Hoku Corporation released a statement advising of the current state of the company, which included a confirmation that it had stopped all construction activity for its Hoku Materials polysilicon production site, which is not yet in commercial operation. As of March 31, the company estimates that it had nearly US$7.7 million in cash and US$278.8 million in liabilities, including US$74.4 million in accounts payable at Hoku Materials.
centrotherm photovoltaics advsied that it had begun industrial-scale production of its high-efficiency centaurus solar cell for customers in China and Europe. Over 50MW of the centaurus technoloy are in ramp-up mass production with the company noting that it has received interest from various of its existing customers.
Martifer Solar revealed that its PV modules, which use Saint-Gobain Solar’s SolarBond InFrame technology, have passed the set criteria for IEC61215 acceptance, which regulates the safety performance of crystalline silicon terrestrial PV modules. SolarBond is a single component reactive compound, which applied warm fills the aluminum channel completely in order to cut down the risk of water collection in a frame’s corners.
eSolar and Sanmina-SCI advised that they had entered a partnership that will combine the companies’ proficiency in solar thermal energy solutions, local content-optimized component design and manufacturing for utility-scale power plants. Sanmina-SCI noted that it plans to work with eSolar to enhance the company’s solar collector system product offering, which is currently being used in operating CSP facilities.
E-CL and Quiborax are teaming up to build a 2MW solar park, which will be the first to be connected to the Northern Interconnected System (SING) in Chile. The project will help provide electricity to mining development in the XV region of Arica and Parinacota.
Ideal Power Converters (IPC) advised that its 30kW PV inverter, IPV-30kW-480 had been confirmed by Intertek as conforming to UL standard 1741 and is now included on the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) list of approved PC inverter products. As part of the CEC list, IPC’s inverter can be installed in California and across the US.
Late last week, Vermont’s Governor Shumlin signed the 2012 Energy Bill into law, which among other benefits saw the state’s CLEAN Program expand from 50MW to 127.5MW. The bill outlines that the capacity of any distributed generation facility that provides “sufficient benefits to the operation and management of the electric grid” because of its location or other characteristics will not count towards the overall program cap of 127.5MW. Thus, this portion of the legislation mandates that no limit exists on the amount of clean local energy produced from facilities providing locational benefits.
The Japanese Photovoltaic Energy Association (JPEA) announced figures for Q4 and fiscal 2011, finding that total quarterly shipments fell 23% to 554.2MW from Q3, while shipments of PV cells and modules increased by a small percentage point during Q4. Domestic and import sales of thin-film also took a hit, falling by 68% while import of PV materials for the period went up 3%. Monocrystalline products increased 16% while multicrystalline products dropped 13%.
The proposed 3MW, US$20 million Ponterril solar project has received its final approval from the zoning board of appeals. The project will be developed across 22 acres of what used to be the Pittsfield Family YMCA’s recreation camp overlooking Pontoosuc Lake. The Berkshire Eagle advised that electricity produced by the project would be sold and transported to Western Massachusetts Electric Company (WMECO) as part of the power gird on North Street. The report confirmed that project officials want to begin work on the project this year, but actual construction timelines will depend on WMECO since it needs to advise what it would cost CTC Electric to make upgrades to the WMECO system in order for it to accept electricity from the new solar project.
Solar Gard has finished its second Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), which examines the environmental impact of a product from production to disposal . The latest EPD covers 14 more solar control architectural window films, bringing the company’s total number of carbon negative window films to 46.
