Embarking on its second year as India’s international exhibition for solar technology, Intersolar India will this year be held in the Bombay Exhibition Centre in Mumbai, having been held in Hyderabad for its inaugural show in 2009. The relocation to one of the country’s largest exhibition centres underscores the success of last year’s launch, paving the way for the expansion of the show in years to come.
Solar Power, Inc. has embarked on a new solar system installation project that will see the company set up eight PV systems at seven schools and a district office in Baldwin Park, California. The Baldwin Park Unified School District (BPUSD) has commissioned the project, which will total 2.24MW on completion, with the aim of saving an estimated $22.6 million in electricity costs.
2BG and Rise Technology, the company founded by researchers of the La Sapienza University in Rome, have agreed to a collaborative move on the development of solar cell technologies. The partners will research the production of crystalline silicon cells less than 100μm thick.
AIS Automation Dresden has been tapped by Bosch Solar Energy for one of its manufacturing execution systems (VPC-MES) for installation in Bosch’s Arnstadt crystalline solar cell manufacturing factory. This order marks the fourth AIS Automation MES system to be installed in a Bosch facility, and will enable the increase in Bosch’s production capacity by approximately 400MWp.
Solar cell and module equipment supplier 2BG has ramped up a 15MW turnkey module line for the AV Project company in Avellino, Italy. The update of the line, which was installed in January, is the second 2BG line installed with the company and will allow the upgrade of AV’s production capacity with the latest automation solutions. The original line was designed to process 48 cells per module, while the new line handles 60 cells per module.
With the second large module order announcement in a week, Kyocera has announced that it will ship approximately 190,000 solar modules for two large-scale solar plants in Dulcinea in Cuenca and Don Quijote in Ciudad Real – both in the Castile-La Mancha region of central Spain. The plants cover an area of 338,581m2 and have an output of approximately 39.3MW.
SunPower’s internal investigation into unsubstantiated accounting entries at its Philippine manufacturing base has made progress, according to the company. The discrepancies were announced in November 2009 and concerned the inclusion of some figures on the financial records for 2009 that may have been intended for inclusion on the 2008 books.
TEPCO’s Ohgishima solar power plant is to be equipped with around 13MW of Kyocera’s solar modules, the company has revealed. The Ohgishima project, dubbed the “Mega Solar System,” is being built by Hitachi with a scheduled completion date in 2011. The modules will be installed on a 57-acre site on an artificial island near Tokyo Bay, one of the largest solar installations in the country.
GCL-Poly Energy Holdings has announced its plans to enter into a joint venture and share subscription agreement with the Chinese wealth fund China Investment Corporation (CIC). The share subscription agreement is expected to raise around HK$5.5 billion, giving CIC a 20% share in GCL. The joint venture company will be set up in early 2010 to invest in and develop PV projects overseas.
Amtech Systems’s Tempress subsidiary has added to its sales balance for 2010 deliveries with multiple new orders from new and existing Asia-based customers worth around US$9 million. The orders are for Tempress’s diffusion processing systems from several new and existing customers in Asia and will be shipped by the end of the third quarter 2010.
