The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the national trade association for the solar energy industry, announced today that it has officially merged with the Solar Alliance, an advocacy organization committed to establishing solar policies at the state level. Effective immediately, the Solar Alliance will operate under the SEIA brand in an effort to present a unified solar industry voice in all advocacy efforts at the state level. Carrie Cullen Hitt, president of the Solar Alliance, is now Vice President for State Affairs at SEIA, and the Solar Alliance team joins Hitt as part of SEIA’s new department for State Affairs.

MIT Technology Review

The most efficient solar cells typically have several layers of semiconductor materials, each tuned to convert different colors of light into electricity. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab have now made a single semiconductor that performs almost the same job. More importantly, they made the material using a common manufacturing technique, suggesting it could be made relatively inexpensively.

We are getting some initial results from California’s Renewable Auction Mechanism, a program for renewable energy projects under 20 MW in size.

California regulators have struck down a controversial charge that would increase fees for some solar customers in California

The Massachusetts DPU issued a net metering order promulgating legislation that revised the state’s net metering law

El Paso Electric proposed a rider last month that would impose a substantial penalty for solar-owning customers in its service territory

A clean energy bill in Massachusetts would increase the availability of the net-metering program

Concentrating photovoltaic technology is attracting buyers, and that’s going to spark competition between CPV and CSP for optimal project sites.

After years of environmental reviews, the California Energy Commission has in the past three weeks licensed solar thermal farms that would generate 1,500 megawatts of electricity when completed

Under the proposed Simply Solar program, each utility would provide funding to install solar water heating on qualifying residential properties