Advanced Energy PV inverter sales in Q1 hit by polar vortex

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 12:04 (PV-Tech)

PV inverter manufacturer Advanced Energy Industries (AEI) reported inverter segment sales of US$58.1 million in the first quarter of 2014, down 10.6% from US$64.9 million in the fourth quarter of 2013, due to bad weather conditions in North America during the polar vortex event. Read more

GTAT revenues bottom out in Q1 2014 at USD 22.5 million

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 7:22 (Solarserver)

GT Advanced Technologies Inc. (GTAT, Merrimack, New Hampshire, U.S.) has released results for the first quarter of 2014, reporting a 61% year-over-year fall in revenues to USD 22.5 million, an operating loss of USD 54.6 million, and a net loss of USD 41.4 million. Like all PV equipment makers, GT has been hit hard by the solar industry downturn. The company received USD 29 million in equipment orders during the quarter, including USD 15 million for solar photovoltaic (PV) equipment, but its backlog stood at USD 609 million at the end of March. Read more

Private Sector Investment in Solar Poised to Explode

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 18:50 (Renewable Energy World)

Talk about the perfect Mother’s Day present for Mother Earth. Today, President Obama announced at a Walmart in California that 300 leading U.S. companies have taken the “solar pledge,” committing to install nearly 1 gigawatt (GW) of new solar as part of their business plans. That’s an astonishing 800 percent increase in the use of solar in the comm Read more

Chile approves Latin America's first full-scale solar CSP plant, construction to begin during Q2 2014

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 18:41 (Solarserver)

Chile's Environmental Assessment Service (SEA) has approved Abengoa SA's (Seville, Spain) proposal to build a 110 MW concentrating solar power (CSP) in Chile, as the first full-scale CSP plant in Latin America. Cerro Dominador will feature a solar power tower design and include 18 hours of thermal energy storage. Read more

Kingspan Energy completes 5.8MW solar rooftop installation

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 17:28 (Solarpowerportal)

Kingspan Energy has completed a 5.8MW solar array on the roof of an unnamed multinational car company’s new facility in the midlands. Read more

Cashing In on Solar's Hidden Value

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 16:18 (Renewable Energy World)

The solar value proposition remains very attractive to homeowners and facility managers across the United States. However, the industry sells itself with one arm tied behind its back. From a consumer’s perspective, there are two key pieces of energy demand — capacity and cumulative usage. Many utility bills are comprised by 1) a demand charge, set Read more

Franco Traverso founds new company to produce high-efficiency bifacial solar PV

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 14:28 (Solarserver)

Solar photovoltaic (PV) pioneer Franco Traverso has announced the founding of a new company to produce high-efficiency bifacial PV cells based on n-type monocrystalline silicon at the Solarexpo trade show in Milan. MegaCell Srl (Carmignano di Brenta, Italy) will manufacture BiSoN PV cells, which offer efficiencies over 20%, at its factory in Carmignano di Brenta. Read more

STR Holdings encapsulant sales precarious in Q1

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 14:15 (PV-Tech)

PV module encapsulant material supplier, STR Holdings continues to struggle transitioning its business and product portfolio after loosing its major customer, First Solar earlier in 2013. Read more

Pressure growing over Germany PV levy

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 13:15 (PV-Tech)

Germany’s national trade body, BSW-Solar, has renewed calls for urgent changes to a proposed levy on self-consumed PV-generated electricity. Read more

NREL launches working group for solar lending

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 13:15 (PV-Tech)

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) at the US department of energy (DoE) has put together a working group aimed at examining and bringing down barriers to lending in the residential rooftop solar sector. Read more

Strong demand in Japan and UK push JA Solar’s Q1 results above guidance

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 13:15 (PV-Tech)

Major tier-1 PV manufacturer JA Solar beat all key financial guidance metrics in the first quarter of 2014, due primarily to strong PV module demand coming from Japan and the UK. Read more

Listen Up: Buying an EV and Charging with Solar

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 12:18 (Renewable Energy World)

