EARTH2TECH
Is China On the Cusp of Becoming a Huge Solar Panel Market?
Syndicated on NYTimes.com, Reuters.com, Salon.com and CNN.com
June 24, 2009

Some solar insiders predict China is finally ready to transition from a solar supplier to a solar customer. New Energy Finance analyst Jenny Chase forecasts the country could "easily" be a 1-gigawatt market by 2010. Meanwhile, Navigant Consulting analyst Paula Mints says the transition is farther away. And none of the experts I interviewed thinks the Chinese market, expected to favor domestic producers, will take off in time to counter the current oversupply and falling panel prices.



RELATED:

  CLEANTECHNICA
  China Heating Up Global Competition for Solar
  June 24, 2009

  As solar demand shrinks while supplies increase, competition among companies
  in China, Germany, the United States, Japan and other countries is heating up.
  It's a change from a time when they could easily sell every panel they produced.

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EARTH2TECH
Why California Doesn't Have a German-Style Feed-In Tariff
Syndicated on Reuters.com and CNN.com
June 18, 2009

On the international renewable-energy policy battlefield, German-style feed-in tariffs seem to have emerged as winners. All the biggest solar markets have adopted such tariffs, leading to gigawatts of new installed capacity worldwide. Meanwhile, the United States has been reluctant to copy this policy. Several California solar experts discuss some of the difficulties of bringing the policy to the state.



RELATED:
  CLEANTECHNICA
  Is a Feed-In Tariff a Good FIT for the U.S.?
  Syndicated on the Blue Bulb blog, Eco Friendly Mag andThe Global Warming Statistics
  June 22, 2009

  While he acknowledges that electricity conditions in the United States are 
  different from those in Germany, potentially making it more challenging to
  adopt feed-in tariffs, Fraunhofer's Gerhard Stryi-Hipp says the policy is still 
  worth considering. After all, nothing else the country has done so far has
  brought renewable energy to significant levels. The United States would need
  20 times as much solar to catch up to Germany, in per-capita terms.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES' GREEN INC.
Is Washington the New Wall Street for Cleantech?
June 22, 2009

In this economy, funding for cleantech -- and just about everything else -- is hard to come by. And when the going gets tough, the tough -- or at least, the Americans -- turn to the government. The promise of stimulus funding already has spurred a flurry of activity among cleantech companies as they scramble to best position themelves to catch federal cash. It could also be stimulating something else: a shift of at least some industry influence from venture capitalists and other private investors to government agencies and politicians. Consultants such as Chrysalis Energy Partners President Doug Faulkner are calling Washington "the new Wall Street" for green energy.

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EARTH2TECH
A Whole Lot of Solar Goin' On in SoCal
Cited by the Gunther Portfolio
June 19, 2009

In a much-anticipated decision, the California Public Utilities Commission approved a 250-megawatt solar-rooftop project proposed by Southern California Edison -- and doubled it. The commission handled the controversy over whether such projects should be owned by utilities or independent developers by splitting this one in half, with SCE developing 250 megawatts and buying another 250 megawatts from independent solar producers. The decision bodes well for a similar project proposed by the Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which also calls for 500 megawatts developed in the same way. I wrote a longer feature about these utility projects, in advance of this decision, for the June issue of PV Magazine. I also wrote about this issue for Earth2Tech in March: http://bit.ly/kDuof.

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EARTH2TECH
PowerSat: Space Solar Flies Closer to Earth
Syndicated on CNN.com and Reuters.com, cited by The New Republic's The Vine blog 
June 16, 2009

It may seem farfetched, but at least three companies are now working to make space solar a reality. The idea is to generate solar power in space, where -- with no clouds or nighttime -- electricity could be produced all the time, then beamed to Earth via radio waves. High costs are likely to be an issue. One company, PowerSat, has filed two patents for technologies that it claims can cut costs by $1 billion.

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THE NEW YORK TIMES' GREEN INC.
Solar Showdown Looms in California
June 9, 2009