As the 2011 US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Solar Decathlon readies to officially kick-off its fifth biennial competition, SunPower advised that six of the 19 collegiate teams competing chose the company’s solar panels for their solar homes.
Isolux Corsán’s first venture into the UK solar market has been successfully completed with the commenced operation of three, 5MW power plants in Langform, Churchtown and Manor in Cornwall. The €40 million project is said to be the largest, combined, in the UK holding a 15MW-installed capacity.
IKEA officially started generating solar power with its 11th completed US solar project; a new 538kW, 68,000 square foot PV system at its Emeryville, California location. Using 2,394 Gloria Solar panels, the system is anticipated to produce nearly 760,300kWh of solar electricity per year.
Specialty gas supplier Air Liquide has announced that over the course of the past few weeks, it has signed long-term gas supply contracts worth in the region of US$15 million. The company credits the reduction in manufacturing costs and the subsequent move by smaller companies to move into high growth markets as having contributed to the significant increase in orders experienced by the company.
Continuing its expansion into the US, Canadian Solar has announced that it has been awarded the module supply contract for a 2.1MW solar installation at St. Peter's University Hospital in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The company will supply almost 10,000 of its 6P 240P modules for the project, which will comprise two rooftop arrays, three solar canopies on parking lots and another solar canopy on the roof of a multi-floor parking structure.
Two top executives of controversial thin-film PV company Solyndra won't be offering any substantive testimony before a Congressional subcommittee hearing scheduled for Friday. The company has issued a statement that, because of the ongoing investigation and on the advice of their lawyers, president/CEO Brian Harrison and CFO Bill Stover will invoke their constitutional Fifth Amendment rights, which protects citizens from self-incrimination.
Solar Frontier will be starting to put its Kunitomi plant to serious work as it recently closed a deal to supply over 30MW of its CIS solar modules to solar projects in India by the end of 2011. The deal with the National Solar Mission and Gujarat State intends to use Solar Frontier’s CIS modules in various solar projects as the company’s modules are said to deliver higher overall energy output under real weather conditions.
Saint-Gobain has begun construction on its first manufacturing plant in North America. Located in Goodyear, Arizona, the facility will house the company’s mirror line for solar thermal power stations and supply the domestic US market. The plant, with an estimated production capacity that corresponds to an annual thermal output of 300MW, is anticipated to be online by the 2011 fourth quarter.
China Datang is planning to use solar modules from Tianwei New Energy for the first time on a 10MW ground-mounted project project in Delhi, Qinghai Province, China. The module supply agreement requires Tianwei to ship between September and October the full 10MW of modules directly to the project.
US pharmacy Walgreens has chosen SoCore Energy to install PV systems at 90 of its stores in Ohio. This new portfolio will have a capacity of 2MW and increase the number of arrays on Walgreens stores to 136; the first 53 in this next wave of installations are due to be completed by November 11. The individual systems are being leased for 10 years to Walgreens, which will equip them with Power-One inverters and SolarWorld’s 240W crystalline silicon panels.
