Australian Swinburne University develops 8.1% efficient broadband PV cells

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 20:31 (Solarserver)

In a boon for the local solar industry, a team of researchers from Swinburne University of Technology and Suntech Power Holdings have developed the world's most efficient broadband nanoplasmonic solar cells. In a paper published in Nano Letters, the researchers describe how they have manufactured thin film solar cells with an absolute efficiency of 8.1 per cent. Read more

Astrosol to build 6.1 MW a-Si thin film PV plant at UA Tech Park in Tucson, Arizona

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 20:20 (Solarserver)

The University of Arizona Science and Technology Park (UA Tech Park; Tucson) on January 15th, 2012, announced its newest, multinational solar tenant, AstroSol Tech Park AZ LLC (AstroSol). AstroSol will own and operate a 6.1 megawatt solar photovoltaic (PV) facility using thin-film, amorphous silicon modules from Astronergy (Hangzhou, China), mounted on a fixed-tilt racking structure from Schletter Inc. (Tucson, Arizona). Read more

Leading manufacturers collaborate to update International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaics

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 19:11 (PV-Tech)

The 6th PV Fab Managers Forum on March 25-27 in Berlin will present the third edition of the International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaics (ITRPV). Solar industry decision-makers as well as scientists and experts from research institutes and universities will gather to hear from leading European, American and Asian manufacturers of silicon wafers, solar cells and modules, who will contribute to the latest roadmap updates. Read more

Trina Solar remains committed to 500MW solar cell and module capacity expansion

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 18:38 (PV-Tech)

Plans by Trina Solar to build-out its next-generation cell technology, despite industry conditions have been secured with a structured term loan facility of up to US$100 million dollars with Standard Chartered Bank. With the PV industry suffering from overcapacity, the majority of PV manufacturers are in cash preservation mode and have put a hold on capital spending. The loan will be used exclusively to Trina?s East Campus project, which includes 500MW of cell and module capacity and feature its high-efficiency Honey cell technology. Read more

UCLA researchers reach 10.6% efficiency for tandem polymer solar cells

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 16:00 (PV-Tech)

The journal Nature Photonics reports that researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and UCLA?s California Nanosystems Institute (CNSI) have significantly enhanced polymer solar cells? performance. They have used a device with a new ?tandem? structure that combines multiple cells with different absorption bands. The device had a certified power-conversion efficiency of 8.62% and set a world record in July 2011. Read more

Gehrlicher completes 10 MW PV plant in Zamora, Spain

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 12:46 (Solarserver)

Gehrlicher Solar AG (Neustadt B. Coburg, Germany) has announced that its Spanish subsidiary commissioned a 10 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) plant in late December 2011, which it will transfer to European Solar Power Funds 1 GmbH & Co. KG (ESPF 1, Grünwald, Germany) during February 2012. The Pereruela plant is Gehrlicher Solar's largest PV plant in Spain, and its second in the province of Zamora, for a total of 14 MW. The plant's 123,000 First Solar cadmium telluride PV modules and 14 SMA inverters cover 27.8 hectares of land. Read more

Conergy connects 5.3MW plant to Spanish grid

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 11:38 (PV-Tech)

Near the town of Mazarrón in the Murcia region of Spain, Conergy, in conjunction with locals Valfortec and Solaer, have connected a solar park to the grid. An area of almost 36 hectares has been installed with 50 kilometres of Conergy SolarLinea mounting systems with over 22,000 modules. The energy is fed into the Spanish power grid by 380 Conergy IPG T inverters. Read more

DOE Offers $12 Million to Spur Solar Energy Innovation

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 21:27 (Renewable Energy World)

DOE announced more than $12 million in funding to speed solar energy innovation from the lab to the marketplace. The funding, which will be made available through the agency's SunShot Incubator program, will support advancements in hardware, reductions in soft costs, and the development of pilot manufacturing and production projects. Each awardee will make significant cost-share commitments. Read more

PV system monitoring: SMA America introduces Android app for Sunny Portal, Solarchecker

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 20:05 (Solarserver)

