News of the year 2012

Date: 05.04.2012



Photovoltaics

ESA Renewables realizes 1.26MW solar PV array in eastern North Carolina using Canadian Solar modules

Thursday,.2012 - 20:41 (PV-Tech)

New Bern, North Carolina is home to ESA Renewables latest solar PV project. The 1.26MW rooftop array is online and generating electricity, which Progress Energy Carolinas will buy as part of its plan to meet the state?s renewable portfolio standard. It is expected that the solar installation will generate around 1.5 million kWh of electricity per year. Read more

Second annual Si PV conference underway in Leuven, Belgium

Thursday,.2012 - 20:31 (PV-Tech)

Leuven, Belgium is hosting the second International Conference on Silicon Photovoltaics this week. Following the success of the first Si PV conference last year in Freiburg, Germany, this year?s edition will again centre around the science and technology of advanced crystalline silicon solar cells and modules and the properties and influence of the crystalline Si substrate on the performance of crystalline Si solar cells. Read more

Beneq nAERO technology is winning candidate for cell manufacturers

Thursday,.2012 - 16:16 (PV-Tech)

The research team at Helmholz-Zentrum, Berlin, Germany, published last month that Beneq produced positive results on the performance of its thin-film PV solar cells manufactured with TCO-glass (transparent conductive oxide). Produced by Beneq nAERO technology, the results show that nAERO-coated TCO glass is a definite candidate for cell manufacturers in need of high-quality fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) TCO glass at an affordable price. Read more

EU implements research group to develop next-generation thin-film technology

Thursday,.2012 - 16:10 (PV-Tech)

Large-scale integrating project, Fast Track, coordinated by Forschungszentrum Jülich, intends to bring to market the next generation of thin-film technology. Eighteen leading EU industries and research institutions have set a target to achieve solar cells with 14% stable efficiency, leading to the reliable production of prototype modules at a level of 12%. The potential cost is expected to be below 0.5/Wp. Read more

Lux Research: global PV markets to grow only 1.5% in 2012 to 26.9 GW, will reach 38.3 GW in 2017

Thursday,.2012 - 16:06 (Solarserver)

On April 5th, 2012 Lux Research Inc. (Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.) released a new report which states that the global solar photovoltaic (PV) market will grow by only 400 MW to 26.9 GW in 2012, with industry revenues falling 16% to USD 92 billion as the result of price collapses. However, "Market Size Update 2012: The Push to a Post-Subsidy Solar Industry" states that the global PV market to grow to 38.3 GW in 2017, as the industry learns to adapt to the removal of subsidies. The report also predicts that emerging markets including South Asia will quadruple in size from 1 GW in 2011 to GW in 2017. Read more

9 MW rooftop PV plant receives USD 11 million federal grant

Thursday,.2012 - 16:03 (Solarserver)

On April 5th, 2012 federal officials presented an award letter for a USD 11 million federal cash grant to the Gloucester Marine Terminal for its 9 MW rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) plant in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The award came through the Section 1603 Treasury Grant Program, which provided grants in lieu of the 30% federal Investment Tax Credit. The program expired at the end of 2011 after a successful one-year extension, however projects which began construction in 2011 were still eligible for awards. Read more

Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology appoints new MD

Thursday,.2012 - 13:20 (PV-Tech)

UK-based Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology (OPIT) has promoted Dan Ayres to managing director, effective immediately. Last summer Ayres was appointed to the newly-created role of general manager having already worked at the company for over ten years. He has been based in operations, product management and project management. Read more

Exiting solar cell production drags Solar-Fabrik into small annual loss

Thursday,.2012 - 12:44 (PV-Tech)

Revenue at Solar-Fabrik fell 22% in 2011 due to increased competition and falling average selling prices while shipments remained flat at 127MW with 2010. Revenue reached ?176.89 million, down from ?227.27 million in 2010. Gross margin was 13.7%, down from 17.7% in the prior year. Net loss was ?360,000 due mainly to impairment charges related to permanently stopping solar cell production in Singapore and cancellation of a wafer supply contract. Read more

