior, Micheletti + Partners for the interior—but engineered and built in Germany, the 60-footer balances form and function. It combines advanced German tech with elegant Italian style for an upscale emissions-free cruising experience. The yacht features an expansive solar roof that generates clean, green energy from the sun. That power is stored within the onboard battery banks and used to run the electric propulsion system or the hotel load. Pioneer says the “48-volt electrical backbone” is designed to support long-term operation at sea. The multihull can run purely on electricity for “typical cruising distances,” though the yard didn’t give an exact range. Diesel generators can, of course, kick in if more grunt is needed. The hull and superstructure were engineered specifically to support the propulsion system, with designs that reduce energy consumption while improving performance and comfort. The PY60 can smoothly and quietly sail to a top speed of 11 knots and a cruising speed of 7.5 knots. Simplified onboard systems and intuitive controls mean the owner can handle the yacht, too, reducing the need for a professional crew.
As for the interior, the multihull features what Pioneer says is the largest cockpit door in its class, which creates a seamless connection between the aft deck and salon. The expansive, single-level living area is decked out with large panoramic windows that invite light in and provide views out. Pioneer One will double as a flagship and a demonstrator. Frank plans to use the yacht personally, with his own experiences shaping future models. “Pioneer One will be more than a showcase yacht; it will become our operational reference platform,” Frank said in a statement. “By using the yacht ourselves and monitoring its performance under real conditions, we can continue refining the concept and ensure that future boats are shaped by practical experience.” Pioneer One will be on show at Cannes from September 8 to 13. Digital Editor Rachel Cormack is a digital editor at Robb Report. She cut her teeth writing for HuffPost, Concrete Playground, and several other online publications in Australia, before moving to New York at the… July 18-20, 2026 Join Robb Report at Crockfords Las Vegas to experience the electric energy of a World Cup watch party like no other.
Avaada Group is set to begin operations at its state-of-the-art solar cell manufacturing facility in Nagpur, marking a significant milestone in India’s journey toward self-reliance in renewable energy manufacturing. The upcoming facility, developed by Avaada Electro, will become the country’s largest solar cell manufacturing plant, further strengthening India’s domestic solar supply chain and clean energy ambitions. Largest Solar Cell Production Capacity in India The facility will have a solar cell manufacturing capacity capable of supporting the generation of 6,000 MW of solar power. This scale makes it the largest solar cell production unit currently being established in India. The project forms a key component of Avaada’s broader strategy to create a fully integrated solar manufacturing ecosystem and reduce the industry’s dependence on imports. Building a Fully Integrated Solar Manufacturing Hub The Nagpur complex already houses a solar module manufacturing facility with a capacity of 7,000 MW. Going forward, Avaada plans to progressively expand the site by adding polysilicon, ingot, wafer and cell manufacturing capabilities over the next year. As a result, the company aims to establish a complete value chain—from ingot production to finished solar modules—by December 2026. This integrated approach will not only enhance manufacturing efficiency but also strengthen supply chain resilience for India’s rapidly growing solar sector. Expanding Localisation Through Solar Glass Manufacturing In addition to expanding upstream manufacturing capabilities, Avaada is planning to set up a dedicated solar glass manufacturing unit in Nagpur. The move will further localise critical components used in solar module production, helping the company reduce import dependence while supporting the government’s “Make in India” and clean energy initiatives. Investment Fuels Growth The integrated solar manufacturing project represents a total planned investment of approximately ₹13,000 crore. Of this, nearly ₹5,000 crore has already been invested in developing the manufacturing infrastructure and associated facilities. As reported by projectstoday.ai, the substantial investment underscores Avaada’s commitment to creating a world-class renewable energy manufacturing platform in India. By combining large-scale manufacturing, supply chain integration and advanced solar technologies, the company aims to play a pivotal role in India’s transition toward a sustainable and energy-secure future.
MUSCAT, JUNE 13 Chinese investors unveiled ambitious plans to establish a major solar manufacturing complex and a regional cybersecurity hub in Oman, underscoring growing international confidence in the Sultanate of Oman's industrial, digital and clean-energy ambitions under Oman Vision 2040. The announcements were made during the Oman Future Fund (FFO) investment showcase on Tuesday, where officials from Orion Solar and XCyber outlined projects that are expected to strengthen Oman’s position in renewable energy manufacturing and digital resilience while creating high-value employment opportunities. Speaking at the event, Mark Jiang Pengjing, Deputy General Manager of Orion Solar, said the company had chosen Oman as the location for one of its most significant overseas investments because of the country’s clear vision, commitment to sustainability and favourable investment environment. “In a world full of opportunities, we have chosen Oman because we firmly believe it will be one of the greatest success stories of the next decade,” Pengjing said. The Orion Solar project, one of the largest industrial investments announced by the Fund, involves the establishment of an integrated solar cell and module manufacturing facility in Sohar Freezone. According to project details presented during the event, the venture will involve an investment of approximately RO 220 million and produce 6 gigawatts of solar cells and 3 gigawatts of solar panels annually. “This is far more than an ordinary factory. It will serve as a powerhouse of clean-energy innovation and one of the largest and most advanced facilities of its kind across the globe,” Pengjing said. He added that the project would create thousands of jobs, support technology transfer and generate more than RO 20 million annually in local procurement spending. “We are not only manufacturing high-quality products, we are building industry capabilities, empowering future opportunities and shaping a new era of the renewable energy industry right here in Oman,” he noted. The company also pledged to collaborate closely with local universities, research institutions and industries to develop skills, knowledge and expertise in renewable energy technologies. Meanwhile, cybersecurity firm XCyber announced plans to strengthen Oman’s digital security ecosystem through investments in