Starting January 1, 2011, Advanced Energy Industries will have two new business units: Thin Films and Renewables. The Thin Film division will be led by Yuval Wasserman who will also act as president and COO for the business unit. The Thin Film business division will be headquartered in Fort Collins, Colorado and will house the company’s power conversion and thermal instrumentation products for capital equipment markets such as the semiconductor, solar panel and flat panel display industries.
Changzhou Trina Solar Energy has signed a contract with CECEP Solar Sheyang Power Company to supply PV modules for a 20MW project in China. The ground-mounted development in Sheyang will be one of the largest projects in China when it is completed at the end of December, 2010.
ContourGlobal and Guascor Solar have signed a contract to develop 30MW of PV projects in Italy. The first of these projects, a 6MW plant in Sabaudia, is already operational, with a building work on a second 8.5MW development in Sicily scheduled to start in early 2011. The plants will be built by Guascor and owned and operated by ContourGlobal.
In June 2010, Statkraft decided that it would begin to solely focus its business on hydropower, wind power, gas power and district heating and in keeping with its decision, it has sold its Casale solar park to two Italian investors: Eurowood and Blue Stream Resources. All shares of the 3.3MWp solar park, which was owned by Statkraft’s RA1 company, have been signed and closed and are now equally owned between the two Italian companies.
The U.S. Department of the Interior has given its seal of approval to SolarReserve’s Nevada-based Crescent Dunes solar thermal plant. Construction work on the 110MW plant is scheduled to begin in mid-2011, with total costs for the project expected to be around US$475 million.
Chris Robine, who joined SPG Solar in 2010 as the company’s chief financial officer, has now accepted the position of SPG Solar’s chief executive officer. Prior to SPG, Robine was CFO of General Electric’s renewable energy division where he helped the division double its revenue. Additionally, Robine has previously served as a member on the board of PrimeStar.
EME Energie Management Eberlein has partnered with Bosch Solar Energy on a three-year contract for the delivery of 31MWp of thin-film silicon solar modules. EME plans to use the solar modules at various field and rooftop projects in development.
Demand for PV cells and modules remained strong in the third quarter, according to a new report from IMS Research. A new leader appeared in solar cell production in the form of JA Solar, which increased its cell production by an impressive 35% in the quarter to top the rankings for the very first time.
