PV production: Natcore files two provisional patents

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 15:45 (Solarserver)

AbstrOn May 8th, 2013 Natcore Technology Inc. (Red Bank, New Jersey, US) announced that it has filed two new provisional patent applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The titles of the applications are “Method For Patterned Doping of A Semiconductor” and “Solar Cells With Patterned Antireflective Surfaces”. Read more

Dr. Thorsten Schleich appointed as preliminary insolvency administrator of Sunways AG

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 15:42 (Solarserver)

After a third-party application to open insolvency proceedings on the Konstanz, Germany, based solar photovoltaic (PV) company Sunways AG Dr. Thorsten Schleich from the law firm Schleich & Kollegen was appointed as preliminary insolvency administrator by the insolvency court Konstanz. Read more

Smart meter roll-out delayed until 2015

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 15:40 (Solarpowerportal)

The mass roll-out of smart meters has been delayed by a year following concerns that the industry is not fully prepared to implement the technology across 30 million UK homes. Read more

SNEC 2013: Heraeus upgrades Shanghai PV facility

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 11:49 (PV-Tech)

The Heraeus Photovoltaics business unit, part of German technology firm Heraeus, has upgraded its PV laboratory in Shanghai, China, in order to increase its local support to Chinese cell manufacturers. Read more

Kyocera markets solar power storage system by Prosol Invest

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 15:51 (Solarserver)

As income from feed-in tariffs falls, intelligent storage solutions for solar-generated electricity become increasingly attractive to people who want to optimize their power consumption – especially private households. Japanese technology group Kyocera (Kyoto, Japan) has now joined forces with Prosol Invest (Wildpoldsried, Germany) to start marketing an intelligent lithium storage system. The “sun battery” stores excess solar-generated electricity and enables solar unit owners to up “in-house” consumption rates considerably, thus becoming ever more independent of the public electricity grid, Kyocera reports. Read more

aleo solar offers versatile laminated PV panels

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 15:38 (Solarserver)

On May 8th, 2013 aleo solar AG (Oldenburg, Germany) announced that it has introduced new frameless solar modules. The new panels include the polycrystalline L_18 solar module that is available in power classes up to 260 watts (W); monocrystalline L_19 up to 270 watts; and solid black L_79 up to 265 watts. Read more

Residential Solar Sub-Contractors Work For Pennies - NLP Solar Sales Training May 15 & 16 - New Bonus for Contractors & Sales Teams

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 15:00 (Renewable Energy World)

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Solargiga’s monocrystalline wafer production fully booked in 2013

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 14:06 (PV-Tech)

China-based monocrystalline wafer producer Solargiga Energy Holdings has reported that primarily due to demand from the Japanese PV market it is fully booked out in 2013. Read more

Anti-Solar Bill in North Carolina Moves Forward Despite Opposition

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 14:00 (Renewable Energy World)

A contested bill in North Carolina that would repeal the state’s renewable portfolio standard is moving forward despite what appeared to be committee that voted against it. The bill was moved out of the Senate Finance Committee by State Senators Bill Rabon and Bob Rucho, both Republicans, who co-chair the committee. The senators held a voice vote o Read more

India proposes resolution to solar domestic content dispute

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 13:46 (PV-Tech)

The Indian government has confirmed it will offer developers the option to bid for solar projects with or without a domestic content requirement (DCR), which could serve to placate domestic grievances against importers of modules. Read more

Yingli to supply 220 MW of solar PV modules to CPI for Chinese PV plants

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 12:46 (Solarserver)

A subsidiary of Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Ltd. (Baoding, China) has won a contract to supply 220 MW of multi-crystalline silicon solar photovoltaic (PV) modules to China Power Investment Corporation (CPI, Beijing, China). CPI plans to use the modules to build five PV plants in Hebei and Qinghai Provinces, China. Yingli China will supply these modules by the end of 2013. Read more

Xcel Energy expands agreement with NCAR for solar, wind forecasting

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 12:42 (Solarserver)

Xcel Energy Inc. (Minneapolis, Minnesota, US) has expanded an agreement with the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR, Boulder, Colorado, US) for renewable energy forecasting. Over the next two years, NCAR scientists will develop custom forecasting systems to enable Xcel Energy to anticipate changes in the output of wind and solar photovoltaic (PV) generation. Read more

Orta Solar warns that EU levy risks £180 million worth of UK solar projects

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 12:27 (Solarpowerportal)

