The cost of installing solar and wind power last year dropped more dramatically than ever before, making renewables less expensive to deploy than any other energy source.

"Yeah, they're out there havin' fun, In the warm California sun," sang The Rivieras in their 1964 hit. And it could not be more apt today as the sun in the state was so strong – and the number of solar farms so large – that electricity prices in the state have begun turning negative on the main power exchange, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has revealed.

The attention around Tesla’s solar products is mostly focused on its solar roof tiles, but those address only a new segment in the market – the new roof segment. Tesla is also trying to innovate for homeowners who don’t need a new roof, but who still want to generate their own solar energy. This weekend, Tesla updated the ‘Energy’ section of its website to unveil new pictures – see above and below – of a new exclusive solar panel made by Panasonic. Electrek has also learned some details about this new product that will apparently shape the future of the company’s offering in the residential solar industry.

The world added record levels of renewable energy capacity in 2016, according to the UN. But the bill was almost a quarter lower than the previous year, thanks to the plunging cost of renewables. Investment in renewables capacity was roughly double that in fossil fuels, says the report from UN Environment. It follows news that the cost of offshore wind power has fallen by around a third since 2012 – far faster than expected.

In the past six months, we’ve seen camouflage solar panels and new rooftop tiles from Tesla founder Elon Musk that look nothing like the dark, gridded rectangles of yore. But an Austrian-based company is looking to shake things up with the Smartflower, a solar system that aims to provide homes and businesses with plug-and-play power.

Rooftop solar has become a hot topic in the recent decade as solar panels have come down in price to the point where you can see a return on your investment in as little as 24 months. Currently, about 1.5% of homes have solar panels installed on the roof removing the need for about 14 TW hours of power from utility companies. While this may seem like a drop in the bucket compared to the 4,090 TW hours required to power the country, it’s up considerably from the approximately 1 TW hour it was displacing 8 years ago.

A solar CRM developed for the solar industry is extremely important. As an industry with so many unique facetsn it makes sense to meet those needs.

The transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy “now appears irreversible” as the cost of green power plunges, according to a new report. In The Transition Takes Hold, Clean Energy Canada said some 6.7 million people were working in the sector worldwide with one out of every 50 new jobs in the US being created by the solar industry alone. And it highlighted prediction that generation costs for large-scale solar power plants were expected to drop by a massive 57 per cent by 2025, with onshore and offshore wind expected to become 26 and 35 per cent respectively.

New data from the Solar Jobs Census 2016 shows that employment in the solar-power industry increased by a historic 25% nationwide from 2015 to 2016, for a total of 260,077 workers. The industry added 51,218 new jobs in 2016, a growth rate about 17 times faster than that of the overall U.S. economy, which grew by 1.45%. One out of every 50 new jobs added in the U.S. was created by the solar industry, representing 2% percent of all new jobs. Growth occurred in 44 of the 50 states. And in 21 states, solar jobs grew by 50% or more, according to The Solar Foundation.

Solar power in California started setting production records on February 24th – production peaks have continued to occur since then. On Thursday of last week renewables broke 56% of total demand. This record is partially the result of a national 2016 installation boom of greater than 14GW of solar power that California took 35% of. According to the daily report on March 23rd, solar peaked around 11.16 AM – three minutes before the solar + wind peak of 49.2% and nine minutes before renewables peaked 56.7%.

Elon Musk’s plan for an all-Tesla existence is about to get one step closer, when his high-tech solar roof shingles go on sale in April. Musk tweeted that Tesla would start taking orders for the unique solar tiles in April on Friday in the middle of a massive news-dump about the upcoming Tesla Model 3. Tesla’s new solar roof, made from a sophisticated new kind of glass tile that disguises solar panels as ordinary shingles, was announced as the icing on top of the Tesla and Solar City merger-cake.

Germany's DLR has constructed the world's largest artificial Sun. The three-storey "Synlight" electrically-powered sun lamp will be used for various research projects, including developing processes for producing hydrogen fuel using sunlight.

By expanding renewable energy and improving energy efficiency, energy-related carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions globally could be reduced by 70% by 2050 and completely phased out by 2060, according to new findings from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

A group of researchers funded by a Japanese government program develops “industrially compatible” cells. Solar panels are cheaper than ever these days, but installation costs can still be considerable for homeowners. More efficient solar panels can recapture the cost of their installation more quickly, so making panels that are better at converting sunlight into electricity is a key focus of solar research and development. The silicon-based cells that make up a solar panel have a theoretical efficiency limit of 29 percent, but so far that number has proven elusive. Practical efficiency rates in the low-20-percent range have been...

Despite Trump’s Administration signaling its efforts to keep fossils fuels relevant, cities are taking matters into their own hands by looking into the use of electric vehicles for public services. Many cities already use hybrid solutions for public transportation, but are now negotiating with the auto industry to provide them with vehicles that can be used for other services such as police, fire, medical, waste, and much more.

Germany is embarking on an innovative project to turn a hard coal mine into a giant battery that can store surplus solar and wind energy and release it when supplies are lean. The Prosper-Haniel coal mine in the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia will be converted into a 200 megawatt pumped-storage hydroelectric reservoir that acts like a giant battery. The capacity is enough to power more than 400,000 homes, Governor Hannelore Kraft said, according to Bloomberg.

As Tesla prepares for its long-awaited Model 3 launch, the company is also investing more in its renewable-energy division. Tesla has had an energy division committed to selling its at-home battery, the Powerwall, and commercial battery pack, the Powerpack since 2015. But after acquiring SolarCity in a deal worth $2.1 billion in November, Tesla has doubled down on its renewable energy efforts.

Tesla is ready to power some grids. And not just in California or Australia. Last week, Elon Musk wagered he could address South Australia’s energy crisis with 100 megawatts (MW) of batteries installed in 100 days or less—“or it’s free.” The exchange blew up on Twitter and led to phone calls between Musk and leading Australian politicians, including Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. (Ukraine Prime Minister Volodymyr Hroisman later chimed in that he’s interested, too.)

The amount of solar power added worldwide soared by some 50% last year because of a sun rush in the US and China, new figures show. New solar photovoltaic capacity installed in 2016 reached more than 76 gigawatts, a dramatic increase on the 50GW installed the year before. China and the US led the surge, with both countries almost doubling the amount of solar they added in 2015, according to data compiled by Europe’s solar power trade body.

California recently put forth a resolution to consider 100% renewable electricity by 2045, paving the way for solar and wind to spread their wings as the main electricity sources in a state on the frontier of renewable energy. But Julian Specter at Greentech Media argues the choice to forego other market choices in California, to focus solely on wind and solar as electricity sources, is a bad strategy to achieve lower climate warming emissions.