sovereign cybersecurity capabilities, local talent development and advanced AI-powered security solutions. Fan Zhang, Co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer of XCyber, described Oman as an ideal location for the company’s regional expansion, citing the country’s rapid economic transformation and commitment to digital development. “As a company backed by OIA, we are committed to building a world-class security hub right here,” Zhang said. XCyber, the international arm of China’s QAX cybersecurity group, recently joined the Oman Investment Authority ecosystem through a partnership with EW Partners and the Future Fund Oman. The company outlined a three-pronged strategy focused on establishing national-level cybersecurity monitoring capabilities, developing localised cybersecurity products and strengthening Oman-based cybersecurity services. “Our collaboration with OIA will focus on building national-level cybersecurity and monitoring capability, developing localised cybersecurity products and strengthening localised cybersecurity service capabilities,” Zhang said. She revealed plans to establish local security operations centres, digital forensic laboratories and emergency response capabilities to help Oman manage cyber threats independently while protecting critical infrastructure. “We are not just operating here in Oman; we are supporting Oman, serving Oman and growing with Oman,” Zhang added. The projects reflect the Future Fund Oman's strategy of attracting foreign direct investment into strategic sectors while promoting technology transfer, industrial localisation and job creation. Together, the solar and cybersecurity ventures demonstrate how Oman is leveraging international partnerships to accelerate its transition towards a diversified, knowledge-based economy centred on clean energy, advanced manufacturing and digital innovation. Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
Solarize Lexington, a city program that helps homeowners install discounted solar panels on their roof is expanding to five other counties. That includes Clark, Scott, Bourbon, Jessamine and Woodford, all within the wider Lexington-Fayette County Metropolitan Statistical Area. Solarize Lexington originally launched in 2023 to help homeowners lower their energy costs and help them make the switch to renewables. “We in the city have a goal of reducing our greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050. That’s something that’s community wide and it takes all of us doing whatever we can toward that,” said Jada Walker Griggs, Lexington’s senior sustainability program manager. It’s the third year of the program after a pause in 2025, brought about by a delay with the memorandum of understanding with the Kentucky Solar Energy Society. Instead, interested homeowners were referred to the solar program in Boyle County. The program is back Lexington this year and is offering a discount rate of 20% on parts and installation. Those interested can fill out an online survey to see if their home’s roof can accommodate solar. Lexington says it’s partnering with Solar Energy Solutions as its only solar installer, and is also warning homeowners about potential solar scams. “We will not call you or show up at your door unless you have filled out the program interest form, which is online,” Griggs said. Solarize Lexington is open to homeowners, as well as nonprofits, small businesses and places of worship. The deadline to apply is Oct. 2 and all contracts must be completed by Oct. 16. Installation must be complete by the end of the year. The online survey can be found here.
Photo from Renogy.com Renogy expands its solar lineup with advanced N-type bifacial panels designed to improve energy yield, efficiency, and long-term solar performance. ONTARIO, CA, UNITED STATES, June 14, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — As the solar industry continues its transition toward higher-efficiency technologies, bifacial solar panels are gaining increasing attention across residential, commercial, and off-grid energy markets. Originally developed and widely deployed in utility-scale solar farms, bifacial technology was designed to maximize energy yield by capturing sunlight from both the front and rear sides of solar modules. However, its application in smaller-scale and mobile energy systems has only emerged more recently as manufacturing processes have matured and costs have declined. Renogy was among the early pioneers to explore the application of bifacial solar technology in the off-grid energy sector. In 2023, the company introduced bifacial solar panels into off-grid and mobile power applications as a market exploration initiative, moving beyond the traditional utility-scale use case. The response from the market was highly positive. Early adoption was particularly strong in marine applications, where 100W and 200W compact bifacial modules gained traction due to their flexible installation configurations and ability to maximize rear-side light capture from reflective water surfaces. In parallel, RV and overlanding users—many of whom rely on long-term off-grid camping and stationary parking scenarios—began adopting bifacial panels to enhance energy independence. These users often install solar panels on vehicle rooftops with adjustable mounting brackets, allowing them to optimize tilt angles when parked to maximize solar exposure and overall energy generation. According to Renogy’s engineering team at its manufacturing facility, early field data played a critical role in validating this adoption trend. “When we first introduced bifacial panels for off-grid use in 2023, we were primarily testing whether real-world environments like RV rooftops and marine decks could actually benefit from rear-side energy capture,” said a Renogy factory technical engineer. “The feedback was immediate—especially from marine users and long-stay RV campers. Installation flexibility and reflected light conditions made a measurable difference in daily energy output.” Over the past three years, continuous market feedback, combined with advancements in solar cell efficiency and manufacturing maturity, has significantly improved the performance and cost structure of bifacial technology. As a result, Renogy has expanded its investment in research and production capacity, leading to the development of a new generation of N-Type bifacial solar panels. Compared with the previous generation, the latest series, offered in 100W, 200W, 320W, and 400W variants, delivers improved conversion efficiency and a more competitive cost-performance ratio, making bifacial technology more accessible to a broader range of off-grid and mobile energy users. This evolution reflects not only technological advancement but also the growing demand from real-world users seeking reliable, high-efficiency solar solutions for demanding environments. The launch of Renogy’s next-generation N-Type bifacial solar panel series represents the company’s continued commitment to translating field experience into product innovation, supporting applications across RV, marine, residential, and off-grid energy systems.
