Making cars run forever, harvesting solar power, Louisiana scales back net metering: Today’s Solar News

Toyota is trying to figure out how to make a car run forever. Dickinson College Farm in Pennsylvania doubles as a solar education facility. Louisiana regulators scale back net metering for solar energy. This and more, here at pvbuzz.com.

Put together the best solar panels money can buy, super-efficient batteries and decades of car-making know-how and, theoretically, a vehicle might run forever.

That’s the audacious motivation behind a project by Toyota Motor Corp., Sharp Corp., and New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization of Japan, or NEDO, to test a Prius that could revolutionize transportation.

At the Dickinson College farm in Pennsylvania, students harvest more than crops. They also learn how to harvest energy from the sun.

Staff member Matt Steiman says that since 2007, the farm’s large solar array has fed electricity to the grid.

The Louisiana Public Service Commission voted to scale back what utilities must pay solar panel owners who produce more electricity than they use. Supporters of the change argued current rules make the 99 percent of ratepayers who don’t have solar panels subsidize those that do.

Opponents said the decision favors utility monopolies over consumers while limiting the growth of the state’s solar industry.

Shopify is launching an investment fund to spur demand for sustainable technologies in hopes others looking to mitigate the impact of climate change will follow suit.

CEO Tobi Lutke published a letter Thursday announcing the Shopify Sustainability Fund. In it, he reflected on a pledge he wrote before the Ottawa e-commerce giant went public in 2015, that he wanted the company to see “the next century.” He now believes Shopify must play a role in ensuring “that the next century is worth reaching.”