Clean Economy

Residential solar loan company Mosaic announced it has received $220 million in new funding, Greentech Media reports. Vivint Solar, another solar lease and loan business, also just closed a $313 million loan facility.

In Apple Inc.'s latest step into the energy sector, federal regulators announced on Thursday that the tech giant can start selling the electricity being produced at its California-based 130-megawatt solar farm to the wholesale market, Bloomberg reports.

Nevada's high court this week struck down a popular solar ballot initiative that sought to reinstate more favorable net metering rates by amending state utility regulator's authority, PV Tech reports.

Germany launched a discount program for electric vehicles in July and about 2,000 people have already applied, Reuters reports.

Tesla Motors Inc.'s losses widened in the second quarter of the year, but the company is still striving to meet its bold goal of building about 80,000 cars by the year's end, the Wall Street Journal reports.

El Paso Electric, a utility based in Texas and New Mexico, has sold its only share in a coal plant and is now focusing on growing its solar resources, PV Tech reports.

Three years after developer Senergy PV SA signed a deal with China to build what could be West Africa's largest solar plant, none of the proposed 96,000 solar panels have been installed, Reuters reports.

A new analysis by the car company Nissan predicts charging stations for electric vehicles will outnumber petrol stations in the United Kingdom by 2020, BusinessGreen reports.

Charging stations for electric vehicles are beginning to pop up across Kansas City, from downtown back alleys to Kauffman Stadium, E&E Publishing reports.

Louisiana's Department of Revenue announced in July that it had run out of money to fund solar tax credits, leaving thousands of residents who invested in solar panels in 2015 and years prior in limbo over whether they still afford this energy source, The Times-Picayune reports.

A new energy bill passed by the Massachusetts Legislature would order state energy officials to study whether to set a state storage target for 2020, Greentech Media reports. The bill awaits Gov. Charlie Baker's signature to become law.

American Wind Action on Tuesday endorsed Rep. David Young (R-Iowa) for reelection, The Hill reports. This is the first endorsement of the election cycle for the new wind energy political group.

A new report suggests onshore wind farms in Scotland are not triggering a decline in local tourism, BusinessGreen reports.

New York officials announced on Monday a new bold energy goal—to get half of the state's electricity from renewables sources by 2030, the Associated Press reports.

The European Investment Bank last week announced it is investing up to €62 million (or about $69 million) in wind and solar power, Climate Change News reports.

In many places across the United States, drivers of electric vehicles depend on an unreliable patchwork of charging stations. Now the sharing economy is starting to fill the void, E&E Publishing reports.

South Korean officials recently announced plans to spend about 200 billion won (or $180 million) this year in expanding the country's infrastructure for charging electric vehicles, The Korea Herald reports.

Electric carmaker Tesla Motors Inc. on Monday announced it had reached a deal to buy SolarCity Corp., the Wall Street Journal reports. The all-stock deal values the solar company at about $2.6 billion, which is slightly lower than what Tesla had proposed in an initial offer in June.

Legislators in Massachusetts on Sunday night passed a compromise energy bill that increases the state's reliance on offshore wind and other renewable energy sources, MassLive reports. The bill now heads to Gov. Charlie Baker's office to be signed into law.

More than 6,000 birds have died at California's massive Ivanpah solar energy plant during its second year of operation, a 77 percent increase over the previous year, E&E Publishing reports. The high bird fatality count has drawn fresh scrutiny from environmentalists.

"It's an unbelievably high number, and we're really alarmed," Audubon California's Garry George said.

More than 275,000 people across Australia will see their rooftop solar subsidies reduced dramatically over the next six months, the Guardian reports.

Wireless charging for high-end luxury electric vehicles will soon be hitting the market, Detroit News reports. For example, Mercedes-Benz will offer wireless charging for one of its hybrid models next year.

New government data shows nearly half of the United Kingdom's electricity came from renewable energy sources last year, the Press Association reports.

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, a foundation that's divesting its assets from fossil fuels, just invested $10 million in the clean energy company Mainstream Renewable Power Ltd., Bloomberg reports.

RedWave Energy, a Chicago-based startup, recently raised $5.5 million in funding to convert heat waste into electricity, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The Scottish Government launched a new training program designed to help oil and gas workers learn the skills needed to work in the clean energy sector, BusinessGreen reports.

"The Transition Training Fund aims to help retain the wealth of skills and experience developed by our oil and gas industry and to redeploy it in other sectors," said program official Mike Duncan in a statement.

A new study released by the U.S. Department of Energy concludes there's a practical track to expanding the nation's hydropower resources, Greentech Media reports.

Thirty years after the Chernobyl disaster, Ukraine is looking to install solar panels within the exclusion zone around the Soviet reactors, Bloomberg reports.

"The Chernobyl site has really good potential for renewable energy," said Ostap Semerak, Ukraine's environment minister.

The fight to grandfather existing solar customers into better electricity rates just took a new turn in Nevada. The utility NV Energy on Tuesday filed a proposal with state regulators asking to reinstate more favorable rates for customers that installed solar panels through the end of 2015, PV Tech reports.

Nevada Commission David Noble recently spoke out on the solar battles unfolding in the state and why state regulators last year voted to impose new fees and reduce incentives for rooftop solar owners, Utility Dive reports.

"One of the problems in the case before us is the rooftop solar companies decided to take an approach of an all-or-nothing, and basically promoted that there should be no change from retail rates," said Noble, who will not be reappointed next year. "When you take an all-or-nothing approach there's a possibility you're going to lose and that's exactly what happened because they put on an inferior case."