Solar Everywhere, Self-Driving Cars, and the Clean Energy Revolution Taking Shape Right Now

The Sun Is Rising — Everywhere at Once

Picture a parking lot in Laie, Hawaii, where rows of solar canopies now shade the cars outside Brigham Young University–Hawaii's Pacific Theater. Above them, panels drink in the island sun. Below them, students walk to class — powered, entirely, by light.

BYU–Hawaii is in the final phase of its University Solar Project, and when complete, it will generate 100% of the university's electricity needs, with enough left over to power the Polynesian Cultural Center and the Laie Hawaii Temple. The project began in 2022 with rooftop installations, five solar carports, and 7 MWh of battery backup that already covered 39% of campus electricity. Phase two adds a ground-mount solar system and an emergency battery backup capable of running the campus for five full days. As CleanTechnica reports, this is what a genuine energy transition looks like — not a pledge, but panels in the ground.

From Islands to Balconies to Entire Nations

That same spirit is spreading in unexpected directions. In California, the State Assembly's Committee on Utilities and Energy just voted 18-0 to advance SB 868 — the bill that would legalize plug-and-play "balcony solar" statewide. No permits. No installers. No waiting months. You simply plug your solar panels in and start generating clean electricity.

"SB 868 clears away the needless red tape that currently makes it infeasible for people to use this technology," said Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who introduced the bill. If California — the world's fourth-largest economy — approves it, balcony solar could reach millions of households almost overnight. It's a small but radical democratization of energy production.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Bangladesh just introduced a 0% tax rate for its entire solar power sector through 2035. Import duties, regulatory duties, supplementary duties, and advance taxes on critical solar components have all been zeroed out. Businesses using solar-generated electricity can even claim a 5% tax rebate on their solar bills. The country is aiming for renewables to cover 20% of electricity demand by 2030, and 30–50% by 2050. As CleanTechnica notes, one would hope — and expect — those targets only get more ambitious as costs keep falling.

The Bottleneck Nobody Wants to Talk About

But solar's march isn't without friction. T1 Energy CEO Dan Barcelo is sounding an alarm that's been ringing, largely unheeded, for over a decade: the United States has a serious permitting problem. From raw material mining to project installation to grid interconnection, solar development in America is tangled in regulatory red tape that competitors in other major markets simply don't face.

"Permitting regulation needs to be reformed at both the upstream and downstream levels to enable the solar PV industry to navigate a post-tax-credit world," Barcelo told PV-Tech. With federal subsidies being cut and net metering policies eroding in states like California, the urgency has never been higher. The message, Barcelo argues, needs to be everywhere — from lobbyist briefings to lunch conversations at Subway. Clean energy has the technology. What it needs now is the political will to clear the path.

Europe's aviation sector is grappling with its own version of this tension. Transport & Environment (T&E) submitted a consultation response urging the EU to reform State Aid guidelines for airports — pushing them to halt volume-based expansion, prioritize zero-emission technologies, and invest in e-SAF (sustainable aviation fuel) rather than chasing more routes. The argument is the same one Barcelo is making for solar: policy frameworks need to catch up with technological reality.

Autonomy, Trust, and What Comes Next

Away from the solar panels, another transformation is accelerating on city streets. Waymo published joint research with TU Delft this week in the journal Nature Communications, unveiling a new "active inference framework" to model how the best human drivers — careful, confident, defensive — respond to traffic conflicts. The goal isn't just to match average human driving. It's to match the best of it.

The company simultaneously launched Waymo Premier, a premium tier of its robotaxi service that leans into a counterintuitive strategy: rather than racing to be the cheapest option, Waymo is betting some riders will pay more for a genuinely superior experience. As CleanTechnica reports, the company's long-stated ambition is to become the "world's most trusted driver" — and this week, it's putting both the science and the business model behind that claim.

The Movement You Can Touch

What ties all of this together was on vivid display at the Blaisdell Expo Hall in Honolulu this April, where CleanTechnica hosted its first-ever Sustainability Expo & Electric Home Show. Around 1,200 people showed up. Seventy-five vendors filled the floor — EV repair shops, ebike sellers, farm-to-table restaurants, solar installers, battery companies. Bill McKibben gave the keynote. A Bluetti-powered bounce house hummed in the corner. People touched, tested, and drove the technologies that are reshaping daily life.

The best way to dispel myths about clean energy, as the organizers put it, is to let people experience it for themselves. From a university parking lot in Hawaii to a balcony in San Francisco to a policy table in Dhaka, that experience is becoming harder and harder to avoid — and that's exactly the point.

The clean energy transition has always been a story about momentum. Right now, the momentum is everywhere.