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Folk-pop favorite Noah Kahan is no stranger to writing and singing about his hometown of Strafford, Vermont. Whether he’s crooning about small town delights on “Dan,” or wistfully writing about seasonal depression on “Stick Season,” the artist evokes plenty of Northeastern imagery in his songs. His newest album, “The Great Divide” features a song called “Haircut,” about how he imagines people responding to his return home after his many career successes on the road. In the second verse of “Haircut,” Kahan sings from the perspective of his Strafford neighbors: “For two hundred years, we laid bricks in the dirt, put solar in the copper mines,” he warbles. While plenty of fans were happy to just sing along to the fiddle-ridden tune, others became curious: What is this solar power project Kahan speaks of? Eagle-eyed fans — and Genius contributors — believe he is referencing the Elizabeth Mine in Strafford, a mine that was opened after the discovery of ore in 1793, yielding 100 million pounds of ore throughout Vermont’s rich mining history. However, the economic boon of such mining also had grave environmental and health impacts, as workers in the late 1800s had to roast the copper ore to make it easier to smelt, burning off iron and sulphur fumes. “Workers tended a number of heaps on the roast beds, working among heavy sulphur fumes,” a historical report from the city of Strafford explained. “The sulphurous gases killed the vegetation in the surrounding environment, a fairly common occurrence in such mining districts until better methods were developed to capture the fumes or eliminate the need for roasting.” Although mining practices improved over time, the Elizabeth Mine still posed great risk to miners and the surrounding environment, and it was finally closed in 1958, following longstanding public health concerns. But it still had an impact on generations of Vermonters. By the early 2000s, reporting from The Nature Conservancy explained, “the local river was already suffering.” “A five-mile stretch of the Ompompanoosuc had more than 10,000 times the acceptable amount of copper. Fish counts were low, and the layer of sediment at the bottom of the river that is usually host to tiny bugs and other organisms was showing little life,” The Nature Conservancy reported. “One family had elevated levels of heavy metals in their drinking well, posing a threat to their health.” So, a half-century after the mine was closed, in 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency spent about two decades and over $100 million in federal money on the cleanup process to stabilize the mine’s dam and clear toxic waste from waterways. It was a historic restoration. “In 2014, because of the EPA cleanup efforts, the State of Vermont delisted several nearby waterbodies from the Clean Water Act’s ‘Impaired Waters List’ based on the return of a healthy benthic and fish community,” the city of Strafford explains on its website. “The cleanup also replaced eight acres of toxic wetlands with 15 acres of healthy wetlands and reduced the iron load to receiving bodies of water from 800 pounds per day to one-tenth of a pound per day.” But perhaps the biggest climate victory was the transformation of the mining site into a solar field. Local farmer John Freitag told The Nature Conservancy that it was another Strafford resident, Dori Wolfe, known to be a staunch solar advocate, who pushed to make it happen. “Dori said that what we really needed to do was cover the Elizabeth Mine with solar panels,” Freitag said. “The Elizabeth Mine gave Strafford so much of its character. Adding solar panels would honor the mine’s history.” And Dori was right. “A solar project could be good for Vermont and good for Strafford,” Freitag said. “Vermont has renewable energy requirements, but the sites that are easy to develop are on farm fields. If this mine were used for solar, it would preserve farms and forests. And we could use the tax revenue from the project to improve the schools, help lower property taxes or fix up the roads. Roads can get pretty bad around here.” After convincing local leaders and hesitant neighbors, the project was approved, and 20,000 solar panels were installed across the 45-acre site formerly home to the Elizabeth Mine in 2021. Now, it generates enough power for every home for Strafford’s 1,100 residents — and then some. “This 20,000-panel solar field generates an average of 8.7 million kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, enough to power 1,333 typical Vermont homes,” the city writes on its website, “and offsets the generation of 7,136 tons of carbon dioxide greenhouse gas.” Now, Freitag is proud of his town’s power — and it seems Kahan is, too. “It’s not always perfect, but communities can work with federal officials and have something positive come out of it,” Freitag told The Nature Conservancy in 2024. “The Elizabeth Mine is an excellent model for putting solar in the right place, and it’s applicable to many other mines. Now my hope is that we can help other community leaders do the same.” With a Billboard No. 1 debut for “The Great Divide” in April — and all 21 songs from the album charting on the Hot 100 — hopefully, this Strafford Easter egg can inspire a surge of support for renewable energy, too. You may also like: L.L. Bean donates $100k to Noah Kahan's Busyhead Project: 'It's going to make a huge difference' Header images courtesy of Universal Music Group and the City of Strafford Negativity is everywhere — but you can choose a different story. The Goodnewspaper brings a monthly dose of hope, delivered straight to your door. Your first issue is free (just $1 shipping).
