Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide and Schneider Power have now completed the previously announced share exchange transaction, effective April 16. Through this transaction, Quantum acquires all of the issued and outstanding common shares of Schneider Power.
Michael Trousseau, former chief operating officer of EDF Energies, was informed by the company’s board of directors that he would have to leave his position with the company. The departure was announced at the board’s April 15 meeting.
During September’s 25th EU PVSEC/WCPEC-5, participants and observers might note that there are more research and industry contributions. Renewable Energies states that 1,817 abstracts have been received, an increase of 237 abstracts from last year’s Hamburg conference.
Dr. Weiming Zhang (pictured left) has been selected as the new vice president of technology for the PV business unit of Heraeus Photovoltaics. His new position will see him leading and expanding an international group of scientists, engineers and technicians while also developing and implementing strategies to amplify Heraeus’ product channel, customer collaboration and market penetration.
Industry demand checks and recent German PV installation figures have seen Barclays Capital analyst, Vishal Shah raise his forecast for global solar installations for 2010. In a research note to investment clients, Shah expects installations to reach approximately 11GW this year. Shah also noted that PV installations reached 7.2GW in 2009, an increase of 21% over 2008, when installations reached 5.95GW.German installations are now expected to reach approximately 5.8GW in 2010, up from 3.8GW in 2009. However, the Barclays Capital analyst expects that first-half year installations in the country will reach 3.8GW alone and 2GW installed in the second-half of 2010, suggesting that the expected feed-in tariff changes will impact installations but not result in a collapse in the German market.
In releasing monthly sales figures, Taiwan-based Green Energy Technology (GET) noted that it was still at full capacity utilization after further capacity expansions. This is the third consecutive quarter the company has been at 100% utilization. GET said that its annual capacity for ingot growing had reached 410MW, up from 360MW in Febraury, 2010. Wafer slicing capacity had also reason from 300MW in February, to 360MW.
Equity Solar has appointed Greg Knight, formerly of GT Solar, as its chief technology officer. Knight was brought on board to assist in the commercialization of the room temperature wet chemical growth (RTWCG) technology licensed by Equity Solar.
Tigo Energy and Architectural Glass & Aluminum Company (AGA) have come together on a joint venture for the production of solar energy to high-rise occupants. According to Globes Online, the companies received a grant from the US Department of Energy and the Israel-United States Binational Industrial Research and Development Foundation...
Reinhard Bütikofer, the Deputy Floor Leader of the Greens in the European Parliament, was on hand at the opening event of Centrosolar Sonnenstromfabrik’s new production line start-up. The company has now increased its production capacity to 155MWp from its previous 110MWp and will produce an additional 1,000 solar modules per day. The new line also has the potential to build 72-cell high performance modules that will create an output of more than 300W.
India has dveloped The National Solar Mission (NSM) to help increase the country’s solar market development through the use of encouraging policy frameworks that promote solar power throughout the country. With a 20GW target of installed solar power by 2022, the NSM is scheduled to be executed in three phases over a 13-year period with three five-year plans.