Los Angeles City Council approves CLEAN LA program to support PV generation

Thursday,.2012 - 12:30 (Solarserver)

On April 3rd, 2012, the Los Angeles City Council approved a measure that will allow the city's Department of Water and Power (LADWP) to move forward with a pilot program to support solar photovoltaic (PV) generation. The CLEAN LA Solar Program will support 10 MW of PV generation, with a project size cap of 3 MW and a tariff cap of USD 0.30/kWh. While the program has been called a feed-in tariff, policy analysts note that insufficient detail has been provided to determine whether or not this label is accurate. Read more

SDG&E signs PPAs for 15 MW of PV plants in Southern California

Thursday,.2012 - 12:25 (Solarserver)

On April 3rd, 2012, San Diego Gas & Electric Company (SDG&E, San Diego, California, U.S.) announced that it has signed two 20-year power purchase agreements with subsidiaries of Silverado Power for a total of 15 MW of electricity which will be generated by solar photovoltaic (PV) plants in Southern California. Silverado plans to build the 10 MW Antelope Dry Ranch PV plant in Lancaster (California, U.S.) and the 5 MW Victor Mesa Linda B PV plant in Victorville. The company plans to build the plants from April 2013 through October 2013. Read more

30 million smart meters to be in place by 2019

Thursday,.2012 - 12:24 (Solarpowerportal)

The Department of Energy and Climate Change has revealed aspirations to equip 30 million homes and small businesses with smart meters by 2019. Government hopes the mass rollout of smart meters will enable all consumers to have access to accurate billing information, ending the practice of estimated billing. Read more

Suniva achieves 19% efficient PV cells in mass production

Thursday,.2012 - 9:06 (Solarserver)

On April 4th, 2012 Suniva Inc. (Norcross, Georgia, U.S.) announced that it is producing its ARTisun Select series solar photovoltaic (PV) cells at an average efficiency of 19% in plant-wide production. Suniva states that its approach has allowed it to reach these efficiency improvements without the added steps and processing costs which other companies employ to increase efficiencies. The new cells are currently commercially available and are incorporated into the company's PV Optimus modules. Read more


Thermal Power/Heating

1.6MW Isle of Wight solar project reaches completion

Thursday,.2012 - 20:22 (PV-Tech)

The Isle of Wight, located off the southern coast of Great Britain, has a new 1.6MW solar plant to thank for helping to contribute to its electricity grid. The project was completed using 80 strings, each with 88 solar modules, and outfitted with SunMaster CS20 inverters from Mastervolt. The company advised that this is one of the largest systems with sting inverters in Britain. Read more

Greece?s PM plans to develop US$27 billion Helios solar project

Thursday,.2012 - 20:10 (PV-Tech)

According to a report from newnet and Bloomberg, Lucas Papademos, Greece?s Prime Minister, announced plans to develop the US$27 billion Helios solar project, citing renewable energy as a priority for the economically challenged country. Papademos advised that he looks to the plant as being a way to help Greece?s economy prosper while exporting clean energy. The Helios project aims to install up to 10GW of solar panels by 2050. Read more

Wattner buys Torno I, II, & III solar plants for ?49 million

Thursday,.2012 - 19:58 (PV-Tech)

Wattner advised that it had bought the Saxony-based Torno I, II and III solar plants for ?49 million with plans to integrate them into the closed-end solar funds of Wattner SunAsset 2 &3. The newly acquired solar projects, constructed in October 200, represent a total capacity of 24MW. Read more

Trina Solar picks Applied Materials for second consecutive year as best supplier

Thursday,.2012 - 16:16 (PV-Tech)

Outstanding efforts on new technology development and cost efficiency initiatives has ensured Applied Materials won Trina Solar?s ?Outstanding Contribution of the Year 2011 - World Purchasing Award? for the second year in a row. Applied noted that it was the only equipment supplier to be recognised by the integrated PV module manufacturer in its annual awards. Read more

Solar Moves Into CPV's 'Sweet Spot'

Thursday,.2012 - 15:00 (Renewable Energy World)

The solar industry is headed south, and for concentrating photovoltaics (CPV), this is a good thing. Read more

Should Corporations Deploy Solar Portfolio-wide?