On February 14th, 2012, SMA America LLC (Rocklin, California, U.S.) announced that it has introduced a SMA Sunny Portal for smartphone users with the Android operating system. The new addition complements SMA?s Sunny Portal and Solarchecker applications for the Apple iPhone. Read more

JinkoSolar forms new subsidiary to serve the Australian PV market

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 19:59 (Solarserver)

On February 14th, 2012, JinkoSolar Holding Co. Ltd. (Shanghai, China) announced that it has formed a new subsidiary, JinkoSolar Australia Co. Ltd., to serve the Australian market. The new subsidiary will be based in Queensland, Australia. JinkoSolar?s Australian unit will serve as a sales and delivery hub and will house about 4-5 MW of photovoltaic (PV) modules for the region. The new office is ideally placed for receiving deliveries and servicing JinkoSolar's local partners. Read more

MEMC catches its breath after US$1.48 billion loss

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 17:03 (PV-Tech)

Restructuring charges, impairments and write-downs led to MEMC?s reporting a fourth-quarter loss of US$1.48 billion, US$1.4 billion of which was due to the one-off charges. The company is resizing its solar wafer operations in light of ASP declines and reduced market demand. MEMC reported its Solar Materials segment revenue was down 46% sequentially due to a more than 20% decline in solar wafer shipment volumes and 25% lower prices. Read more

BIPV: Heliatek signs joint development agreement with RECKLI to integrate organic solar panels onto concrete building façades; products to come to market in two years

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 14:14 (Solarserver)

Heliatek GmbH (Dresden, Germany), producer of high-end organic solar photovoltaic (OPV) technology, has signed a joint development agreement with RECKLI GmbH (Herne, Germany), manufacturer of elastic molds for concrete building façades. This will enable vertical concrete walls of buildings to become highly efficient solar energy harvesters by integrating Heliatek's organic solar panels directly onto concrete façade blocks. This new Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) solution will combine energy harvesting to reduce a building's carbon footprint with a discrete, aesthetically pleasing, visual appearance, the partners emphasize. Read more

IKEA completes 15th solar installation in US

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 13:23 (PV-Tech)

IKEA is continuing with investing in solar power with a further system installed at its store in College Park, Maryland, US. REC Solar was chosen to develop, design and install the 1,196kW system, which consists of a 148,200 square foot PV array, built with 4,984 panels. It will produce approximately 1,571,800kWh of clean electricity annually, the equivalent of reducing 1,195 tons of CO2, eliminating the emissions of 213 cars or powering 135 homes yearly. Read more

Kokusai Kogyo Holdings and Orix Corp to install two 2MW plants in Japan

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 13:14 (PV-Tech)

Japan?s Kagawa government in western Japan has announced that Kokusai Kogyo Holdings and Orix Corp will each build a solar power plant, to start operations in July and September. The plants will have a capacity of 2MW. Read more

Sunweb Solar (former Solland Solar) closed transaction with Pufin Group, announces auction to sell its "Sunweb" Technology

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 12:40 (Solarserver)

As per February 1st, 2012 the solar photovoltaic (PV) cell manufacturing facilities of the former Solland group (Sittard, the Netherlands) were sold to the Italian Pufin group as already announced early last month. As part of that agreement the Pufin group will become the owner of the trade name Solland Solar and will establish a new legal entity under the old company name. The former Solland Solar Group has changed its name into Sunweb Solar. Read more

Clearing Up the Facts About Solar In Germany

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 12:35 (Renewable Energy World)

On January 18, 2011, the German magazine Der Spiegel published an article titled “The Solar Subsidy Sinkhole,” which paints a distorted picture of the German solar story. The following summarizes the misleading statements made - and facts to correct them. SPIEGEL:   “As is so often the case in winter, all sola Read more

New Hampshire modifies solar incentives

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 12:09 (Solarserver)

The Public Utilities Commission (PUC) in the U.S. state of New Hampshire has made changes to the state's Commercial and Industrial (C&I) solar rebate program, including allowing third-party ownership of systems and decreasing incentives for solar photovoltaic (PV) generation while increasing subsidies for solar thermal systems. PV incentives are limited to systems 100kW-DC or smaller, and have been reduced to USD 0.80 per watt from USD 1 per watt. Solar thermal incentives have likewise been increased to USD 0.12/kBTU annually for systems with up to 15 collectors. Read more

