Conergy heads for insolvency as creditors baulk at new investor

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 13:15 (Solarpowerportal)

German manufacturer and developer Conergy has started insolvency proceedings at the District Court of Hamburg after plans to include a new strategic investor in the company were thwarted by one of 10 existing creditors. Read more

juwi commissions 10 MW PV plant in France, 1 MW rooftop PV plant in Japan

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 12:31 (Solarserver)

juwi group (Wörrstadt, Germany) has recently commissioned a free-field solar photovoltaic (PV) plant in Southern France, also a rooftop PV plant was connected to the grid in Japan. Near Bordeaux in the department Gironde, juwi has commissioned its eleventh solar PV park in the country. “Mios 2“ was built as an extension of the plant “Mios 1”, that was connected to the grid in 2011. Read more

Germany installs 344 MW of PV in May 2013

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 9:25 (Solarserver)

Germany's Federal Network Agency reports that the nation installed 344 MW of new solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity in May 2013 through its feed-in tariff. This brings Germany to 1.49 GW installed in the first five months of 2013, a 42% decline over the same period in 2012. All told, Germany had installed 33.9 GW of PV through its feed-in tariff by the end of May 2013. Read more

PV system solutions provider Conergy files for open insolvency proceedings

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 9:22 (Solarserver)

Conergy AG (Hamburg, Germany) will file an application for the opening of insolvency proceedings on July 5th, 2013 at the District Court of Hamburg, the solar company gives notice in an Ad hoc announcement. The German major subsidiaries will also immediately file for the opening of insolvency proceedings. Read more

The largest drop in channel partners was in the NCR, which includes Delhi and surrounding areas

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 8:51 (Solarserver)

Germany's Federal Network Agency reports that the nation installed 344 MW of new solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity in May 2013 through its feed-in tariff. This brings Germany to 1.49 GW installed in the first five months of 2013, a 42% decline over the same period in 2012. All told, Germany had installed 33.9 GW of PV through its feed-in tariff by the end of May 2013. Read more

SolarCity to install 3.4MW at New Mexico air force base

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 22:15 (PV-Tech)

SolarCity this week announced the latest in its SolarStrong initiative to supply power to the military. Read more

Residential Solar PV Systems Experiencing Slow Adoption in China

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 16:11 (Renewable Energy World)

China launched a series of policies at end of 2012 to encourage the deployment of residential solar photovoltaic (PV) systems that can generate sufficient power for one household. In the few months after the roll out of these policies, thousands of interested individuals contacted the State Grid Corporation of China to get more information about this novel form of power supply. Read more

Two weeks left to enter the Solar Power Portal Awards

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 14:04 (Solarpowerportal)

There are just two weeks left to submit entries for the inaugural Solar Power Portal Awards. Read more

Could Utility-Scale Solar Financing with Bonds Be the New Normal?

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 13:00 (Renewable Energy World)

In late April, concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) manufacturer and solar project developer Soitec announced that it had finalised a bond that will be used to finance a portion of its 44 MWp CPV plant in Touwsrivier, South Africa. The bond, worth some ZAR1 billion (approximately US$85 million) is the first publicly-listed project development bond ever issued to finance a CPV solar power plant, and only the third bond issued to finance any type of solar installation worldwide. Read more

Solar Impulse flies final leg of across America journey

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 12:35 (Solarserver)

The solar-powered airplane of Swiss pioneers Bertrand Piccard and André Borschberg will fly to New York for the fifth and last leg of its Across America mission flights on Saturday, July 6th, 2013. It is the culmination of an epic which began on May 3rd in San Francisco. Piccard and Borschberg have taken turns in the single seat cockpit with stopovers in Phoenix, Dallas, St. Louis and Cincinnati. This final leg marks the historic achievement of the coast-to-coast across America flights, which started May 3rd in San Francisco, with an airplane capable of flying day and night without fuel, powered exclusively by solar power, provided by 12,000 PV cells. Read more

Solar leasing company Sungevity attracts USD 15 million of new equity financing, including investment from GE

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 12:27 (Solarserver)

Solar leasing company Sungevity Inc. (Oakland, California, US), on July 3rd, 2013 announced USD 15 million in new equity financings, including an investment from GE Ventures. The new funding follows an announcement by Sungevity in January of this year that it had secured USD 125 million in combined venture capital and project financing. Read more

