Empower Energies—formerly ViSole—has just completed one of its first installations under its new name. The installation consists of four solar photovoltaic arrays at the General Motors Warren Technical Center campus, in Warren, Mich. The projects consist of a 49 kilowatt ground-mount array, and three electric vehicle-charging solar canopies.

The U.S. military has been adding in solar and renewable energy rather quickly of late. A new Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) report, Enlisting the Sun: Powering the U.S. Military with Solar Energy, looks into the ways that solar power is making for a more secure military from the battlefield to the home front. 

While new large-scale concentrated solar power (CSP) projects seem to be on the wane in the U.S. and Europe, they’re just getting started elsewhere. Case in point, Morocco. Earlier this week construction started on what’s being called the largest CSP trough system in the world. The 160 megawatt (MW) Noor 1 CSP system is being built as part of the country’s efforts to get more than 40 percent of its energy from renewable sources—2 gigawatts from solar—by 2020.

The town of Brookfield, Mass. announced this week that it has entered a power purchase agreement for 434 kilowatts of solar energy that will power all of the town’s operations.

Washington Gas Energy Systems will finance, build, own and maintain the system for the town.