PV Manufacturing in the United States: Market Outlook, Incentives and Supply Chain Opportunities
You’re Invited: A Solar Soirée With a Sales Pitch
SunWize employs an increasingly popular marketing strategy and sets out to woo community groups with food, drinks and discounts for installation
services. Subway billboards. Google ads. Tupperware parties. A growing number of solar retailers are turning to some tried-and-true strategies to entice would-be buyers to plunk down a good chunk of their savings to install solar panels on their rooftops. SunWize Technologies is the latest to try a familiar strategy: getting existing customers to hold neighborhood parties to promote SunWize’s installation service. In return, the party host gets a cut of the sales, while neighbors and friends are entitled to discounts if enough of them place orders.
Treasury Grant’s Big Winners: Wind Companies
The feds have awarded $502 million under a new $3 billion program that gives the cash equivalent of a 30 percent investment tax credit
Xunlight 26 Solar Aims for CdTe on Plastic
The one-year-old Ohio startup is developing a flexible cadmium-telluride thin film that isn’t like First Solar’s, and plans to go into pilot production next year.
Cal Proposes Feed-In Tariff With a Twist
The state wants to require utilities to buy renewable power from developers of 1-megawatt to 10-megawatt installations. But regulators won’t set fixed
prices.
Is Buying European a Good Idea?
There seems to be a growing call for regulations to protect European solar companies from producers mostly from China. China and the U.S., meanwhile,
aim to protect their domestic companies.
Suniva Expands Solar Cell Production, Boosts Efficiency
The silicon solar cell startup is on its way to triple its production capacity, and has produced commercial cells achieving about 18 percent efficiency.
BrightSource Snags Chevron Deal in Stealthy Move Into Solar Steam
The startup, known for its huge contracts to build solar thermal power plants for utilities, now does installations for solar steam. This is a special, weekly newsletter on solar industry news and events, brought to you by Greentech Media and Intersolar North America.