Morrison’s seals deal with GMI for PV installations

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 11:43 (Solarpowerportal)

Supermarket chain Morrison’s has signed a deal with solar installations firm GMI Energy to build rooftop PV systems on its new stores as well as existing distribution centres. Read more

Solar shakeout: Conergy heads for insolvency as creditors baulk at new investor

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 9:45 (PV-Tech)

Plans to include a new strategic investor in the company have been thwarted by one of 10 existing creditors, leading Conergy to start insolvency proceedings at the District Court of Hamburg. Read more

Construction starts on New Mexico’s largest solar project

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 1:22 (PV-Tech)

Construction began this week on New Mexico’s largest solar farm, El Paso Electric Power and First Solar jointly announced. Read more

AfDB Expects African Wind Power Capacity To Increase 10-Fold

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 14:00 (Renewable Energy World)

A report from the African Development Bank (AfDB) said that wind power is expected to increase by a factor of 10 over the next few years. The study showed wind power in the country currently makes up just 1 percent of the energy mix — at just 1 GW — but with 10.5 GW of wind power projects in the pipeline, that number will skyrocket. Read more

U.S. Floating Offshore Wind Pilot Project Put On Hold

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 10:54 (Renewable Energy World)

Norwegian energy company Statoil has announced that it will put its 12 MW, US $120 million Hywind Maine floating offshore wind project, planned for construction off the coast of Maine in the U.S., on indefinite hold. Read more

British Prime Minister Opens World's Largest Offshore Wind Farm

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 7:55 (Renewable Energy World)

British Prime Minister David Cameron yesterday officially opened London Array, the world’s largest offshore wind farm. Read more

Kenya Receiving Assistance from Japan on Renewable Energy Development

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 14:00 (Renewable Energy World)

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is working to bring more power that includes renewable energy and better transmission to the people of Kenya. JICA’s program aims to strengthen the power supply capacity of Kenya through support of power plants and domestic transmission lines. It also intends to strengthen international transmission lines to realize the Power Pooling Initiative in East Africa. Read more

Is Obama Setting Real Climate Goals?

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 14:00 (Renewable Energy World)

Pres. Obama followed up in June of this year on the promise of his second inaugural address by announcing the President’s Climate Action Plan. Obama’s June address received much well-deserved attention, particularly since it was the first major presidential speech devoted entirely to the issue of climate change. Obama is to be applauded for finally using his bully pulpit to bring attention to this crucial issue in a major way. Read more

More Than 1 GW of CSP Headed for MENA

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 14:00 (Renewable Energy World)

The US $7.6 billion Climate Investment Funds (CIF) gave the go-ahead to Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia to proceed with an updated version of a sweeping plan to bring an unprecedented 1120 megawatts (MW) of energy from concentrated solar power (CSP) to the region. The plan will receive US $660 million from the CIF’s Clean Technology Fund (CTF) and is expected to leverage nearly US $5 billion from other donors and private financing. Read more

Hareon bolsters EPC business with 499MW of China PV projects

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 13:46 (PV-Tech)

Module manufacturer Hareon solar is to develop 499MW of solar plants for Jiangxi Shunfeng Photovoltaic Investment at undisclosed sites in the south-east region of China. Read more

Three Big Shifts in America’s Electricity Landscape — in the Past Three Weeks

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 13:00 (Renewable Energy World)

Grist’s David Roberts recently finished a 9-part deep dive on America’s utilities and the future of our electricity grid. I didn’t agree with everything in it, but it’s absolutely required summer reading because (1) so few of us really understand how utilities operate and their financial incentives, and (2) because we’re way past due for something better (cleaner, more efficient, more affordable) than last century’s grid. Best of all, Roberts managed to make a bunch of wonky stuff actually feel like summer reading, perfect for sitting by the pool with a koozy-wrapped beer. Read more

Number of MNRE channel partners falls

Friday, 7.5.2013 - 8:43 (Solarserver)

The number of channel partners under India's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has fallen by 28 to 162 across all regions of the nation since February 2013, according to an analysis by RESolve Energy Consultants (Chennai, India). MNRE released its latest list of channel partners on July 1st, 2013. RESolve notes that while it is unsure exactly why this number has declined, 64 companies listed have not received subsidies for even one project. Read more