Six years after the US Department of Energy (DOE) awarded Nanosolar a US$42 million Solar American Initiative (SAI) Technology Pathway Partnership (TPP) grant, the company has advised that all 10 major tasks have been achieved or surpassed. The grant was originally awarded in 2006 for the development of large-scale PV systems for commercial buildings that would offer the best price per watt performance in the industry.
WCVB Boston has reported that Massachusetts’ governor, Devel Patrick, will “turn on” the state’s first solar park today. The 4.5MW solar facility is built across 22-acres in Westford and uses 14,000 solar panels. Built by Cathartes Private Investments, the US$23 million complex will be operated by Nexamp.
Rajasthan, India, will not be awarding contracts to build 200MW of solar capacity to competing companies until August, a two-month delay. According to Bloomberg, MM Vijayvergia, executive director of Rajasthan Renewable Energy advised that the last day for companies to submit their interest in the bidding is May 18.
Solarhybrid Israel, subsidiary of Solarhybrid, recently sold 201MWp of project rights, which it originally bought in January for US$2,391,705, to Summit Energy of Israel. Under the agreement, current liabilities of Solarhybrid Israel amounted to US$398,617.50, while earn-out-payments in connection with the acquisition of the project rights totaled US$5,580,645.
During the latest round of auctions by state-run Karnataka Renewable Energy Development (KREDL), Welspun Group and Sunborne Energy Holdings were awarded contracts to build solar PV plants in Karnataka, India. According to Bloomberg, Welspun plans to build a 7MW PV project while Sunborne will develop a 10MW solar thermal project.
Former CEO of the Carbon War Room, Jigar Shah, and Eric Graber-Lopez of BlueWave Capital will both be speaking at the May 11-12 Solar Future Eastern USA 2012 conference and both agree that within the next five years solar energy in a large part of the US will be cheaper than power from the grid. They cite the continued drop of solar panel costs, combined with transportation costs of electricity increasing as the factors leading to such an expanded solar market.
Yingli Green Energy Holding and China Development Bank have signed a framework agreement for US$324 million in funding according to a report from Bloomberg. The funding will be used for a trade platform in Hong Kong in order to import raw materials.
The Vineyard Electric Cooperative (CVEC) announced that it had awarded its Round II PV contract to Broadway Electrical and Cape, which consists of two tiers of PV installations that amount to 49.37MW of PV capacity. Broadway will design and install 44 PV systems throughout the Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard regions, helping to supply the areas municipal companies’ electricity at a fixed kWh rate for 20 years.
Power Engineering reported that the city of Xigaze in Tibet has a new 30MW solar plant in operation. This is the first phase of a large-scale PV project that is being developed by Linuo Power Group. LDK Solar’s 60MW industrial solar park and Chaorisolar’s 10MW installation are still under construction.
Founder and Chairman of the Radiant Group, Winston Xu Biao is the newest member of Ascent Solar Technologies’ board of directors. Xu will help the company oversee new market opportunities, as well as its re-entrance into the BIPV and BAPV markets, which it delayed in March 2011.