Paul Irby, senior project development manager for Dimension Energy of Atlanta, goes over details of a commercial solar project in Jerseyville. JERSEYVILLE — City Council has unanimously passed three ordinances to annex a tract of land along Illinois Route 16 for a commercial solar project. The property owners will sell the land for the solar farm to Dimension Energy of Atlanta. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Based on a presentation this week, the commercial solar project is expected to generate $531,028 in tax revenue for the city over three decades. The company plans to use 20 acres of the 25-acre parcel, and the solar energy produced is expected to power 800 homes. The annexation agreement also includes a $650,000 contribution from the developers to the city. After the council approved the minutes from its last meeting on May 26 and the bills as presented for June 9, Mayor Kevin Stork opened a public hearing on the solar project. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Attorney Nick Standiford of Schain Banks Kenny & Schwartz. law firm in Chicago spoke first, walking council members through the steps previously taken to get the solar project off the ground. He introduced Chad Bartels of Edwardsville, one of the property owners who will sell the land for the solar farm to Dimension Energy of Atlanta; the agent for the company is Cogency Global of Springfield. “His grandparents owned the property, and he’s one of the landowners who signed the petition for annexation,” Standiford said of Bartels. Bartels, 54, said his grandfather bought the property sometime in the 1930s. He said he would be pleased to see the land, currently being farmed, used to produce electricity. “This would be something to put it to good use, and if it doesn’t work out, it’s an easy thing to clean up and do something else,” he said. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Standiford noted his firm used some of Jerseyville’s previous annexation agreements as a template for the deal with Dimension Energy. “We basically used what the city had already done, and we modified it for a solar farm,” Standiford said. “The key to this one, the big difference, is we’re only wanting to be annexed to the city if we go forward with the purchase of this property.” Standiford also noted the city will need to issue a special-use permit for the solar facility. “I think this project is good for drainage,” he said. “These solar farms are good for strengthening the grid and helping enhance electricity in the area, and to make it so that there are not going to be as many blackouts in the future, things like that. And it’s good for Jerseyville.” Advertisement Article continues below this ad Paul Irby, senior project development manager for Dimension Energy, gave a slide presentation showing the location and layout of the proposed installation. He said the company would use about 20 acres of the 25-acre parcel. Irby said the solar farm will be capable of generating 3.75 megawatts of AC electricity — enough to supply the power needs of 800 homes — when completed, and that output will be supplied to the grid. Irby emphasized Dimension Energy will not only be the developer of the project but also intends to be the long-term operator of the facility. He described Dimension’s plans to meet the city’s requirements for screening vegetation to reduce the solar farm's visibility to neighbors and passing motorists. The plans call for using evergreens and conifers on three sides of the tract to provide the vegetative screen. Advertisement Article continues below this ad A pollinator-friendly seed mix using native species of grasses and wildflowers will be planted under the solar panels themselves, Irby said. “With these native species, they have much deeper root systems than soybeans and corn, so they provide a lot more in terms of soil stability,” he said. “So as stormwater comes in, it’s better absorbed.” Irby also detailed the Agricultural Impact Limitation Agreement the developers have signed with the Illinois Department of Agriculture, which the state requires to preserve the integrity of any agricultural land affected by the construction and deconstruction of a commercial solar energy facility. The Dimension Energy representative pointed out that the project won’t require municipal services such as water and sewer. Advertisement Article continues below this ad Irby also displayed a slide showing the estimated tax revenues the city of Jerseyville could expect to receive from the tract over the next 30 years: $64,702 with no changes to the land use, whereas the same property with the commercial solar project would be expected to generate $531,028 in tax revenues for the city over three decades. Standiford pointed out the estimate uses extrapolated data based on recent trends in property tax rate increases for the property. The annexation agreement also includes a $650,000 contribution from the developers to the city, Irby said. “We’re beefing up the benefits that we’re going to bring locally,” he said. “So, the big headline is this $650,000 contribution. Having done a couple of these, I will say it’s the biggest one we’ve ever done.” Advertisement Article continues below this ad Following the public hearing, council voted unanimously to approve three ordinances: authorizing the annexation agreement, rezoning the property to M-2 manufacturing, and granting a special-use permit. Before the meeting, Stork said a number of people turned out earlier for Planning and Zoning Committee meetings about the project, so he hadn’t expected any opposition at the City Council meeting. No one spoke against the plan at this week's meeting. “As of June 1, the state really limits what we can do as a town, how we can limit the growth,” Stork said in his office ahead of the meeting. “So, the state sort of took some of our power away. This was a project that came in the midst of that change. We felt like, at this point, we can control a little more about the project. We can control the setbacks, we can control the greenery, we can set some expectations, whereas later on down the road, we won’t have a lot of that control.” Advertisement Article continues below this ad The city then wouldn’t be able to set any restrictions more stringent than state rules, he said. Steve Whitworth is a reporter with The Telegraph who brings 40 years of experience in news reporting, writing, editing and public relations. He previously worked at The Telegraph in a variety of reporting and editing roles from 1996 to 2013. After a 10-year stint with a St. Louis public relations firm, he has returned to news, his first love. Whitworth has lived in Glen Carbon, Illinois, for nearly 30 years. His hobbies include swimming laps, birdwatching, attending concerts and spending time with his 12-year-old Maltese-Pomeranian mix, Daisy. About Contact Services Account
Controversial plans for a huge solar farm on land in Doncaster and Rotherham have taken a step forward. A formal application has been made by Whitestone Net Zero for a solar farm covering areas near Conisbrough, Ulley and Harthill with Woodall. It was originally projected to cover 3,500 acres (5.5sq miles) but Whitestone said it had made "significant changes to the project design" following two rounds of consultation. Doncaster and Rotherham councils have both objected and Rother Valley MP Jake Richards said he would fight the application "tooth and nail" on behalf his constituents. The Planning Inspectorate has until 8 July to decide on the application, which could be accepted for examination, not accepted, or withdrawn by the applicant. There is no opportunity to make comments on the application at this stage. If it is accepted, it will progress to the pre-examination stage as part of a lengthy planning process. Labour MP Richards said: "The vast majority of my constituents are not against renewable energy but the sheer scale of this project will be a scar across the gorgeous countryside that we all enjoy in South Yorkshire. "A lot of communities are really worried about these plans. "What has essentially started now is the formal process. "During those first two rounds of consultation, I always objected to the proposal but I was also trying to work with the developer to make sure the proposal was as good as it could be. "However, we've reached a new stage now because this is the formal application and the clock is ticking for a decision in the next 18 months or so. "My attitude has hardened as the plans I've seen are nowhere near appropriate for the area and I'll be fighting it tooth and nail from now on." Whitestone said the area it was looking to develop was now 37% smaller than the original proposals. It said: "We presented our initial proposals in autumn 2024 during the first consultation. "This original masterplan presented all of the land that we were considering to include in the project and those areas that could be used for solar panels and other infrastructure, known as the developable area. "In response to feedback from that consultation, we reduced these areas by a quarter to create offsets around homes, villages and public rights of way. "After the second consultation in autumn 2025, we responded to feedback and further reduced these areas around homes, villages and environmentally sensitive locations." Whitestone said new energy projects could only connect into the National Grid at locations where there was available capacity, such as Brinsworth. Once it had secured the grid connection agreement, it looked for land nearby that would be suitable for solar. Listen to highlights from South Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North Drivers can now park for free for one hour in seven of Doncaster Council’s city centre car parks. Mud maiden has been created with funding to encourage more physical activity at the woodland site. Karen Hathaway quit her job and became author Wren Charles during the menopause. Dylan Phelan encouraged Travis Dyer's suicide 'out of morbid curiosity', prosecutors say. Street sign errors from around England and Wales have often attracted ridicule and amusing responses. Copyright 2026 BBC. All rights reserved. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read about our approach to external linking.
