Pretty pictures of India’s 650MW solar power plant – These pictures don’t do the scale of this site justice. The picture of the Chinese solar fishery were 1/3 this system size. 500,000 sq kilometers would be needed to power all the world – this site is 27 of those 500,000. Other items of interest – ‘3,800,000 foundations, 25,00,000 solar modules, 27,000 Mt of structure, 576 inverters, 154 transformers and 6,000 km length of cables.’

Externalities: Asthma limited by car tax – Imagine that you’re a human being that likes to breathe. I’ll give you a moment to consider this fantastic possibility. Now, image that there are more than 1 billion things in the world – internal combustion engines in cars – that spew chemicals that kill you. The cost to keep you alive is paid by you, maybe or maybe not a car driver. The car driver doesn’t pay for it. An article forwarded by one of our readers, Jamison Scotto, D.M.D., shows that for every gallon of gasoline burnt in the USA – society pays $1.30 (not the person driving the car). What kind of fake capitalism is that?

If there are hundreds of thousands of 100 kWh batteries being installed around the country – and these giant batteries just happen to follow people around, why shouldn’t those people and those batteries be connected to the power grid? The Netherlands is pushing for electric vehicles to be connected in this manner – starting with its fleet of over 6,000 Tesla vehicles. “With a combined peak capacity of around 60 MW, these cars have the potential to accelerate the integration of solar and wind power” – and in a more practical, day-to-day consideration, ‘savings on charging costs can be as high as 15%’ when optimizing timing.

Utah votes for declining solar tax credit value through end of program in 2021 – Through 2021 the state of Utah solar tax break will be decreasing from $2,000 to $0. Strong demand for residential solar power put $60M in pressure on the state budget. Concurrently, the federal tax credit will fall to 22% in 2021. By 2021, a federal carbon tax sounds like a possibility – and further falls in prices will probably make up for the loss of the Utah tax credit.

Microgrids to hit 50GW in coming decades – With states like New York pushing for grid resiliency by developing interconnected microgrids, and places like Hawaii – in essence – being natural microgrids, this 50GW number becomes real. I’d always imagined the suburban microgrid at the end of a cul-de-sac becoming a hot selling in the development world. Imagine putting the shipping container below the cul-de-sac driveway right in the middle, putting solar power on every house and tying them together intelligently.

Vietnam and Thailand become OEM solar panel powerhouse – Solar panel manufacturing has moved around the globe. The US and Europe in general were first, Germany and Italy at a point had picked up and then the Chinese growth happened. Now, the Chinese focus is still large and growing – but growth is happening away from China. Partially, it’s happening to get away from the taxes imposed on solar panels imported into the US – if built in Vietnam, no tax.

China wants to move away from predetermined Feed in Tariff payments toward an auction based system – This will increase investor questions as any project whose future revenue stream is market-based, versus fixed, won’t be as easy to fund. The main question will be – what mechanism will the state use to keep the price of certificates strong in the future? I’ve seen prices for these certificates fall in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Maryland because the politicians didn’t properly support their designs. Investors will see the same.

Perovskite getting further research – To be honest, the actual thing being researched here is above my head. What I do like reminding you is that there are teams of focused individuals looking at every aspect of the photon to electricity process within a solar panel and they’re trying to improve it.

A new guy came in to run Sunshot right as Trump took the Presidency – What’s it like working in a department focused on creating cheap, green electricity when your new boss says climate change is a Chinese hoax?

If I had sat in front of the people who pay me a couple of times a month and said the red line is what I expected the future to be, they’d have stopped with that couple payments a month thing –

Hard to keep up with the falling costs of #solar real life outpacing all the models! @CarbonBubble @Grantham_IC pic.twitter.com/ZwmqoNbHY5 — Lisa Walker (@Lisa13Walker) February 3, 2017

Considering residential solar? Understand Solar will connect you with local contractors. Full disclosure: I get a commission. Tweet me for feedback on pricing.

For more electric vehicle, autonomous transport and clean technology news, make sure to follow us on Twitter, Newsletter, RSS or Facebook to get our latest articles

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Subscribe to Electrek on YouTube for exclusive videos and subscribe to the podcast.