Tesla Makes Smooth Drive Into China

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 13:21 (Renewable Energy World)

I have to give my congratulations to new energy car maker Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) for creating the kind of buzz and excitement this week that only names like Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and smartphone sensation Xiaomi have typically been able to muster. In the last 2 days, the company and its charismatic founder Elon Musk were all over the Chinese headlines Read more

Campbell & Kennedy wins Argyll and Bute Council solar schools contract

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 17:48 (Solarpowerportal)

Argyll and Bute Council has appointed Campbell & Kennedy’s energy division, CK Energy, to install solar on eight schools across Argyll and Bute. Read more

NPD Solarbuzz: Middle East and Africa solar PV demand to triple to 4.4 GW by 2018

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 17:02 (Solarserver)

NPD Solarbuzz (Santa Clara, California, U.S.) has released a new report where it predicts that solar photovoltaic (PV) demand to grow 50% in the Middle East and Africa in 2014 to 1.6 GW. It also finds that demand will nearly triple to 4.4 GW by 2018, with an upside potential of 10 GW, and expects that ground-mounted PV plants will represent 70% of this market. Read more

Google, SunPower to fund USD 250 million in solar PV leases

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 16:01 (Solarserver)

Google Inc. (Mountain View, California, U.S.) and SunPower Corp. (San Jose, California, U.S.) have announced a new program to provide financing for residential solar photovoltaic (PV) leases for roughly USD 250 million in PV systems. Google will commit up to USD 100 million to the program, and SunPower roughly USD 150 million. Read more

Hanergy supplies Tesla with ‘supercharging’ stations in China

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 14:11 (PV-Tech)

Thin-film manufacturer Hanergy Solar has supplied electric supercar maker Tesla with two solar charging stations for electric vehicles in China. Read more

US governor rules in favour of distributed generation

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 13:15 (PV-Tech)

The Republican governor of Oklahoma has issued an executive order ruling that the body responsible for setting electricity tariffs in the US state should support the distributed generation of electricity, including wind and solar. Read more

Foresight Solar Fund hits 100MW of operational assets

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 12:37 (Solarpowerportal)

Foresight Solar Fund has announced that it is now managing an operational portfolio of 100MW of UK solar assets. Read more

Unlocking Solar Energy's Value as an Asset Class

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 12:30 (Renewable Energy World)

Not all options are ready to step into the spotlight, though. Master limited partnerships (MLP) and real estate investment trusts (REIT) promise more attractive tax treatment than securitizations or yieldcos, but they require some heavy lifting and difficult decisions at the highest levels: MLPs need an act of Congress even for an infinitesimal language tweak to remove a legislative exclusion to solar and wind, while REITs involve a touchy reclassification of assets from the IRS that could have broader and undesirable tax consequences. Yet another model gaining traction is a more institutionalized version of crowdfunding, led by Mosaic (technically they call it "crowdsourcing"), Read more

TGE Group partners with Macquarie for commercial solar rollout

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 9:56 (Solarpowerportal)

TGE Group has agreed a financing deal with Macquarie to supply and install solar on commercial buildings. Read more

SolarWorld to supply PV modules to “solarize” programs in North Carolina, Utah

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 9:01 (Solarserver)

SolarWorld AG's (Bonn, Germany) U.S. subsidiary reports that it will serve as the sole solar photovoltaic (PV) module supplier to community solar programs in the U.S. states of North Carolina and Utah. The company estimates that it has supplied 3 MW of U.S.-made PV modules since 2009 to 26 “solarize” programs, which aim to provide easy and low-cost residential PV installations to residents of municipalities. Read more

Mercatus adopts Solar Access to Public Capital standard contract documents

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 8:57 (Solarserver)

Energy project finance solutions provider Mercatus Inc. (New York City) reports that it has formally adopted the Solar Access to Public Capital (SAPC) Working Group standard contract documents for both residential and commercial solar photovoltaic (PV) installations, as part of its efforts to accelerate solar securitization. The SAPC documents were developed by a working group convened the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL, Golden, Colorado, U.S.), an effort that Mercatus was part of. Read more

