GE’s “Ecomagination: Powering Your Home” Challenge has resulted in $63 million of investment into home energy technology companies from GE and venture capital partners.

A lease option agreement has been signed between the County of San Bernadino and photovoltaic developer PVNavigator (PVN) to evaluate the potential for a large solar facility at the Barstow Sanitary Landfill site in central California. This is the second landfill agreement the company has made with the county.

U.S. and German photovoltaic and concentrated solar power (CSP) researchers are set to formally collaborate after a historic accord was signed today in Berlin, Germany. The signatories were from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Helmholtz Gemeinschaft.

NRG Energy, Prologis and Bank of America Merrill Lynch have formed a consortium called Project Amp to install solar panels on 750 warehouse roofs.

A solar plane, Solar Impulse HB-SIA, has landed and is drawing major crowds at the Paris Air Show underway this week in the French capital. While certainly not the first solar aircraft, the Solar Impulse is the first airplane to be able to fly without fuel and capable of flying day and night.

A photovoltaic manufacturing site in Penang, Malaysia, is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2013, at a cost of €520 million. The facility will primarily serve the Asian solar market.

Online photovoltaic product exchange platform shows manufacturers across all tiers dropping prices and the €1-per-watt-peak milestone being reached for modules from Asian manufacturers. Although it must be noted that this price was only reached for larger installations and therefore higher order volumes.

The consortium formed by AREVA Solar and CS Energy and Wind Prospect CWP will construct the biggest solar thermal gas hybrid of its kind, with part funding from the Australian Government and the Queensland State Government.

It’s been announced today that Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV), BP Solar and Pacific Hydro will develop the second utility scale solar plant, funded in part by the Australian Government.

The development of a multicrystalline photovoltaic wafer manufacturing facility in Massachusetts will be supported by a Department of Energy loan guarantee. The manufacturing process is hoped to reduce the cost of wafer manufacture by approximately 50 percent.