Thursday,.2012 - 15:00 (Renewable Energy World)

Last week, Mark Gaspers, U.S. energy manager with IKEA North America, and Pete Kadens, president of SoCore Energy, joined AltaTerra Research for an online conference on how corporate solar power strategies are evolving beyond isolated or pilot installations and moving toward portfolio-wide deployments.  Pete and Mark are highly knowledgeable Read more

Lux Research: limited solar subsidies will not hinder global growth

Thursday,.2012 - 13:59 (PV-Tech)

In a bid to curb the uncertainty currently plaguing the solar industry, Lux Research has released a report stating that although solar installations will stall this year, businesses have nothing to fear. The report Market Size Update 2012: The Push to a Post-Subsidy Solar Industry states manufacturers will still be able to make rapid strides if they take advantage of emerging markets and will be able to find sustained growth even without government subsidies Read more

Solar distributor Alternergy tops Investec?s Hot 100 list

Thursday,.2012 - 13:55 (Solarpowerportal)

Alternergy, one of the UK?s largest solar PV distributors, has been crowned top of the Investec Hot 100 thanks to its rapid growth in the burgeoning solar market. Read more

Consumers Energy launches new phase of solar power purchase program EARP

Thursday,.2012 - 13:33 (Solarserver)

On April 3rd, 2012 Consumers Energy (Saginaw, Michigan, U.S.) announced that it has begun accepting applications for an extension of a program that purchases electricity generated by customer solar photovoltaic (PV) plants at fixed prices for 15 years. Consumers Energy will accept applications for a new phase of its Experimental Advanced Renewable Energy Program (EARP) through May 3rd, 2012. The program pays between USD 0.259/kWh and 0.200/kWh, and is limited to 1.5 MW of residential PV systems and 1.5 MW of non-residential PV systems. Read more

GreenVolts announces iPad and iPhone mobile devices for solar energy management

Thursday,.2012 - 13:24 (Solarserver)

On April 2nd, 2012, GreenVolts Inc. (Fremont, California, U.S.) announced that it has introduced solar energy management software for iPad and iPhone mobile devices. The new "ISIS Mobile" is an extension of the company?s Internet-based ISIS energy management software and due to GreenVolts enables unprecedented management capabilities for the company?s solar systems ranging from smaller, distributed installations to large, centralized, utility scale solar photovoltaic (PV) plants. Read more

Pvilion launches PV powered Solar Sail charging station

Thursday,.2012 - 13:13 (Solarserver)

On April 2nd, 2012, United Solar (Auburn Hills, Michigan, U.S.), manufacturer of UNI-SOLAR lightweight, flexible solar photovoltaic (PV) products, announced that Pvilion (New York, New York, U.S.) has launched the first Solar Sail electric car charging station using UNI-SOLAR laminates. The Solar Sail electric car charging station is located in Pflugerville, Texas, near Austin, at the entrance to Pflugerville's Renewable Energy Park. Read more

Concentrating solar power: Guardian supplies mirrors for Ivanpah project

Thursday,.2012 - 9:11 (Solarserver)

On April 4th, 2012 Guardian Industries (Auburn Hills, Michigan, U.S.) announced that 160,000 of its EcoGuard Solar Boost heliostats (mirrors) are currently being installed at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, a 392 MW concentrating solar power (CSP) project in Southern California. The Ivanpah project is a partnership between NRG Solar LLC (Carlsbad, California, U.S.), Google (Mountain View, California, U.S.) and BrightSource Energy Inc. (Oakland, California, U.S.). Bechtel (San Francisco, California, U.S.) is currently constructing the project, which comprises three plants based on BrightSource's LPT solar power tower designs. Read more