By: Luis Reyes Published: Jun 13, at 12:00pm ET Making green hydrogen has always been a two-machine job. You put up solar panels to turn sunlight into electricity, then you feed that electricity into an electrolyzer that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. Both machines cost serious money, both need maintenance, and the second one usually wants a grid connection, which quietly undercuts the whole “energy independence” sales pitch. Then a four-person spin-off from Germany’s Karlsruhe Institute of Technology showed up at Hannover Messe this spring and said you can fire the middleman. The startup is called Photreon, and its product is a photoreactor panel that takes in sunlight and water and gives back hydrogen directly. No electrolyzer, no electricity consumed anywhere in the process, no grid. The team brought a working 1-square-meter prototype (about 11 square feet) to the KIT booth at the fair, which ran April 20 to 24, and KIT announced it has filed a patent application for the panel’s internal geometry. If you have ever wondered why nobody just builds a panel that makes fuel instead of electricity, the short answer is that plenty of people have tried. The longer answer is what makes this one worth your five minutes. The trick is a process called photocatalysis, and it is genuinely different from what happens on your neighbor’s roof. A photovoltaic panel absorbs light and converts it into electric current. Photreon’s panel absorbs light with specially engineered light-sensitive materials that kick electrons into an excited state, and those charged-up electrons drive a chemical reaction on the spot: water molecules get split into hydrogen and oxygen right there in the panel. The energy never takes the form of electricity at any point. Sunlight becomes chemical fuel in a single step. According to co-founder Paul Kant, a researcher at KIT’s Institute for Micro Process Engineering, the design skips the detour through electrolysis entirely and produces chemical energy straight from sun and water. The part KIT actually filed the patent application on is the reactor’s internal geometry, which Kant says was engineered so that three jobs happen at once inside the panel: light gets guided onto the active material, the water-splitting reaction runs, and the gases produced get pulled out efficiently. That last job matters more than it sounds. A panel that makes hydrogen but can’t collect it cleanly is a science fair project, and the field has produced plenty of those. Maren Cordts, the other co-founder out of the same KIT institute, frames the payoff in system terms: one panel replaces both the photovoltaic array and the electrolyzer, which cuts cost and complexity in one move. Considering that electrolyzers lean on expensive catalyst metals like iridium and platinum, an entire research industry exists just to shave the precious metals out of them, so deleting the machine altogether is a fairly direct way to win that argument. Here is the thing Photreon’s pitch lives or dies on, so let’s not bury it. Photocatalysis has historically been terrible at converting sunlight into hydrogen. Not slightly worse than the two-step route. Terrible. A landmark Nature paper from 2021 put real-world photocatalytic water splitting at solar-to-hydrogen efficiencies of only around 1%, while lab setups pairing solar cells with electrolyzers have hit 30%. The same paper documented Japan’s famous 100-square-meter outdoor array of photocatalytic panel reactors, which ran for a year and peaked at 0.76% conversion efficiency. That demo also flagged a safety headache this field carries around: the raw output is a mixed stream of hydrogen and oxygen that has to be handled and separated without incident, which is part of what Photreon says its extraction geometry is built to manage. The best published number anywhere is 9.2%, achieved in a 2023 study using an indium gallium nitride catalyst, concentrated solar light, and carefully tuned reaction temperatures. Impressive work, but concentrated light and lab conditions are not a rooftop in the real world, and the same team measured about 7% on tap water and seawater. Researchers commonly cite 10% solar-to-hydrogen as the threshold where the technology starts to make commercial sense. The field’s everyday reality has been a single digit, and usually the low end of a single digit. So why would anyone build a company on a technology with those numbers? Because Photreon isn’t selling efficiency. It’s selling cheap. The panel is designed around standard mass-production processes and low-cost materials, and the whole thing is modular, so the same unit works as a handful of panels on a factory roof or as thousands of them wired together into what KIT calls solar hydrogen farms. The economic logic is closer to flooring a desert with inexpensive panels than to squeezing every photon for maximum yield. If each square meter is cheap enough to stamp out like drywall, a mediocre conversion rate stops being a dealbreaker and starts being a land-use question. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Privacy policy (opens in new window) The customers Photreon is naming tell you exactly where it thinks that math works first. Mid-sized companies in specialty chemicals, food production, and metalworking that want to cover their own hydrogen demand on-site instead of trucking it in. Large solar projects in regions with abundant sunshine. And places that have neither a power grid nor a hydrogen pipeline within reach, where the alternative isn’t a cheaper electrolyzer, it’s nothing at all. “Our technology opens up new possibilities for local production,” Cordts said in KIT’s announcement. That on-site framing is also the honest one, because the demand side of this market is very real and very underfed: governments on three continents have written fuel mandates that quietly assume someone will produce enormous amounts of green hydrogen that, so far, nobody is producing. You should still file every forward-looking claim here under “plans.” There is no price per kilogram, no production capacity, no announced pilot customer. What exists today, verifiably, is one working square meter and a patent application. Photreon’s announcement reads like a breakthrough if it’s the first photocatalysis story you’ve seen. It isn’t the first. Israel’s QD-SOL has been working the same direct sunlight-to-hydrogen idea with nanoparticle catalysts and said in September 2025 it had connected multiple photocatalytic panels into a single continuously producing array, its step from one panel toward many. SunHydrogen, a publicly traded outfit based in Iowa, brought on the University of Tokyo professors behind that Japanese 100-square-meter demonstration as consultants back