CIGSSe photovoltaic module manufacturer Stion said it will build a new production facility in Mississippi as part of an incentive agreement with the state that includes a $75 million loan and other tax and training incentives. The project, which will be the first thin-film solar panel factory in Mississippi, will deliver more than 1000 jobs and $500 million of investment over the next six years.
After months of speculation surrounding the country’s solar feed-in tariff, Turkey has now made photovoltaic power generation subsidy payments law. Under the regulation, payments for renewable energy generation will be determined as dollar cent, as opposed to Euro cent, in Turkish Parliament.
The German module manufacturer, Sovello, has now received official accreditation to supply its modules in the U.K., Australia and Ireland as well as in Florida and California in the U.S. The certificates from the Australian Clear Energy Council (CEC), the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), the British BRE Global, the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), and Go Solar California were issued in Q4 2010.
LDK Solar, along with its polysilicon manufacturing subsidiary, has signed a definitive agreement with China Development Bank Capital Corporation, Excel Rise Holdings, Prosper East and an investment fund associated with another Chinese bank, where the investors will all subscribe to a collective US$240 million in series A redeemable convertible preferred shares of LDK Silicon & Chemical Technology. The wholly owned subsidiary of LDK Solar, contained in the Cayman Islands, will hold and operate LDK Solar’s polysilicon division once all PRC government approvals for foreign investments have been completed.
NuGen Capital Management and KDC Solar have come together for the formation of a joint venture, which will aim to develop, construct, own and operate commercial-scale behind-the-meter PV solar installations in New Jersey. The projects will range in size from 1MW to 10MW, with the first project being installed on White Rose Food’s distribution warehouse in Carteret, New Jersey.
Xtreme Power and Xcel Energy will cooperatively install a 1MW solar system at the Solar Technology Acceleration Center (SolarTAC) in order to gather operational data for energy storage combined with solar energy systems. Xtreme’s utility-scale energy storage Dynamic Power Resources (DPR) system will be used on the project to conduct various energy storage and grid asset functions, which include output smoothing, time shifting and forecast error mitigation.
NuGen Capital Management and KDC Solar have selected Solar Power to develop their joint venture: the White Rose distribution warehouse rooftop installation in Carteret, New Jersey. The 5MW rooftop system will be designed, engineered, and constructed by Solar Power which, under its engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract with NuGen and KDC Solar, will also monitor and service the solar plant once it is completed.
Just in time for the close of 2010, NanoMarkets is set to release its new report, “The Business Case for Building Integrated Photovoltaics,” the week of December 27, 2010, which discusses the predicament it feels the PV industry is facing and the possibility that building-integrated PV (BIPV) has to save what NanoMarkets deems as a rather dismal outlook for the PV industry.
GCL-Poly Energy Holdings and Solarfun Power Holdings have mutually entered into a long-term wafer and polysilicon supply contract where GCL-Poly will provide Solarfun with 2,500MW of wafer and polysilicon products from January 2011 until December 2015. Included in the contract signed between the two companies is a price adjustment mechanism.
Having dominated the headlines in the Top 10 PV-Tech news stories of 2009, First Solar remains a highly popular read. However, after sifting through Google Analytics to compile this year’s Top 10 most-read news stories, it appears only two of these are related to First Solar. Two different market research companies' reports also proved popular, as did most news pieces on feed-in tariffs.
