Policy

Citing a “ministerial error”, the U.S. Department of Commerce has cut in half duty levels for solar products made in Taiwan by Motech, and has reduced tariff levels for most other Taiwanese solar PV makers as well.

The Bachelet government has announced a large number of land concessions and modest policies to encourage distributed generation. However, much of the progress in Chile has been without government support, and the current administration has a lot of work to do to improve policies.

Sweeping energy reforms signed into law this week include multiple changes to the electricity sector, many of which favor solar and other renewable energies.

Enabled by legislation at the state level, counties across California have launched property assessed clean energy (PACE) programs. This represents a revival for PACE, a promising mechanism for property owners to finance solar systems and energy efficiency improvements, and the program administrator expects CaliforniaFirst to support US$250 million in solar PV systems in 2015.

The U.S. solar trade organization has released a report on Germany’s experience with policies to support solar PV, finding that the nation’s widely misunderstood system of feed-in tariffs has been highly successful in deploying large amounts of solar PV and decarbonizing its electricity sector.

Landmark legislation to move Massachusetts’ solar incentives from SRECs to declining block grants did not make it out of committee. However, caps on the volume of solar PV able to participate in net metering were marginally increased, making room for more systems.

The move by the Arizona utility would replace a utility-scale solar PV plant that it planned to build. APS’ rooftop solar plans are in sharp contrast to its attacks on net-metered solar, and the move has been questioned by SEIA.

Third-party-owned solar companies are fighting back against the second additional cost that the government of Arizona has imposed on distributed solar PV in two years.