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Henan Sungen Solar Fab, a subsidiary of Anwell Technologies, has secured funding totalling more than US$100 million to help expand its thin-film production capacity in China. Financial backing came from the Municipal Government of An Yang City in Henan Province.
As the 37th IEEE Photovoltaics Specialist Conference (PVSC) gets underway in Seattle, Alta Devices plans to discuss how it achieved record cell efficiencies of 27.6% last year as well as its overall best efficiency rating of 28.2%. Both results were verified by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory with Alta disclosing that the high efficiencies they reached were due in part to a new discovery involving the light emitted and collected by a solar cell.
The latest quarterly edition of the ‘U.S. Solar Market Insight’ report, published by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and GTM Research, reveals continued strong growth in PV installations in the US. Grid-connected PV installations in the first quarter of 2011 increased 66% compared to the same quarter a year ago to reach 252MW. Cumulative grid-connected PV in the US has now reached over 2.3GW, according to the report. PV module production also increased in the US, growing by 17% relative to the fourth quarter of 2010, and up from 297MW to 348MW.
DuPont Apollo’s Shenzhen, China PV module manufacturing facility has laid claim to being the first Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certified for Existing Buildings, Operations and Maintenance (EB, O&M) thin-film PV site in the world. The LEED certification was granted by the US Green Building Council (USGBC), which pointed to several of the company’s environmentally friendly designs as a basis for their certification.
Solar Frontier has agreed to supply Showa Shell Sekiyu 1MW of its CIS thin-film solar panels for installation at various Showa Shell service stations in Japan. The service stations will be in areas where the grid is supplied by the Tokyo Electric Power and Tohoku Electric Power.
Santa Clara University’s School of Engineering received a generous gift from an anonymous alumnus and his wife totaling US$1.3 million. The funding will go towards the launch of the Latimer Engineering Scholars Program, which beginning in the 2011 – 2012 academic year will sponsor teaching and research in the sustainable energy field.
A PV power plant project, planned and built by Gehrlicher Solar, is using thin-film modules from GE. The 1MW plant is under construction in Aschheim, Germany and was touted as the first of many such projects the companies are partnering on. GE uses CdTe (cadmium telluride) modules originally developed by PrimeStar, which was acquired by GE.
Circadian Solar has acquired further premises in the UK as it prepares to launch pilot production of its concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) system, reports Solar Power Portal. The 2,000-square-foot site is located close to the company’s head office at the Viscount Centre on the University of Warwick Science Park and has been modified to accommodate the prototype manufacturing line.
Last week during Intersolar Europe 2011, Solyndra announced the completion of the largest commercial rooftop to date that has used its cylindrical-CIGS modules. The 3MW project was completed by solar integrator U|S|E AG, a Solyndra Platinum Solution Provider based in Reutlingen, Germany, with its Belgium subsidiary Enerdeal for Delhaize, an international supermarket chain at one of its distribution centres in Zellik, Belguim.
The Tata Steel and Dyesol development partnership has produced the world’s largest dye-sensitized photovoltaic module. Manufactured at Tata Steel’s Shotton site in North Wales, the module is over three metres in length and approximately one square metre in area. This unique achievement represents an important step towards the development of large-scale microgeneration capability within building infrastructure.
