SunRun, a home installation solar company, and PV Solar, an authority on California solar market data, announced that third-party-owned solar has eclipsed cash purchase as the preferred way to go solar in California. Also known as leasing or solar power service, third-party-owned solar represented approximately 59% of California's home solar market in Q3 2011 and 51% of the market year to date.
Siemens Energy has connected the 31MW Les Mées solar farm in southern France to the grid. The farm, which is owned by Eco Delta Développement (EDD) and comprised of six separate turnkey systems with 112,000 modules, is one of the largest PV installations in the country.
Enphase hasn’t cornered all of the new wave of solar modules integrated with a microinverter for the US market. PV module manufacturer, SunPower has launched its E18 & E19 AC Solar Panel series using SolarBridge’s ‘Pantheon’ microinverter. The all-black, E18/225 watt AC solar panel and the maximum-efficiency E19/240 watt AC solar panel will be available in the U.S. in early 2012. The AC panels feature SunPower's 22.4% efficient ‘Maxeon’ cell technology.
Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) has been increasingly active in announcing planned PV projects as part of its utility-owned generation (UOG) program. In July this year, PG&E chose the three project developers charged with installing its 50MW Californian solar portfolio, which included; Recurrent Energy, Fotowatio Renewable Ventures and Westlands Solar Farms; that would be built in Kings County (20MW), Kern County (12MW) and Fresno County (18MW) respectively.
Cupertino Electric has been chosen by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) to design and build the 20MW Huron, California PV project. Engineering for the utility’s solar PV project has begun and construction is dually underway with the project expected to be completed and inter-connected by mid-2012.
Three schools in Arizona's Buckeye Union high school district are to be the recipients of a PV installation. REgeneration Finance, LLC, an experienced solar finance and development firm, has arranged the financing for an estimated 4.29MWp (DC) solar project.
Joint Forces for Solar (JF4S), a global synergy of stakeholders along the solar supply chain, has gained a new backer. pvXchange, who is an online business-to-business brokerage of PV modules and inverters, will be among the sponsors of JF4S’s fourth U.S. breakfast briefing and networking forum at Solar Power International in Dallas in October.
AU Optronics (AUO) is using this week’s Solar Power International event in Dallas, Texas to showcase its latest range of PV products. On display will be the Taiwan-based firm’s flagship AC Unison residential module and also its soon-to-be-released EcoDuo PM290P00.
Other than module mountings nuts and bolts, microinverters and power inverters are one of the smallest components that could be used in a PV system installation. However, the market for these microelectronics-dependent little marvels experienced 500% growth in 2010, according to a recent IMS Research report and they continue to punch above their weight.
S-Energy, a Korea-based module manufacturer, increased its module capacity by 120MW to a total of 350MW in October 2011. The company claims this is the most modern solar module manufacturing line in Korea with stringers from Germany (Teamtechnik), laminators from Switzerland (3S) and automation made in Korea (Evertechno).