in 2023 to help engineer its own panels. Everyone in this field is chasing the same prize, which is hydrogen production simple enough to skip the electrolyzer industry entirely, and everyone is stuck behind the same single-digit efficiency wall. Whoever combines a tolerable conversion rate with genuinely cheap manufacturing first wins, and right now nobody has. The catalyst research feeding this race moves fast, and occasionally a result lands that rewrites the assumptions, so the wall may not hold forever. What separates Photreon’s entry is the pedigree and the framing. KIT is one of Europe’s heavyweight engineering institutions, the reactor geometry is specific enough to file a patent application on, and the founders are openly positioning the product around manufacturability instead of record-chasing. In a field that has spent two decades publishing efficiency papers, a pitch built on “ours will be cheap to stamp out” is at least a different kind of bet. A 1-square-meter panel is not a factory. It’s a very promising window. The distance between the two is where most of these projects go quiet, and Photreon now has to cross it with a technology whose core physics has humbled better-funded teams for twenty years. The reason to keep this one on your radar anyway: every other path to green hydrogen requires two machines and a grid, and this one requires a panel, water, and a sunny day. If the cost numbers ever back up the simplicity, the electrolyzer business has a problem. Did we nail it or blow it? Dave McQuilling · May 18, 2026 Luis Reyes · Jun 2, 2026 Luis Reyes · May 24, 2026 Luis Reyes · Jun 9, 2026 Olivia Richman · May 28, 2026 Luis Reyes · Jun 13, 2026 Luis Reyes · Jun 13, 2026 Luis Reyes · Jun 13, 2026 Luis Reyes · Jun 13, 2026 Luis Reyes · Jun 13, 2026 Luis Reyes · Jun 13, 2026 Autonotion is the English-language automotive editorial by Autonocion.com — car news, reviews, and industry analysis for American readers. Other links Company Subscribe Get the latest car news in your inbox: By submitting your email you allow autonocion.com to send you news or promotions. More info
The Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians is moving forward with a $9 million solar project, positioning the tribe for future expansion as renewable energy financing becomes more challenging. The 3-megawatt Mawka Solar Array near Blackduck, Minn., broke ground in May and is expected to be completed in June 2027. The project is designed to generate enough electricity to power roughly 500 homes while reducing energy costs for some tribal members and tribal government facilities. Robert Blake, whose company Solar Bear is leading development, said the project is intended as the first phase of a larger solar initiative. The site was selected to accommodate future expansion if additional development moves forward. “That’s the beautiful thing. You can add on to solar, you can decrease it,” Blake said. “The land purchased for this project is set up for a bigger solar array, and we’re hoping in the future that we can add on.” The project arrives at a time when tribal nations across Minnesota are pursuing renewable energy as a tool for sovereignty, economic development and resilience. According to MPR News, tribes including Red Lake Nation and White Earth Nation have advanced major solar projects in recent years, even as federal tax credits for solar development have tightened. State energy officials told MPR that the loss of a 30% federal tax credit has made financing more difficult for tribes, which often rely on a mix of grants, local investment and mission‑driven capital. Red Lake secured federal funding for the Makwa project before some of the Trump administration policy changes took effect, helping shield the development from recent uncertainty surrounding renewable energy incentives. The project is backed by $9.3 million from the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Tribal Electrification Program, including a $600,000 award announced in March 2024 and an additional $8.7 million awarded in September 2024. The Red Lake Nation also invested $2 million in tribal funds to purchase the land for the project in 2022, according to tribal officials. Red Lake Executive Director Hunter Boldt said the project was an “important step” for the nation in a statement provided to Tribal Business News. “This will reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, support cleaner and more affordable energy and strengthen our energy resilience,” Boldt said. “We can’t wait to see this work move forward.” Blake’s development company Solar Bear has taken development lead on the project, alongside his nonprofit organization, Native Sun Community Power Development. Unlike many renewable energy projects that rely on outside ownership structures, the Mawka Solar Array will be wholly owned by the tribe once construction is complete. That ownership structure, combined with the project’s scale, positions the Nation to capture long‑term economic benefits while reducing household energy costs, Blake said. For Blake, a citizen of Red Lake Nation, the project also carries personal significance. “I’m a member of the Red Lake Nation, so this is something near and dear to my heart,” Blake told Tribal Business News. “This is as much a personal project as a professional one.” This article is available to paid digital subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
You are currently accessing BusinessGreen via your Enterprise account. If you already have an account please use the link below to sign in. If you have any problems with your access or would like to request an individual access account please contact our customer service team. Phone: +44 (0) 1858 438800 Email: [email protected] Search BusinessGreen Search BusinessGreen You are currently accessing BusinessGreen via your Enterprise account. If you already have an account please use the link below to sign in. If you have any problems with your access or would like to request an individual access account please contact our customer service team. Phone: +44 (0) 1858 438800 Email: [email protected] Credit: iStock Vertical farming can generate higher greenhouse gas emissions than traditional field farming due to its intensive electricity demand, but this could soon change if the farmland freed up by vertical farming… To continue reading this article… In just a few clicks you can start your free BusinessGreen Lite membership for 12 months, providing you access to: Join now Login 'Underestimated choke point': How Amazon droughts could hit up to $50m in UK soy imports 'We think this is the sweet spot': SBTi unveils long-awaited update to net zero target standard
