The amount of electricity generated using solar panels stands to expand as much as six-fold by 2030 as the cost of production falls below competing natural gas and coal-fired plants, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
Sun powered aircraft Solar Impulse 2 has taken off from Moffett Airfield in Mountain View, near San Franciso in California, on the latest leg of its round the world flight.
The nuclear power sector generated almost £3.5 billion turnover and employed 15,500 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers according to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics.
US solar company SunEdison, whose aggressive acquisition strategy has saddled it with more than $11billion of debt, is at "substantial risk" of bankruptcy, one of its two publicly listed units warned on Tuesday.
The Scottish solar industry has called on Holyrood to pave the way for an energy transformation in Scotland with the power of the sun playing a key role.
Renewable energy provider SkyPower has signed four power purchase agreements with the Indian state of Telangana to build and operate a total of 200MW of solar energy projects.
Music superstar and solar entrepreneur Akon joined Shell to officially open a solar and human powered football pitch in the Nigerian capital Lagos at the Federal College of Education.
“I now live in a visible world”, says 62-year-old Tanzanian farmer Elizabeth Mukwimba, whose life has been transformed by access to electricity through solar power.
Solar power is set to supply 15% of the UK’s electricity needs early this afternoon, the industry said as its annual open day scheme begins.
As the UK basks in a heatwave, solar-powered homes, commercial rooftop schemes and solar farms will be open to the public today and tomorrow as part of “solar independence day”.
Locations ranging from a housing estate in Northumberland, a stately home in Aberdeenshire, a community-owned solar farm and a waste facility in Berkshire will be showing off their clean power installations.
The solar industry, whose analysis predicts the technology will be supplying 15% of UK power demand at 2pm today, has set out how it believes the Government can double the amount of solar and make it as cheap as fossil fuel electricity by 2020.
Solar power almost doubled in the last year, with 650,000 installations ranging from solar farms to panels on homes, figures showed.
By the end of 2014 there was almost 5 gigawatts (5GW) of solar photovoltaic panels installed, up from 2.8GW at the end of 2013, the Department of Energy and Climate Change figures showed.
The solar industry said there were now enough panels installed in the UK to supply the equivalent of 1.5 million homes.
Glamis Castle is not the most obvious setting for me to engage in a spot of contemplation about how the world's energy needs could be met and climate crisis averted. Even less would I expect to be doing so in the company of a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.