It might be getting cold in the northern half of the world, but the solar industry is keeping warm through some inter-industry friction and as the industry heads forward into 2012. Last week, among other things, the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) decided to move forward with an investigation against Chinese solar manufacturers. Elsewhere, home builders added more solar to their offerings in certain markets. And states like Arizona and New Jersey are preparing for 2012 and beyond.

Last Friday the ITC determined that China’s silicon photovoltaic trade practices were unfair and harming the U.S. solar industry. It was a victory for SolarWorld Industries America and the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM), which brought the allegations up. Now the commission will determine whether or not to proceed with sanctions against Chinese PV modules. The Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy (CASE) is a U.S.-based organization that opposes the actions. Meanwhile, the China Photovoltaic Industry Alliance (CPIA) alleged that U.S. silicon manufacturers were dumping silicon ingot into China. Between the actions it could foment a trade war over solar.

The Occupy Wall Street movement got involved with solar a little bit last week. Members from the Colorado-based wing of the movement appeared at the groundbreaking of SunShare’s community-owned solar garden in Colorado Springs, which was attended by Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, among others. While protesting Wall Street and big banks, the event they protested at was funded by a community bank and a small, local company.

In 2012, solar will start making appearances at a place few might have expected, the Baja 1000. The grueling off-road race now has a new challenge, the Redstone Sun Cup Challenge for solar-powered electric vehicles. The challenge should help popularize the use of both EVs and solar.

Both City Ventures and KB Homes are increasing solar offerings available to seekers of new homes in Southern California. City Ventures introduced solar-powered homes pre-wired for EV chargers in Southern California, while KB Homes made solar a standard feature of its new homes in the same region.

To prepare Arizona to be competitive in all aspects of solar, a group of solar players throughout the state including companies, advocates and government came together to figure out how to approach the issues that will help make Arizona a national solar leader. The result is “Arizona’s Solar Strategic Plan."

The solar industry in New Jersey, currently the U.S.’s second-largest solar market, is going through some choppy times. Utilities are pushing legislators to stop subsidizing solar. However, the N.J. Office of Clean Energy is pushing for subsidies for small commercial and residential solar. The main issue is an oversupply of solar renewable energy credits in the state. There are efforts to require energy producers to purchase more, which the companies don’t favor.

While New Jersey has the largest solar market on the East Coast, it doesn’t have the largest PV array in the Eastern U.S. That honor now goes to little Long Island, which recently unveiled a new 32-megawatt solar array. The power produced is distributed by the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) and the project is sited on Brookhaven National Laboratory land.

NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE: NRG) sees the future of solar heading toward more distributed generation. As such it announced that last week it purchased Solar Power Partners, a developer of commercial solar projects. It marks the first time NRG is really getting into the distributed solar generation business.

Image courtesy of NREL.