Kyocera Solar’s new MyGen US-made solar kits are now available for residential and light-commercial solar energy installations being developed by new and veteran solar professionals alike. The domestically produced pre-engineered kits include modules, inverters, racking, monitoring, grounding, manual, drawings and all the marginal components needed to complete a solar installation.
The US Air Force Academy (USAFA) in Colorado “switched-on” its new 6MW solar PV power system built by Colorado Springs Utilities and SunPower. Funded in part by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the plant uses SunPower solar panels and the company’s T0 Tracker system.
According to the United News of Bangladesh, top executives at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have agreed to help finance a 500MW solar system, which will be built at locations throughout Bangladesh. The plan has officials proposing the 500MW solar system include solar irrigation pumps, solar rooftop installations in urban areas and mini solar grid plants in rural areas.
TE Connectivity revealed its first thin-film solar module product at Intersolar Europe in the form of its Solarlok automated junction box. The 2-rail junction box is suited for automated mass production, which the company said would contribute to lower costs and shorter assembly times for module manufactures. TE Connectivity advised that it recognized that not all manufacturers are capable of a fully automated production and highlighted the Solarlok’s ability to be assembled manually as well.
Ideematec and Solaria are collaborating to produce 40MW of their new STS-1 tracking system, which uses Solaria’s low-concentration, high-efficiency PV modules with Ideematec’s trackers. The companies will offer over 80,000 of the new ground-mounted tracking system units, which are specifically designed for large commercial and utility customers.
Enecsys has officially introduced its new SMI-D480W-60, 480W micro-inverter, which affixes to the railing system and can receive DC input from two independent solar modules. The Duo micro-inverter allows maximum power point tracking from both modules and is said to diminish the inverter cost in comparison to the one micro-inverter per module model.
MetCap Energy Investments, a Turkish project developer, has revealed that it will use GE Energy’s FlexEfficiency technology at its integrated renewables combined cycle (IRCC) power plant in Karaman, Turkey. The project carries a 530MW rating and features a 50Hz 9FB gas turbine, a steam turbine, a generator, 22MW of GE wind turbines and 50MW of eSolar’s concentrated solar thermal tower technology. The natural gas, wind and solar thermal power will all be incorporated in the IRCC power plant with GE’s Mark Vie plant control system.
LDK Solar released its unaudited financial results for its first quarter, which ended March 31. While the company did see its gross margin increase both year-over-year and sequentially, revenue and sales were lower in comparison to its fourth quarter 2010 results. Q1 2011 revenue reached US$766.3 million, a 16.8% sequential drop from Q4 2010’s US$920.9 million. However, in a year-to-year comparison, sales grew 120.5% from US$347.6 million in Q1 2010.
Au Optronics (AUO) announced that it is working on strengthening its presence in the European solar market by working with its partners in Germany, Italy, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and the UK, while simultaneously focusing on escalating its business in the Middle East and Asian solar markets. As the company gets ready for its exhibition at Intersolar Europe June 8 through June 10, it advised that its latest 2MW ground-mounted project in Viglas, Slovakia would be using AUO’s EcoDuo PM220P00 module, which will be on display at the convention.
Borrego Solar Systems revealed that its solar consulting and development services division has reached a milestone by advising on over 180MW of utility-scale solar project for independent power producers (IPP) and private landowners. The unit was created so that customers would be able to receive an analysis of a solar project’s viability, thereby helping IPPs and landowners possibly avoid a process that, over time, can cost millions of dollars while a customer looks into installing a utility-scale solar project.