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News That Matters Support us News That Matters Support us Investigative stories and local news updates. Coverage of the Hawaiʻi State legislature in 2025. Commentary, Analysis and Opinion. Award winning in-depth reports and featured on-going series. Get the week’s news delivered straight to your inbox. Solar provides more than twice the share of electricity it did five years ago. Solar provides more than twice the share of electricity it did five years ago. This story by Grist senior staff writer Tik Rootwas originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. Solar energy just provided more electricity in the United States than coal for the first time on record — marking a milestone for the rise of renewables in America. While gas and nuclear plants still lead the country’s energy mix, solar contributed 12.8 percent of the nation’s electrons in May, according to an analysis of government data by Ember, an energy think tank. Coal, meanwhile, provided just 12.2 percent. Just five years ago, solar was less than half of its current levels and coal was at 20 percent. “Overtaking coal for the first month on record shows just how far solar has come, from a niche contributor to the third-largest and fastest-growing source of power in the U.S. electricity system,” said Nicolas Fulghum, senior data analyst at Ember, in a press release. “From Texas to California, markets across the U.S. are betting on solar to meet rising power needs.” The turnaround comes even as political headwinds have shifted against renewable energy. Last summer, Congress passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which rolled back enormous swaths of former President Joe Biden’s landmark climate change legislation, the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. And President Donald Trump has actively sought to hinder renewable energy development, even offering to pay at least one oil company $1 billion to stop building its offshore wind projects. The latest electricity data comes the same month that the Trump administration announced $700 million in funding for investments in the coal industry. It included money for what would be the country’s first new coal-fired power plants in 13 years — sourced from funds previously dedicated to reducing the country’s dependence on fossil fuels, not deepening it. “Today we’re taking historic action to bring down the price of energy and the cost of living for all Americans with the power of clean, beautiful coal,” said Trump, who campaigned on the coal-friendly slogan “dig, baby, dig.” Ember’s analysis found that coal generation in May was actually up slightly from April, when it hit an all-time low. Its share of the grid will also likely tick up in the summer, as cooling needs peak. But the steady downward trend over the last several years suggests that even all the president’s men might not be able to put the coal industry back together again. “Spending $700 million to bail out the coal industry is like throwing a lifeline to a ship that has already sunk,” Lena Moffitt, executive director of the environmental group Evergreen Action, told the Associated Press. Rich Nolan, president and CEO of the National Mining Association disagreed, telling the AP that coal generation helps shield consumers from the impacts of volatile energy prices and supply challenges exacerbated by AI. Regardless of what coal does, experts believe the solar market will continue its upward march. While installations dropped in 2025 compared to 2024, according to the Solar Energy Industry Association, it still accounted for more than half of all newly installed electricity capacity. Even MAGA influencers are promoting it. “We’re going to just keep seeing more and more renewables brought onto the grid,” said Patrick Drupp, director of climate policy at the Sierra Club. “That’s good for people’s wallets, it’s good for their health, it’s good for the planet.” This article originally appeared in Grist. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org. Supporting Civil Beat means you’re investing in a newsroom that can devote months to investigate corruption. It means we can cover vulnerable, overlooked communities because those stories matter. And, it means we serve you. And only you. Donate today and help sustain the kind of journalism Hawaiʻi cannot afford to lose. Civil Beat has been named the best overall news site in Hawaii for 14 years in a row by the Society of Professional Journalists Hawaii Chapter. You’re officially signed up for our daily newsletter, the Morning Beat. A confirmation email will arrive shortly. In the meantime, we have other newsletters that you might enjoy. Check the boxes for emails you’d like to receive. Inbox overcrowded? Don’t worry, you can unsubscribe or update your preferences at any time.
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Davenport has new rules for developers looking to build a solar farm within city limits. A map of eligible areas for utility solar in Davenport after the city council passed an amended ordinance limiting solar farms to industrially zoned or future industrially zoned land. Trump announces major federal funding for coal projects in a bid to reduce rising energy costs for Americans. Eric Waldman poses for a photo among the solar panels on Zimmerman Honda’s rooftop on Wednesday, Oct. 29, in Moline. The 690 panels, two invertors and optimizer were installed in late 2023. The panels, which have a 30-year lifespan, will start paying for themselves around the 12th year. Two inverters, which convert the sunlight into electricity, were installed next to the solar panels. Eagle Point Solar from Dubuque, Iowa, installed the panels within four days. A view of Zimmerman Honda’s parking lot and roof.
Stay up-to-date on the latest in local and national government and political topics with our newsletter. Davenport, Scott County, local politics {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. In a split vote, the Clinton City Council rejected a proposed moratorium on data centers as QTS considers building one on the outskirts of the city. The proposed apartment building is part of the city’s years-long goal to redevelop the area west of the I-74 bridge since the completion of th… The Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board has publicly reprimanded former Davenport city attorney Tom Warner. Read more here. Unofficial tallies gave Adam Peters a decisive win over incumbent Ken Croken in the Democratic primary for Iowa House District 97. A map of eligible areas for utility solar in Davenport after the city council passed an amended ordinance limiting solar farms to industrially zoned or future industrially zoned land. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. Sorry, an error occurred.
