Friday, 4 September 2026

Canary Media last updated its state-by-state balcony solar guide on September 3, 2026, having first published the piece on April 6, 2026.

The article describes balcony solar systems as do-it-yourself kits that plug directly into a standard outlet. According to Canary Media, those systems save users money without any need for subsidies.

The plug-in format is what separates balcony solar from conventional rooftop arrays, which require professional installation and hard-wiring into a building's electrical system. Canary Media's framing places the savings case on the equipment itself rather than on public support programs.

The roughly five-month gap between the original publication date and the latest revision reflects an actively maintained tracker rather than a one-off feature.

Environmental groups have joined an ongoing lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles and LADWP over the Scattergood hydrogen retrofit, according to CleanTechnica.

The underlying case was brought by Communities for a Better Environment and Los Angeles Waterkeeper, CleanTechnica reported, and centers on the city's failure to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

The groups allege that Los Angeles and LADWP failed to comply with the environmental law, per CleanTechnica.

Clean energy deployment in the United States reached a record high in the first half of 2026, according to a report from the American Clean Power Association cited by CleanTechnica.

The association also put the installed base at a level sufficient to power 83 million homes, CleanTechnica reported.

The trade group's report frames the first-half figure as the highest on its record.

A collaboration agreement between Posco of South Korea and Australian miner BHP will push forward HyREX, Posco's hydrogen reduction ironmaking process, building on a memorandum of understanding the two struck in October 2025, pv magazine reported.

The partners plan to run BHP's Australian fine iron ores through the HyREX process. Posco is aiming to bring the technology to commercial use by 2030, and the ore trials sit inside that timetable.

The Valencian government cleared EUR 76 million in direct grants for a pair of projects headed by BP and its subsidiary Castellon Green Hydrogen Phase 2, according to pv magazine.

Construction has started on the German leg of the mosaHYc cross-border hydrogen pipeline, a joint effort by NaTran and Creos Deutschland. Running roughly 17 km from Leidingen to Dillingen, the line is Saarland's first hydrogen pipeline. Creos Deutschland puts the build at around 18 months.

At Wilhelmshaven, Germany, Uniper has closed the expressions of interest phase for a planned hydrogen import terminal. Its modular layout starts at an initial import capacity and scales to a ceiling of 2.6 million metric tons of ammonia a year, or around 350,000 metric tons of hydrogen.

CM Energy plans to bring its CM Zenith vessel into the European offshore wind market from Q1 2028, following a modification and upgrade program intended to meet international class, flag and operational requirements, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

The upgrade works start in China in September 2026, the point at which the vessel begins its transition to international service, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported.

The commercial case rests on a capacity gap. Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported that the 11 MW+ major component exchange (MCE) segment is underserved by dedicated vessels, and that Europe is expected to face a severe shortage of suitable capacity from 2029 onwards. That timing places the vessel's planned market entry a year ahead of the shortfall as described.

Alongside its primary MCE role, CM Zenith will target transition piece installation as a secondary European market, according to the same report.

South Korea plans to double government funding for factory rooftop solar and agrivoltaics to KRW 1.8 trillion in 2027, according to pv magazine.

The line rises from KRW 900 billion in 2026, pv magazine reported. That allocation sits inside a wider spending plan: MAFRA Vice Minister Kim Jong-gu presented the ministry's 2027 budget proposal of KRW 22.2215 trillion, a 10.4% increase over the 2026 budget, per the same report.

The money follows a statutory change. South Korea's National Assembly passed the country's first dedicated agrivoltaics law in May, and it takes effect Dec. 17, according to pv magazine.

The law sets the tenure question that has held back combined crop-and-solar projects. It treats installations as a temporary change of farmland use for up to 23 years, pv magazine reported. That window defines how long a developer can keep panels on classified farmland before the land reverts to its prior use category, and it frames the financing horizon for any project built under the new framework.

Cooperative ownership is scaling alongside it. The Solar Income Villages program is set to expand from 700 to 2,200 villages, according to pv magazine. Under the program, rural communities form cooperatives to install and operate solar plants on idle local land and share the resulting revenue.

The funding structure pairs two different deployment routes. Factory rooftops use existing industrial surfaces and need no land conversion at all, while agrivoltaics requires the temporary-use designation the new law creates. Both draw on the same doubled budget line.

The village expansion is the larger volume story in unit terms. Tripling the participating community count from 700 to 2,200 spreads revenue-sharing arrangements across more of the rural land base than the earlier program covered.