In case you missed it: Solar stories of the week

This week's solar news is mostly about the industry at large, with one item that touches home solar costs directly.

Researchers at MIT looked at what drives U.S. residential electricity prices. They found no link between state clean-energy mandates or large utility-scale wind and solar farms and higher power rates. But rooftop solar did correlate with higher electricity rates and higher costs for maintaining the power grid in a given area. That's worth knowing if you're weighing a home solar installation and wondering how it fits into the bigger picture of utility pricing.

On the manufacturing side, Texas is on track to produce nearly half of all U.S.-made silicon solar panels by 2027, with most of that output concentrated near the I-45 corridor. Separately, the federal government moved to put new tariffs on solar panels imported from India, Indonesia, and Laos, after trade officials found those imports were being sold below fair value and harming U.S. manufacturers. That could affect panel prices and availability down the line, though the order itself doesn't change anything for homeowners immediately.

Finally, a safety note for anyone considering battery storage alongside solar: a major research institute found that battery fire and failure rates have dropped 98% since 2018, and are now about as low as those of traditional oil-filled electrical transformers. Globally, China's solar manufacturing capacity is shrinking while the rest of the world keeps growing at a steady pace, a shift industry analysts had been expecting for a while.