Biomass/Pellets

There are no news available

 



Wind Energy

There are no news available

 



Hydropower

There are no news available

 



Hydrogen/Fuel Cell

There are no news available

 



Geo Thermal/Heat Pump

There are no news available

 



Energy Policy/Climate/CO2

Enphase closes US$61.9 million public offering of common stock

Thursday,.2012 - 20:47 (PV-Tech)

Enphase Energy advised that it had closed its public offering of 10,315,151 shares of its common stock, at the price of US$6 per share. The deal brought in gross proceeds of nearly US$61.9 million. Enphase noted that 1,345,454 shares of common stock were sold under the over-allotment option given by the company to the underwriters, which was exercised in full. Enphase anticipates that the net proceeds from the shares, after underwriter discounts and other offering expenses payable by the company, will be nearly US$54.6 million. Read more

Grid-scale Energy Storage: Lux Predicts $113.5 Billion in Global Demand by 2017

Thursday,.2012 - 17:03 (Renewable Energy World)

Last month Lux Research released a bottom-up evaluation of the cost effectiveness of eight energy storage technologies in six grid-scale applications throughout 44 countries, including all 50 U.S. states. Their report titled "Grid Storage under the Microscope: Using Local Knowledge to Forecast Global Demand" predicts that annual global demand for grid-scale energy storage will reach an astounding 185.4 gigawatt-hours (GWh) by 2017 and represent a $113.5 billion incremental revenue opportunity for an industry that currently generates sales of $50 to $60 billion a year. Read more

With Fossil Fuels in the Spotlight, Clean Tech Hums Along

Thursday,.2012 - 15:00 (Renewable Energy World)

In the Canadian province of Alberta, the Athabasca Oil Sands and the Keystone Pipeline are not the only important energy stories. In Alberta's capital of Edmonton, Montreal-based Enerkem is building a full-scale commercial plant that will use a thermo-chemical process to convert up to 100,000 metric tons of municipal solid waste into syngas, which is then converted into methanol and ethanol. Read more

Trade-in the 20th Century Electric Grid, Don't Trade-off Local Energy

Thursday,.2012 - 15:00 (Renewable Energy World)

In a New York Times Sunday Review piece last month — Drawing the Line at Power Lines — Elisabeth Rosenthal suggested that our desire for clean energy will require significant tradeoffs: There are pipelines, trains, trucks and high-voltage transmission lines. None of them are pretty, and all have environmental drawbac Read more

PV producer Yingli hosts FC Bayern Youth Cup finals in China

Thursday,.2012 - 13:06 (Solarserver)

On April 2nd, 2012, Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. Ltd. (Baoding, China) announced that it hosted FC Bayern Youth Cup China finals in China. The company joined hands with National Youth Campus Football, Chinese Football Association (CFA) and FC Bayern Munich to jointly host the event. FC Bayern Youth Cup commenced its Hainan and Tianjin finals last week on March 24th in Haikou, Hainan and on April 1st in Tianjin. Read more

UK launches £20 million wave energy contest

Thursday,.2012 - 12:37 (Renewable Energy World)

The UK government today launched a £20 million ($31.6 million) wave energy scheme. Read more

UK Launches £20 Million Wave Energy Contest

Thursday,.2012 - 12:37 (Renewable Energy World)

The UK government today launched a £20 million ($31.6 million) wave energy scheme. Read more

UK consumer debt to energy giants hits £478 million

Thursday,.2012 - 11:18 (Solarpowerportal)

Research from uSwitch.com has revealed that almost 4 million UK households are currently in debt to their energy supplier. The annual report shows that those indebted to energy companies owe, on average, £131 - a 4 percent rise from last year?s levels. Read more


Solar-/Electromobil

There are no news available

 



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