Solar Frontier ships 13.2 MW of CIS PV modules to NRG Solar

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 11:58 (Solarserver)

On February 15th, 2012 Solar Frontier K.K. (Tokyo, Japan) announced that it has delivered 13.2 MW of its copper indium gallium diselenide (CIS) solar photovoltaic (PV) modules to NRG Solar LLC (Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.), under an agreement signed in December 2011. This is the first agreement between the two companies as well as NRG's first purchase of CIS modules. Solar Frontier states that the transaction represents NRG's confidence in CIS technology. Read more

AUO renames solar business BenQ Solar

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 9:29 (Solarserver)

On February 15th, 2012 AU Optronics Corporation (AUO, Hsinchu, Taiwan, U.S.) announced that it has renamed its solar business "BenQ Solar", as authorized by BenQ Corporation (Taipei City, Taiwan). AUO states that it will offer locally produced PV modules through its "Global Operation, Local Delivery" business strategy. The company will also produce high-efficiency PV modules and has launched an AC PV module product with an integrated micro-inverter. Read more

Restructuring impacts MEMC 4Q 2011 results

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 9:19 (Solarserver)

On February 15th, 2012 MEMC Electronic Materials Inc. (St. Peters, Missouri, U.S.) announced heavy losses in its fourth quarter and full year 2011 financial results, reporting revenues of USD 718 million and an operating margin of -174%, in large part due to restructuring and impairment charges. The company blames lower semiconductor and solar wafer volume and pricing for a 16% year-over year decline in revenue, and reported a total of USD 1.09 billion in restructuring charges, goodwill impairment and asset impairment charges during the quarter. These substantial charges contributed to a net loss of USD 1.48 billion during the fourth quarter of 2011 and 1.52 billion over Read more

Ground-truthing: Do We Need Industrial Solar To Fight Climate Change?

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 22:02 (Renewable Energy World)

There are two holes the size of bulldozers in the argument being made by Joanna Wald in "Clearing Up the Record on Solar Energy on Public Lands", as well as The Wilderness Society (TWS), and Climate Progress (CP) that opening public lands to large scale industrial solar development is a necessary "sacrifice" to fight climate change.First, Read more

Ground-truth: Do We Need To Destroy the Desert To Fight Climate Change?

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 22:02 (Renewable Energy World)

There are two holes the size of bulldozers in the argument made by Joanna Wald in "Clearing Up the Record on Solar Energy on Public Lands", and others (including The Wilderness Society and Climate Progress) that opening public lands to large scale industrial solar development is a necessary "sacrifice" to fight climate change.First, I'm reminded of Read more

Excellence in Renewable Energy Award Announced! Check out Video Coverage of the Winners Here

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 21:22 (Renewable Energy World)

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/video?categoryId=62 Read more

Renewable Energy Tax Credits Left out of Payroll Tax Extension

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 17:51 (Renewable Energy World)

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) and other renewable energy associations are no doubt disappointed with the outcome of the U.S. House and Senate negotiations over the payroll tax cut extension, which is ready to be passed. Read more

The Co-op reduces its greenhouse gas emissions by 35 percent

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 15:46 (Solarpowerportal)

Following the launch of the Co-operative Group’s ethical plan 12 months ago, the group has surpassed expectations, exceeding many of the original targets. Read more

More than 1.1 Million People Employed in EU's Renewable Energy Sector

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 15:00 (Renewable Energy World)

More than 1.1 million people have jobs in Europe's renewable energy sector, according to new figures released from EurObserv'ER, a renewable energy tracking project supported by the European Commission. Read more

Excellence in Renewable Energy Awards Winners: Leadership

Thursday, 2.16.2012 - 15:00 (Renewable Energy World)

Great industry achievements happen when dynamic visionaries step up and spearhead efforts to bring about the changes they envision. Whether it is pioneering the development of solar power training networks, creating a financial vehicle that will vastly speed up the adoption of solar energy, or working tirelessly to integrate renewable energy onto the grid, these leaders know that it takes years of hard work to move an industry forward. Read more