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Interesting facts On February 26, 2026, Luxembourg advanced in discussing a bill that allows the installation of photovoltaic panels in areas near highways, including side lanes currently subject to construction restrictions. Presented in the Chamber of Deputies, the proposal seeks to use spaces already linked to road infrastructure to expand solar generation, without relying on the opening of large areas exclusively for power plants. Unlike photovoltaic pavement experiences, the measure does not transform asphalt into a solar surface exposed to the daily traffic of cars, buses, and trucks. Indigenous teenagers paddled nearly 500 km by kayak along the Klamath River after 4 dams were removed, salmon returned to ascend the waters, and the United States celebrated the largest removal of this kind in its history. Sewage returns into homes in a poor city in the USA, residents lose furniture and live in fear of rain while a $30 million repair attempts to contain old network failures. Workers were digging a coal mine in Serbia when the excavator hit wood at a depth of 8 meters and revealed a Roman ship over 1,500 years old, a rare remnant of a river fleet that served an imperial city buried next to the mining site. Residents of Puerto Rico were left without water, carried buckets up stairs every day, spent money at laundromats, and saw the National Guard step into the crisis to distribute supply trucks. In this model, the focus is on road edges, acoustic barriers, parking lots, embankments, fences, and nearby land, where the modules can operate without directly receiving the weight and wear of vehicles. Commissioned by Luxembourg’s Ministry of Economy to the offices Goblet Lavandier & Associés and BEST, the feasibility study analyzed highways A1, A3, A4, A6, A7, and A13. The assessment identified 65 points with potential for installing 104.5 MWp, with 42.3 MWp classified as priorities for possible implementation. In addition to specific locations, technicians also evaluated side lanes up to 200 meters along the country’s main road axes. In this expanded area, the theoretical potential reaches 820 MWp in the 0 to 100-meter range and 792.8 MWp between 100 and 200 meters, totaling about 1.6 GWp before real feasibility stages. In practice, this volume does not mean that all areas near highways will be covered by solar panels in the short term. Execution still depends on land ownership, territorial acceptance, visual impact, electrical connection, and the possibility of combining solar generation with agricultural activities in certain sections. Behind the proposal is a common limitation in small, densely populated countries: the competition for available space for new energy projects. Luxembourg needs to expand renewable production to meet its climate goals, but each area dedicated to solar energy competes with agriculture, urban expansion, infrastructure, and environmental protection. In this scenario, highways emerge as corridors already modified by human action, with support structures and protection strips that rarely receive other productive use. Around the tracks, there are parking lots, roofs of technical buildings, noise barriers, fences, embankments, and safety areas with limited use for other purposes. This type of choice reduces the pressure for entirely new land and takes advantage of surfaces already integrated into the transportation system. The survey also considered impermeable or artificialized areas, such as parking lots and rooftops, which do not have the same ecological value as natural zones. In these locations, installation tends to be simpler from an environmental point of view and can still benefit from nearby electrical networks. To unlock part of this potential, Bill 8675 aims to create specific conditions to authorize photovoltaic installations in the so-called non-building zone. This 25-meter strip along the highways is usually reserved for possible road expansions and, by rule, imposes restrictions on new constructions. According to the Chamber of Deputies of Luxembourg, the proposal does not automatically allow the installation of panels on all sections of the road network. The goal is to create a legal basis for projects to advance later, provided they meet technical requirements, safety criteria, and reversibility rules. With the inclusion of the non-building zone, the theoretical potential in the strip up to 100 meters would increase by 109 MWp, equivalent to about 15% compared to the area analyzed without this restricted strip. This increase helps explain why the legal adjustment has become an important step within the solar strategy associated with highways. Among the most relevant applications, the study mentions vertical installations on noise barriers and fences, as well as inclined systems on embankments and side areas. These solutions take advantage of linear structures already integrated into the highway and allow testing of technical arrangements without directly interfering with vehicle circulation. On noise walls, the same structure used to reduce the sound impact of traffic can receive photovoltaic modules, provided there is adequate solar orientation, stability, access for maintenance, and electrical connection. Projects of this type have been indicated as useful for evaluating technical solutions and improving coordination between different bodies involved in infrastructure management. Another practical front involves parking lots, especially those used for integration between individual and collective transport. With solar covers, these paved areas can generate electricity, protect vehicles, and take advantage of surfaces exposed to the sun for much of the day. By prioritizing lateral structures, Luxembourg distances itself from projects that attempted to place panels directly on the road pavement. This choice avoids problems associated with the constant weight of vehicles, braking, dirt accumulation, shading, and mechanical wear of the modules. Even off the track, installations in a road environment require specific care in planning, operation, and maintenance. The study mentions sensitive points such as the occupation of safety lanes, access for technical teams, dirt on the panels, and compatibility with the operating rules of the road network. The connection of the proposal with national energy and climate goals also weighs in the planning. The report cites Luxembourg’s goal of reaching 37% renewable energy in gross final consumption by 2030, while the installed photovoltaic power in 2024 was 493 MWp, with a production of 295 GWh. With this strategy, highways are no longer seen merely as circulation corridors and become part of a broader discussion on energy infrastructure. Luxembourg evaluates its surroundings as assets capable of producing electricity, provided that the implementation respects road safety, territorial planning, and proper connection to the grid.
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