As more and more solar is installed and some countries, like Germany, are seeing consumers get an increasing amount of their electricity from intermittent sources, grid storage and batteries are sure to be hot topics at this year’s Intersolar Europe, kicking off in Munich tomorrow.

Partly because of its recent merger with Progress Carolinas and also because of its own purchases Duke Energy has edged up into the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) annual utility rankings report, “2012 SEPA Utility Solar Rankings”, which it issued earlier this month. With an accumulative 183 megawatts of PV installed and operational, Duke Energy is now ranked eighth among energy holding companies.

Solar power is continuing to spread to a vaster majority of the world. For instance, in both Latin America and South America, solar power is expanding in places like Chile and Mexico. Meanwhile solar continues to grow in the U.S. as well as MidAmerican plans to issue a new round of bonds to support one of its giant PV projects in the U.S. southwest. For the first time California’s major solar installations have exceeded 2 gigawatts of production. Also, increasing evidence shows that solar and sustainability is becoming more important to both employers and employees, but they’re still not sure how to get there.

MidAmerican Solar, a subsidiary of Warren Buffet-controlled Berkshire Hathaway’s Mid-American Energy Holdings Co. is planning to issue $700 million in secured senior notes to support the $2.7 billion Solar Star project, which was formerly known as the Antelope Valley Solar Projects. The bonds, beings issued by Solar Star Funding, LLC, will support construction of the Solar Star projects, which MidAmerican bought from SunPower in January 2013.