The combination of rooftop solar and electric vehicles (EVs) is the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of the renewable industry. Although EVs started off slowly the second time around (the first time was in the early 1900s), in some areas EVs are becoming ubiquitous. Whether it's a combination of tax credits, car pool lane preferences, expensive gas or concern about the environment, the trend seems unstoppable. Read more

JA Solar reports another strong quarter on rising shipments, margins

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 8:47 (Solarserver)

JA Solar Holdings Co. Ltd. (Shanghai) has released results for the first quarter of 2014, reporting a 36% year-over-year increase in revenues to USD 366 million, with a 7.1% operating margin and a net profit of USD 13.7 million. JA Solar increased its solar photovoltaic (PV) module shipments by 54% over a year prior to 388 MW, while cell shipments increased 31% to 250 MW. Both metrics include products manufactured under tolling arrangements, and JA Solar supplied 23.7 MW of PV modules to its project business. Read more

Clean Power Finance raises another USD 200 million to fund third-party residential solar PV

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 7:54 (Solarserver)

Credit Suisse Group AG (Zürich) is serving as the lead investor in a USD 200 million fund to finance residential solar photovoltaic (PV) projects through Clean Power Finance's (CPF, San Francisco, California, U.S.) platform. The financing will be available to CPF's national network of partners to support residential solar power purchase agreements (PPA) and leases. This latest round of financing brings total project investments raised by CPF to over USD 1 billion. Read more

Unzipping Poplars' Biofuel Potential

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 18:33 (Renewable Energy World)

What began 20 years ago as an innovation to improve paper industry processes and dairy forage digestibility may now open the door to a much more energy- and cost-efficient way to convert biomass into fuel. Read more

Wind Manufacturers Surge with Unexpected Profit After Turnaround, Seek Expansion Plans

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 16:22 (Renewable Energy World)

Vestas Wind Systems A/S rose to its highest in more than three years after unexpectedly posting a profit in the first quarter, building on a turnaround that the world’s biggest wind-turbine maker completed last year. Read more

Green Energy News Review: More questions over new nuclear

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 17:48 (Solarpowerportal)

In today’s green news round-up: More questions over new nuclear - Panasonic to invest in Tesla’s gigafactory - Green groups fight back over ‘split’ slur. Read more

Can India Convert to 100 Percent Renewable Energy by 2050?

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 15:31 (Renewable Energy World)

In the coming years, India will face seemingly insurmountable challenges to its economy, environment and energy security. To overcome these challenges India needs to shift to non-polluting sources of energy. As Jeremy Rifkin, an economist and activist, said in New Delhi in January 2012, "India is the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy sources and, if properly utilized, India can realize its place in the world as a great power,” and adding “but political will is required for the eventual shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy.” The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also has recommended that the world needs a major shift in investments from fossil Read more

Recurrent Energy completes 101MW Ontario PV portfolio

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 14:07 (PV-Tech)

North America solar developer, Recurrent Energy, has completed three PV power plants in Ontario, Canada, and with them a 101MW project portfolio for a Japanese consortium. Read more

Denmark District Heating and CHP a Model for the World

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 13:42 (Renewable Energy World)

The Danish government are blazing a trail in pursuing a renewable energy future and is hoping its success will rub off on others. Read more

Yield co shake-up lengthens SunEdison Q1 losses

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 12:52 (PV-Tech)

US PV energy provider, SunEdison, has announced larger than expected losses for the first quarter of 2014 as project sales were cut as it continues to hold onto projects for its yield co strategy. Read more

NRG Energy announces renewable energy partnership with Unilever

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 4:55 (PV-Tech)

US-based electricity generator NRG Energy, Inc. announced that it has formed a strategic partnership with Unilever United States, Inc. that will move the consumer goods provider to 100% renewable energy use by 2020. Read more

OneRoof Energy expands operations into New York

Friday, 5.9.2014 - 4:15 (PV-Tech)

Just one month after expanding its operations into Massachusetts, OneRoof Energy, Inc., a PV service provider and subsidiary of OneRoof Energy Group, Inc., announced that it has extended its solar leasing operations into the state of New York. Read more