From the nuclear question to Japan's softening stance on foreign solar imports, Andy Colthorpe rounds up the main themes that came out of PV Expo in Tokyo last week.
Deregulation of the Japanese electricity market, expected to begin next year, could “breathe new life into PV”, according to Shawn Qu, chief executive and chairman of Canadian Solar.
The PV Expo exhibition and conference takes place in Japan this week and will look both to the present task of executing projects from a 50GW-plus pipeline and to the longer term challenges faced by an industry entering the final years of its feed-in tariff (FiT).
Another phase of a 400MW Texas photovoltaic plant, constructed by a partnership between developer OCI Solar and local utility CPS Energy, has been completed, bringing 5.5MW onto the grid in San Antonio.
US installer and leasing company SolarCity appears to be stepping up its move towards vertical integration, with reports emerging that the company has leased a factory formerly occupied by Solyndra.
The start of the first attempt to fly around the world powered by solar energy is now just two weeks away, starting in the United Arab Emirates, with the flight’s control centre revealed to be in Monaco.
The director of the US Department of Energy’s (DoE) solar cost cutting programme has hailed the “phenomenal jobs growth rate” that the US solar industry has enjoyed in recent times.
Capacity additions for residential, commercial and utility-scale solar all declined in 2014 in Germany, but the ongoing slowdown of German PV deployment has been felt most keenly in the small commercial segment of the market, according to research out today.
Chinese tier one manufacturer Trina Solar will supply PV modules to ‘Marcovia Solar’, a 42.5MW solar farm in Honduras which is scheduled to go online during the second quarter of this year.
