Despite our reports in March and earlier this month, the Brazilian Secretary of Energy Planning and Development of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Altino Ventura Filho, has announced that solar energy will not form part of auctions in order to augment generation of solar power.
Heliotrop’s HCPV1024 consortium was recently awarded €16 million by the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME), which will support a total investment program of €44 million to build manufacturing facilities and install Heliotrop CPV modules.
Following the retirement of José Villarreal, a member of the board since 2007, First Solar has taken the opportunity to expand its board membership from nine to 11 members. The company has nominated George “Chip” Hambro, former First Solar COO, and Richard “Rick” Chapman, CFO of Walton Enterprises, Inc., to stand for election at its annual stockholder meeting on May 23, the latter as an independent director.
In the first quarter of 2012, financial investment in clean energy has been the weakest since 2009, states Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The figures published demonstrate investment was down 28% from Q4 2011 to just US$27 billion – 22% lower than the equivalent figure in the first quarter of last year. This includes venture capital, private equity, public markets and asset finance, but excludes small-scale projects and corporate and government RD&D.
One of the largest installations in the Southeast US has been completed using US-based Suniva modules. The 5MW solar power plant located in Haywood County, Tennessee was Designed and built by Signal Energy, and managed by the University of Tennessee Research Foundation (UTRF).
Canadian Solar has established a new reseller program for its products in the EMEA region. The Authorized Reseller Program will allow companies registered with Canadian Solar to offer the company’s solar product range in the region, and will also enable them to avail of further features such as technical product training and professional sales and marketing support.
Areva Solar will be developing what is being called the largest CSP plant in Asia to date with the construction of a 250MW concentrating solar power project for Reliance Power in Rajasthan. The project is part of the country’s program to increase clean energy production by 20,000MW of solar power by 2022.
RWE is supposedly looking to invest in solar power plants, citing solar module prices as one of its key determining factors. According to Bloomberg, up until now Germany’s second-biggest utility, which owns a stake in Spain’s Andasol 3 solar thermal power plant, has distanced itself from investing in PV generation because of what it considered too high of a cost for the technology. However, now that prices for solar modules are considerably lower than in the past, the utility is taking a second look.
The Hindu Business Line has reported that power equipment manufacturer Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL) has made almost a US$4 million (Rs 20 crore) investment into the expansion of its PV module manufacturing division, escalating its line from a 8MW capacity to a 26MW capacity. The increase is expected to be completed by September.
