Professor Utz Claassen has been appointed CEO of Solar Millennium. The decision was reached following a meeting of the supervisory board held earlier this month. Claassen will begin in the new role on the first of January.
Since announcing the project in September, SunPower has finished the first phase of Italy’s largest solar power plant in Montalto di Castro. Construction of the €120 million, 24MW plant was completed in eight months and was connected to the grid on November 30, several weeks ahead of schedule. The Montalto di Castro plant uses 78,720 SunPower solar panels as well as its tracker systems. The project is being built for SunRay Renewable Energy
Possibly the largest ever dichlorosilane (DCS) redistribution process (RDR) project has been successfully completed by Dynamic Engineering (DEI) for GCL Solar’s polysilicon plant. The RDR project for GCL was designed to process 10,000 mta of DCS, which eliminates the byproduct through conversion of DCS to trichlorosilane (TCS). GCL Solar is planning to expand polysilicon production to 18,000 MTA by end of 2009 and 21,000 MTA by end of 2010.
The Florida Public Service Commission has approved Tampa Electric's contract to purchase solar power supplied by the Florida Solar I project, a proposed 25MW solar electric generating station, for a 25-year period beginning in 2011. The system will be developed, built, and operated by Energy 5.0 on a 350-acre site in Polk County.
SunPower’s internal investigation into unsubstantiated accounting entries at its Philippine manufacturing base has made progress, according to the company. The discrepancies were announced in November 2009 and concerned the inclusion of some figures on the financial records for 2009 that may have been intended for inclusion on the 2008 books.
TEPCO’s Ohgishima solar power plant is to be equipped with around 13MW of Kyocera’s solar modules, the company has revealed. The Ohgishima project, dubbed the “Mega Solar System,” is being built by Hitachi with a scheduled completion date in 2011. The modules will be installed on a 57-acre site on an artificial island near Tokyo Bay, one of the largest solar installations in the country.
GCL-Poly Energy Holdings has announced its plans to enter into a joint venture and share subscription agreement with the Chinese wealth fund China Investment Corporation (CIC). The share subscription agreement is expected to raise around HK$5.5 billion, giving CIC a 20% share in GCL. The joint venture company will be set up in early 2010 to invest in and develop PV projects overseas.
The race for higher photovoltaic module efficiencies has heated up and reached a new milestone, with the news that REC and the Energy Research Center of the Netherlands (ECN) have produced the first multicrystalline solar panels to hit 17.0% aperture-area conversion efficiency. The previous world record of 16.53% was announced by Suntech in late September, a result that had topped ECN and its partners' record of 16.4%, which was achieved earlier in the year.
Specialist Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) semiconductor wafer producer, Soitec is to acquire a major holding in concentrated photovoltaic (CPV), Fraunhofer ISE spin-off, Concentrix Solar. Fraunhofer ISE has retained a 20% stake in the start-up, valuing 100% of Concentrix at €55 million. Soitec also announced that would enter into strategic technology alliance with both the Fraunhofer ISE and the CEA-Leti.
In a bid to join the leading global producers of polysilicon, South Korean chemical manufacturer OCI plans to restart construction on a new poly plant inside its existing facility in Gunsan in January. The company (the former DC Chemical) will invest 1 trillion Won (approximately $858.5 million) in its Phase 3 (P3) factory, which will have an annual manufacturing capacity of 10,000 metric tons when commercial production begins in 2011, bringing its total annual poly capability to 27,000 metric tons.