Solar developer Orta Solar has launched a fierce attack on the European Commission’s proposals to recommend trade levies of between 40% and 70% to all imported Chinese solar products. Read more

Iberdrola Ingeniería to construct 96MW South Africa PV plant

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 11:26 (PV-Tech)

Spanish EPC Iberdrola Ingeniería has won a contract to build a 96MW solar power plant in South Africa under the second bidding round of the country’s national renewable energy programme. Read more

California’s shared community solar bills pass committee

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 10:00 (PV-Tech)

Two crucial shared solar bills with a combined potential for up to 1200MW have passed committee stage in the California legislature following an amendment to appease the state’s investor owned utilities. Read more

Solarbuzz: solar silicon wafer production to grow 19% in 2013

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 8:54 (Solarserver)

NPD Solarbuzz (Santa Clara, California, US) has released a report which predicts that silicon wafer production for the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry will grow 19% in 2013, to surpass 30 GW. The company's latest “Polysilicon and Wafer Supply Chain Quarterly” notes that this follows a lull in production in 2012. NPD Solarbuzz also forecasts that multi-crystalline silicon will continue to dominate this market in the “short-to-mid-term”, but that mono-crystalline wafers will remain in demand in end-markets with limited space. Read more

SolarCity begins work on 24 MW of new PV plants in Hawaii

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 8:41 (Solarserver)

SolarCity Corporation (San Mateo, California, US) reports that construction has begun on its 24 MW rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) project at US military bases in the state of Hawaii, as part of its SolarStrong program. SolarCity and Forest City Military Communities (Cleveland, Ohio, US) have installed the first 700 kW of PV systems at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, and will soon begin the first installations at Navy Region Hawaii. Read more

Two Conversations the Wind Energy Industry Must Own, And Soon

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 16:00 (Renewable Energy World)

One of the strongest messages that came out of this week's AWEA Windpower event in Chicago was the urgent need for more unity in the wind industry's message, delivered to and embracing everyone from legislators to the finance community to the general public. And two key parts of that unified front, agreed multiple speakers, must be underscoring the wind industry's true "clean" position vs. other energy sources, and mending fences and reestablishing ties between the wind and environmental communities. Read more

With More Wind Energy, PJM Could Save Customers $7 Billion per Year

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 15:48 (Renewable Energy World)

The PJM Interconnection could save its customers $6.9 billion if it more than doubled the amount of wind energy it currently plans to build. This is according to a study by Americans for a Clean Energy Grid and Synapse Energy Economics. Read more

German Scientists Use Offshore Wind Farms to Replenish Lobsters

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 14:00 (Renewable Energy World)

German scientists are betting that offshore wind farms can help replenish the North Sea's fledgling lobster population. Read more

Buffett's MidAmerican Plans $1.9 Billion of Wind Farms in Iowa

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 14:00 (Renewable Energy World)

A unit of Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. plans to invest $1.9 billion to build additional wind farms in Iowa that would increase its wind generating capacity in the state by about half. Read more

Connecticut Seeks to Literally Water Down its RPS, Could it Happen in Your Region?

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 21:07 (Renewable Energy World)

Since I live in New Hampshire and write about the global renewable energy industry, once in a while small local news that might appear to be of minor importance to my neighbors leaps out at me as something that could end up having a huge impact on the renewable energy industry. Read more

Solar-powered floating egg to highlight climate change

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 16:18 (Solarpowerportal)

An artist will take up residence in a solar-powered floating egg on the River Beaulieu in Hampshire to highlight the impact of climate change. Read more

Europe Sinks Its Flagship Carbon Trading Scheme

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 15:34 (Renewable Energy World)

All German Chancellor Angela Merkel had to do was pick up the phone and dial her people in Brussels. Had she done so before the European Parliament's (EP) key vote last month on April 19, her party's representatives could easily have saved the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), Europe's flagship mechanism for reducing carbon emissions. But the woman once hailed as "the climate chancellor," didn't make the call, a consequence of differences of opinion on the ETS within her ruling center-right coalition, she said. The impotent ETS is now withering on the vine, where it may remain until it is dead altogether. Read more

GET wafer production utilisation rate over 95%

Friday, 5.10.2013 - 13:16 (PV-Tech)

Taiwan-based multicrystalline wafer producer, Green Energy Technology (GET) said that increased demand since November 2012 drove utilisation rates above 95% in April 2013. Read more