News & Articles on Solar Energy
While I have primarily worked with wind energy, I have long been a proponent of renewable energy in the broadest sense. This includes solar energy. My work in Canada, especially Ontario, stressed inclusion of solar energy because it had been previously overlooked. At one time Ontario was one of the leading jurisdictions in North America developing solar photovoltaics due in part to the programs I and others pushed. The political winds changed and these policies were abandoned and with it Ontario’s progress toward a renewable energy future.
24/7 renewables: The economics of firm solar and wind
By
External Source
The analysis shows that the cost of firm renewable electricity has declined rapidly across all major technologies and markets. In high-quality solar and wind resource regions, co-located hybrid systems can already deliver round-the-clock electricity at costs competitive with – and in many cases below – those of new fossil-fuel generation. China currently defines the global cost floor, while costs in Brazil, India, South Africa, Australia, and the Gulf region are declining rapidly towards fossil-fuel cost parity.
Wind and solar have saved UK from gas imports worth £1.7bn since Iran war began
By
External Source
The UK has avoided the need for gas imports worth £1.7bn since the start of the Iran war, as a result of record electricity generation from wind and solar, reveals Carbon Brief analysis. The surge in wind and solar output is cutting the need for gas-fired generation, which has been nearly a third lower than last year and fell to record lows in both March and April 2026.
The New Geography Of Wind Power In Canada
By
Michael Barnard
Ontario’s return to renewable procurement is the clearest sign that one of Canada’s largest electricity markets has accepted a reality it spent years resisting. The timing is propitious as I prepare to provide an update to a global audience on North American wind energy through the World Wind Energy Association. Electricity demand is rising as transport, buildings, and industry electrify. Refusing wind and solar in that environment was never a long-term strategy. It was a pause wrapped in politics.
LNG Shock, Coal Myths, & The Real Winners On The Grid
By
Michael Barnard
Coal was not the global winner of the Hormuz shock. It was a regional emergency beneficiary in a few LNG-exposed markets. Renewables alone did not replace LNG everywhere either. But renewables plus batteries, backed by hydro, nuclear, interconnection, and demand flexibility where available, already replaced enough of LNG’s daily balancing role in several major markets to overturn the old assumption that a gas shock naturally belongs to coal. The real strategic winner was not a single fuel. It was the clean flexibility stack, and the countries building it fastest are the ones rewriting what energy security means.
As the oil and gas crisis drives the world economy towards another financial crash, green energy is the only viable future
By
David Toke
Let’s not make a secret of this. The world is hurtling at breakneck speed towards the worst-ever energy crisis. This will be worse than the oil crises of the 1970s. It could be worse even than the oil crisis of 2007-2012, the latter which triggered the global financial meltdown of 2008. Maybe it is small comfort to those billions of people around the world facing hardship in this developing crisis. However, out of the ruins we shall see a market and state-driven renewed drive towards installation of wind, solar, batteries and Electric Vehicles.
Paul Krugman: Renewable Energy and National Security–The wind and the sun don’t need to transit the Strait of Hormuz
By
External Source
Donald Trump’s attack on Iran will have many unintended and unforeseen consequences. One consequence even I wasn’t thinking about, but which is already clear after less than a week, is that Trump has made a strong new case for renewable energy. The usual argument for promoting solar and wind power is that relying on renewable energy avoids the environmental damage caused by burning fossil fuels. This environmental damage includes, but isn’t limited to, climate change. In addition, air pollution imposes shockingly large direct and immediate costs by harming our health and reducing our life expectancy. But now we know that there is another reason for nations to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels: security. In a dangerous world, it’s infinitely safer to rely on the sun and the wind than to depend on fossil fuels that must be transported long distances, from nations that are untrustworthy, often exploitative and located in regions that frequently devolve into war zones. . . Donald Trump, hero of renewable energy? Who knew?
Putin Tried to Freeze Ukraine. Instead, He Sparked an Energy Revolution.
By
Paul Hockenhos
n terms of a new, cutting-edge distributed energy system, Ukraine may be racing forward with the zeal of a new convert, but even the planned rollout of renewables in 2026 won’t keep most of the Ukrainian population safe from Russia’s depredations next winter. Wartime Ukraine has the will but not the financial resources to revamp its energy production on its own. The nation’s largest donor, the E.U., is already contributing nearly $200 billion to Ukraine’s budget for military expenditures and humanitarian aid, including energy. The speed with which Ukraine blankets its territory with distributed energy systems could make the difference between surviving another punishing winter—or succumbing to its cruelty.
How the energy establishment disses solar PV so much it doesn’t even count it properly!
By
David Toke
Readers of this blog will be aware of how the rise of solar PV around the world has taken the energy establishment by surprise. But not everyone knows how they are still dissing the technology. They don’t even count it properly! There’s a reason for that. It does not fit in with their model of how the energy industry works, so information that suggests that the system is radically changing is just being ignored.
Turning Point: Wind and Solar Outstrip Fossil Fuels in Europe for First Time
By
External Source
Beatrice Petrovich at the Ember Energy Consultancy reports that for the first time last year, wind and solar generated more electricity in the European Union than did fossil fuels. It is another clear piece of proof that humanity can get to carbon neutral by 2050 if it wants to. The alternative is very bad for children and other living things. Combined, wind and solar generated 30% of EU power in 2025. That percentage was only 20% half a decade before. Wind, solar and hydro accounted for 47.1% of electricity generation, nearly half, in the Eurozone.
German Renewables Reach New Record–Surpass Fossil Fuels
By
Paul Gipe
Despite the doom & gloom here in the states where renewable energy is under a sustained assault by the Trump …