IHS: UK to install 13 GW of solar PV over the next five years

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 8:35 (Solarserver)

Citing the release of the nation's Solar Strategy and good investment conditions for ground-mounted solar photovoltaic (PV) plants, IHS Technology (London) has increased its near-term UK PV market forecast, predicting that the nation will install 2.5–3 GW annually until 2018. The company expects the UK to install 2.4 GW of PV in 2014, including 1.5 GW of utility-scale plants. IHS estimates that the nation has already installed 922 MW of utility-scale PV in the first quarter of 2014. Read more

Solar Frontier, SUNY CNSE to explore potential joint R&D and CIGS solar PV production

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 8:29 (Solarserver)

Solar Frontier KK (Tokyo) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the State University of New York College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE, Albany, New York, U.S.) to explore the possibility of joint research and development (R&D) and production of thin-film solar photovoltaics (PV) in the U.S. state of New York. The two organizations will conduct a technical and economic feasibility study, as part of Solar Frontier's plans to establish production of its copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS or CIS) technology outside of Japan. The nation currently hosts all of Solar Frontier's PV module production. Read more

Marubeni puts online Japan's largest solar PV plant at 82 MW

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 6:03 (Solarserver)

Marubeni Corp. (Tokyo) has held an opening ceremony for a 82 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) plant which it has commissioned in Southern Japan's Ōita Prefecture. This is the largest PV plant completed in Japan to date. Marubeni began commercial operation of the Oita plant on March 12th, 2014, fifty days ahead of schedule, and began construction on the project in March 2013. Read more

UK Awards First Guaranteed Power Price Contracts to Biomass, Offshore Wind Projects

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 12:58 (Renewable Energy World)

Drax Group Plc, Dong Energy A/S and SSE Plc will get guaranteed power prices for U.K. biomass and offshore wind plants, the first renewable energy projects to benefit from a new aid program. Read more

UK Onshore Wind Power Will Lose Subsidies, Conservatives Say

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 14:58 (Renewable Energy World)

The U.K. Conservative Party will end all subsidies to onshore wind power if they win the next election, a move that the industry said would end deployment of the country’s cheapest form of renewable energy. Read more

SkyFuel to supply parabolic trough technology for hybrid solar-geothermal plant

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 8:21 (Solarserver)

SkyFuel Inc. (Arvada, Colorado, U.S.) has announced that it will supply its parabolic trough technology for the solar thermal portion of a hybrid solar-geothermal plant being built by Enel Green Power (Rome) in the United States. The solar thermal field will be integrated into the heating loop of the Stillwater geothermal plant. This addition will return the temperature of the brine from geothermal wells to its original design point and thus allow for the existing turbines at the plant to run at full capacity. Read more

REA warns Conservatives over favouring shale gas to onshore wind

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 16:30 (Solarpowerportal)

The Renewable Energy Association has criticised Conservative plans to stop subsidising new onshore wind if successful in the 2015 election. Read more

RGS Energy to finance and develop 2.6MW in Massachusetts

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 14:24 (PV-Tech)

Renewable energy service provider, RGS Energy, is to develop and operate a 2.6MW solar power plant in Massachusetts, USA. Read more

Yingli offers 25 million shares to fund China project development

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 13:11 (PV-Tech)

Leading PV energy provider, Yingli Green Energy, has announced a public offering of 25 million US shares to fund its downstream project development activities. Read more

IEA calls on The Netherlands to ramp decarbonization efforts

Thursday, 4.24.2014 - 8:49 (Solarserver)

While acknowledging some recent improvements, the International Energy Agency (IEA, Paris) has called upon the Netherlands to step up efforts to decarbonize its energy supply and to set a long-term framework to achieve 2030 goals, in a review of Dutch policies. IEA released the review on April 22nd, 2014. The agency notes that among member nations the Netherlands remains one of the most fossil fuel-intensive nations among IEA members, and says that a stable policy framework is needed in the nation beyond 2020. Read more