Under the new Advanced Clean Cars Program rules, approved last month, automakers will be required, beginning in 2018, to sell an escalating number of automobiles and light vehicles in California that can run on electricity, fuel cells or other zero-tailpipe-emission technologies.

But under a deal reached by automakers, the Obama administration and 2 senior California Air Resources Board officials, manufacturers that exceed new federal fuel-efficiency standards, even slightly, will be allowed to reduce the number of zero-emission vehicles they sell by up to 50 percent in 2018, a reduction that will drop to 30 percent by 2021.

The new rules also allow carmakers that do not meet their sales goals to purchase credits from other companies that surpass the goals, like Tesla Motors, a Bay Area company that plans to sell only electric vehicles and electric vehicle components.

Residential customers may receive a rebate of $1,000 for installing new solar water heating systems, and up to $20,000 for installing a photovoltaic (PV) system and interconnecting to FPL’s grid.

Business customers may receive rebates up to $50,000 per site for installing a new solar water heating system and up to $50,000 per site for installing a PV system and interconnecting to FPL’s grid.

For more information on residential programs, please go to the FPL site with the following link: http://www.fpl.com/landing/solar_rebate/residential.shtml.

Business customers may get more information from the following link: http://www.fpl.com/landing/solar_rebate/business.shtml.

“Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, is a 94-year-old U.S. Army installation with a 21st century mission… an executive order to cut energy use by 30% by 2015.  To meet this challenge, the U.S. Army partnered with Johnson Controls to upgrade buildings across its 72,500-acre testing, research and training facility.

The result? The installation is expected to reap $134 million in energy savings over the next 20 years.”

This is admirable, but it seems we are now stretching out the return to 20 years. First, savings on any program were shown for ONE year.  It has lately become fashionable to project the savings over 20 years so that the headline numbers look more impressive.  This is the first time I have seen the savings indicated over 20 years.  That makes the $134 million in savings equal to $6.7 million per year and we don’t know how much of the calculation will be in years 11-20.  I’m not saying it isn’t worthwhile or a good move in the right direction, but it does make it hard to evaluate what is really being done in the here and now.

Semprius, headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, develops high concentrating photovoltaic (HCPV) modules. The latest prototypes achieved a major milestone with 33.9 percent solar module efficiency. In a joint collaboration with the Spanish Institute of Concentration Photovoltaic Systems (ISFOC) and the University of Madrid, this testing was performed by the IES institute of the university. For the first time a photovoltaic module converted more than one-third of the energy of the solar irradiation on the module area into usable electricity. Depending on the specific location and irradiation, the HCPV modules can deliver an energy output per square meter that is two times higher than common polycrystalline modules. Leading module manufacturers of conventional PV technologies achieve a maximum module efficiency of approximately 20 percent with monocrystalline PV modules and about 16 percent with polycrystalline technology.

In June 2011, Siemens acquired a 16-percent stake in Semprius to scale up the innovative HCPV technology to market maturity. The Semprius HCPV systems bundle the sunlight on the modules with the aid of integrated lenses on small photovoltaic cells.

HCPV is a prime alternative to conventional photovoltaics especially suitable for sunbelt regions with high direct irradiation.

Semprius as a leader in HCPV modules shows us that we have bet on the right technology,” said Martin Pfund, CEO of the Siemens Energy Photovoltaic Business Unit. “The world record is a breakthrough in module efficiency. Combined with our expertise in turnkey solutions business it has the potential to become a game changer for the solar markets in regions with high irradiation. With Semprius as a partner we will further broaden our portfolio in the photovoltaics market. We’re very pleased to be working together with Semprius to commercialize this technology globally.”

It comes amid persistent criticism of U.S. President Barack Obama from Republican lawmakers about whether his administration is properly assessing “clean energy” companies before authorizing government support.

The Energy Department had in 2009 awarded the $118.5 million grant to Ener1′s EnerDel unit, as part of a government stimulus package to bolster the U.S. electric car industry.

For the entire story, please visit http://www.cnbc.com/id/46156363 .

All four power plant projects in the state of Rajasthan are being constructed as part of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM), the Indian government’s ongoing program for promoting solar power. The program envisages installing up to 20 gigawatts of solar power capacity in India by the year 2022. The parabolic trough power plants Godawari owned by Godawari Green Energy Ltd. and Abhijeet owned by Corporate Ispat Alloys Ltd. are each rated 50 MW. Siemens has been awarded contracts for an SST-700 steam turbine generator unit and auxiliary systems for each of these units. The third customer, Lanco Solar Energy, has ordered a steam turbine and generator rated at 100 MW, complete with auxiliary systems for each of the two units of the Diwakar & KVK parabolic trough power plant.

“As a leading provider of steam turbines for solar thermal power plants with an excellent track record in Spain and the USA, we are now in the front running on the rapidly developing market in India, too,“ says Markus Tacke, CEO of the Industrial Power business unit at Siemens Energy.

Siemens offers type SST-700 steam turbines for solar thermal power plants with a rated output of up to 175 MW. This type of turbine is particularly suitable for use in solar thermal power plants, because it can be run up and down quickly to respond very rapidly to the fluctuating service conditions typical of these plants. In addition, superheating the steam improves the efficiency of the turbines and thus of the power plant as a whole.
Steam turbines for solar thermal power plants are part of Siemens’ Environmental Portfolio. In fiscal 2011, revenue from the Portfolio totaled about €30 billion, making Siemens one of the world’s largest suppliers of ecofriendly technologies. In the same period, our products and solutions enabled customers to reduce their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by nearly 320 million tons, an amount equal to the total annual CO2 emissions of Berlin, Delhi, Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo.

For the first time, energy storage received the most venture capital funding ($514 million), displacing solar ($350 million). Solar also lost the No. 1 spot in deal volume. Energy efficiency was the most popular area, with 34 funding rounds.

Energy storage (e.g. batteries) — considered something of a silver bullet — still presents sizable technological hurdles, while efficiency is now clearly the low-cost, plain vanilla version of clean tech.

This rotation of sorts is commonplace in maturing industries.

By no coincidence energy efficiency and storage, specifically electric cars, along with the booming recycling business, are our three winners.

At the same time, the U.S. solar industry is clearly one of our three losers.

Nothing as fatal as those events struck the ethanol industry, our third loser, which is more a victim of conventional market forces and uncertainty over government incentives, a key element in the alternative  energy sector.

All three losers, however, have one thing in common — momentum has temporarily shifted against them and that’s rarely good for keeping and attracting investors.

Source cnbc.com.

Asian solar stocks on Thursday echoed a rally by their U.S. peers, with some surging as much as 20 percent on signs that prices for solar energy components are stabilizing.

Most solar stocks retreated by more than 60 percent last year as prices for panels that convert sunlight into electricity fell sharply, erasing profit margins for manufacturers.

The global rally came as investors cheered figures showing a dramatic rise in new solar installations in Germany in the fourth quarter and higher prices for polysilicon, a key raw material.

For more information please visit CNBC’s website at http://www.cnbc.com/id/45967909 to read the article and see stock quotes on specific solar energy companies.