Upon completing internal production development and testing, Ascent Solar announced that Johns Manville (JM) will begin beta testing on its CIGS laminated modules at the JM Technical Center (JMTC) in Littleton, Colorado. The IEC 61646 modules, which have been certified and are awaiting UL certification, will be compared against existing thin-film modules that are installed at JMTC.
Forget the shiny new solar modules with their aesthetically pleasing black anodized frames courting the fashion-conscious residential rooftop owner at Solar Power International, but rather go and check out the big powerful stuff. The U.S. is a big country, has big electrical needs and has a huge multigigawatts pipeline of utility-scale projects waiting in the wings.
Sustainable Energy Technologies announced that it will be moving its North American inverter assembly and test center to Guelph, Ontario, with an expected 4MW per month production of its Sunergy inverters by the first quarter 2011. Melitron, a Guelph based manufacturer, will run the facility and also provide enclosures for the Sunergy inverter.
Satcon Technology’s Solstice will be used in the 63MW CIRO One solar PV plant being built in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The project will use 126 Satcon Solstice 500kW applications, at its 180 acre site in the Lapas District of Salinas, producing approximately 116 million kW hours of energy per year. Construction on the project is to begin this month.
The technical/economic debate over ever increasing Directional Solidification System (DSS) furnace sizes that cast multi-crystalline ingots, heats-up with the news that GT Solar is beta testing with select customers its next DSS crystalline growth furnace, the ‘DSS650.’ The larger furnace capacity of up to 650 kilograms comes hot on the heals of the official launch in May, 2010 of the ‘DSS450HP,’ a high performance ingot growth furnace with a thermally optimized, second-generation hot zone that claimed to have improved throughput while delivering industry-leading crystal quality.
Evergreen Solar is aiming to expand its European reach with four new sales managers to service each of its key European regions: Germany, Italy, Spain and France. All the new sales managers will be charged with continuing to broaden the company’s presence in Europe while also maintaining current sales relationships in each region. The new managers will report directly to Thomas Hofmann, Evergreen’s director of sales for Europe.
Andrew Chen has been selected as the successor for the CFO position at Canadian Solar, while Arthur Chien, the company’s previous CFO, will continue with the company as special advisor to the CEO’s office until the end of this year. Chen comes from Shengda Tech where he was chief financial officer from April 2009 until September 2010. He also served as CFO to Trony Solar Holdings between September 2008 and March 2009. Chen’s appointment as CFO for Canadian Solar will begin immediately.
Among the companies to be showcasing their products and developments at Solar Power International this year is AU Optronics (AUO). At the conference being held in Los Angeles this week, AUO will be displaying its full line of PV products including the SunForte PM316B00 mono-crystalline solar module, which will be the modules first official viewing.
Direct Grid Technologies revealed that its DGM-S460 series grid tie micro-inverter was given UL1741 certification. The company will be distributing the inverter in the U.S. through its OEM partner, Synergy Energy in New Jersey and is working on further partner agreements, which are to be announced throughout the rest of this year. Direct Grid is showing its DGM-S460 micro-inverter at Solar Power International this week at booth 4101.
Having successfully completed IEC 61646 certification, Ascent Solar Technologies now plans to address sales into the building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) and building applied photovoltaic (BAPV) markets. Ascent Solar claims it has a significant advantage when it comes to power to weight ratios and balance of system costs compared with alternative BIPV/BAPV products.
