Grupo T-Solar and Astonfield Renewable Resources have signed a long-term strategic partnership deal to develop solar PV power plants in India. Site construction is under way on the first project of the collaboration, a 5MW site in Osiyan, Rajasthan, India, which is expected to be commissioned by October.
A period of equipment digestion or what's known as a reset could be at play after aggressive capacity expansions across the PV supply chain in 2010, according to the PV book-to-bill analysis featured in the forthcoming "Solarbuzz PV Equipment Quarterly" report. According to Finlay Colville, senior analyst at Solarbuzz, the PV book-to-bill is forecast to dip sharply below parity before rebounding in Q4’11.
Q-Cells has been nominated for the Intersolar Award 2011 for its ‘Q.ANTUM’ cell concept that earlier this year achieved a record efficiency rating of 18.45%. However, in the days leading up to the largest PV event in this year's calendar, Q-Cells has reported its ‘Q.ANTUM’ cell has been verified by the Fraunhofer ISE institute as reaching cell efficiencies of 19.5%.
The 26th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EU PVSEC) has released its program for the event taking place September 5 through September 9 at the Congress Center and International Fair in Hamburg. Conference General Chairman Dr. Heinz Ossenbrink and Technical Program Chairman Dr. Amulf Jäger-Waldau, both from the European Commission, DG Joint Research Center, helped the International Scientific Committee sort the 1,728 abstracts that applied to present at the conference. This year’s EU PVSEC will feature 82 sessions with 28 plenary, 326 oral and over 1,200 visual poster presentations.
A glut of modules and PV inverters are to revitalise the German solar market this year as prices are falling to a degree that the makes investing in solar financially attractive again. However, despite a very weak first quarter, installations are set to show strong growth through the rest of the year, peaking in the fourth quarter and exceeding installation figures of 7GW in 2010, according to the latest forecast from IMS Research.
Despite a swathe of competitors experiencing a significant fall in demand for modules in the first quarter, Canadian Solar would seem to have bucked the trend and guided robust sales in the second quarter resulting in sell-out shipments during its recent first quarter analyst call. In that call, Dr. Shawn Qu, Canadian Solar’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer highlighted plans for a new 600MW solar wafer plant that would that would be run as a joint venture operation to reduce capital outlay.
Switzerland looks set to become the latest country to abolish its nuclear energy programme after its Government announced last week that it would be nuclear free by 2034. The news is a boon to solar, which will look to fill the void left by an industry that currently accounts for 39.9% of the land-locked country’s electricity production.
Module manufacturer Solvis has entered into a long-term cooperation agreement with solar system integrator Relatio, which will see Relatio market half of Solvis’ full annual capacity in Germany during 2011 by installing Solvis modules on its roof and field projects.
EOSOL Energies Nouvelles has used 35,000 CS6P modules supplied by Canadian Solar for an 8MW PV power plant now operational in Villeneuve de Marsan, Aquitaine in south western France. The power plant also uses inverters, electrical monitoring systems from Siemens.
Munich-based system integrator SolConTec International has had a 994KW PV power plant connected to the Italian grid by Enel on May 26th and complies with the Conto Energia III tariffs. The Servigliano plant is located in the Marche region of Italy and employs Phono Solar PS-FM190 Watt monocrystalline modules on a 3.2395 hectare site. Siemens supplied the central inverter.
