Cleantech Update

TXU and Solar City's press release mark an exciting change for Texas. TXU residential users can now lease solar (photo Voltaic or PV) pannels for home reneweable energy generation. TXU's website is either not up yet or inundated at the moment,but here is the press release.... -Editor Affordable Solar Power Arrives in Texas TXU Energy Partners with SolarCity to Introduce North Texas' Most Affordable Solar Power Option DALLAS, Feb 24, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- For less than the monthly cost of most cell phone plans, many North Texans can now use renewable solar energy to help power their homes. TXU Energy's new solar program, in cooperation with SolarCity, a national leader in solar financing, design, installation, monitoring and related services, will provide North Texas homeowners with solar power systems that can allow them to save money on energy costs from day one. The program will include a solar lease option that includes installation, monitoring, repair...

From Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, June 2009 Business isn't so sunny these days for SolarCity, the country's largest installer of residential solar-power systems. But Lyndon Rive, chief executive of the Foster City, Cal., firm, says it's an absence of financing, rather than a lack of demand, that has caused the slowdown. "Once you address that bottleneck," he says, "solar power will boom." So, too, will the entire spectrum of renewable-energy stocks, which lately have generated as much sizzle as a solar panel in an eclipse. A year ago, alternative energy shone brightly. Then came the financial crisis, which starved the industry of its lifeblood: capital. Lack of it caused demand to tumble and inventories to grow. Says Gregory Wetstone, of the American Wind Energy Association : "Our astronomical growth came to a screeching halt in late 2008." As a result, alternative-energy stocks crumbled. The WilderHill Clean Energy Index, which ...