Abengoa Solar has joined the list of founders for the Desertec Initiative, a project that includes among its members the Club of Rome, the Union of the Mediterranean, TREC, and other institutions. Industry founders also include the industrial conglomerate Siemens AG, power companies RWE and E.ON, re-insurer Munich Re AG, Deutsche Bank AG...
IMEC has announced new partnerships with solar cell material and equipment suppliers including MEMC Electronic Materials Inc., Leybold Optics Dresden GmbH, Roth & Rau AG, and Mallinckrodt Baker B.V.
In an attempt to attain the efficiencies of silicon solar cells coupled with the relative cheapness of thin-film manufacturing, XsunX has proposed a new TFPV technology that utilises the unused manufacturing capacity of the hard disk drive industry with the aim of mass production of cheap and efficient solar cells. While current manufacturing techniques use the near-20% efficiency CIGS-based thin films, XsunX points out that this technology does not take advantage of the benefits of working with stationary, small area production technologies that can result in higher efficiencies.
Thin-film PV developer Ascent Solar Technologies has named former Applied Materials executive Farhad Moghadam as the company's new president and CEO, effective August 3. The announcement culminates a nine-month executive search conducted by the flexible CIGS module company.
Four companies, BrightSource Energy, Inc., Johnson Controls, Inc., Tessera Solar, and a team of US Energy Partners plus Munich Energy Partners America have proposals to build the first utility-scale solar project in Phoenix, Arizona. The city has called for proposals to build a 150-200MW solar power station situated on a closed landfill.
Statkraft AS, Norway's biggest energy generator, has teamed up with SOLON SE for the construction of several solar power plants in an undisclosed location in Spain with a total output of 40MWp. With this agreement, Solon gains a key strategic customer as well as exclusive rights to Statkraft's photovoltaic power plant activities in Spain for the duration of the agreement, which stretches until the end of 2011.
A power industry veteran with over 25 years’ senior experience, Gian Maria Ferrero has joined the SunPower team as vice president and general manager of utilities and power plants for the Europe, Middle East and Africa regions. Ferrero joins the company from his former role as CEO for SAE Power Lines, prior to which he held various senior roles in a 23-year tenure with ABB.
Starting work on what is being called one of the largest solar thermal power plants in the world, Solar Millennium, via its subsidiary, Flagsol, has begun development on the 50MW Andasol 3 plant in southern Spain for completion in 2011. Situated on the Plateau of Guadix in the province of Granada, Andasol 3 is the third of the Andasol projects in the southern Spain region using parabolic trough technology.
VLSI Research, Inc. has revealed its Top 10 PV manufacturing equipment supply companies (see table below) for last year, with Applied Materials’ near-$800 million in revenues ranking them at the top of the pile. Coming in second is Oerlikon Solar, followed by GT Solar International, Gebr. Schmid and centrotherm photovoltaics AG. All three had revenues in excess of $500 million.
aleo solar AG has been approached to supply modules and inverters for a 250kW power plant in Oristano on the west coast of Sardinia. The Arborea I project, one of the largest rooftop installations on the island, will be equipped with 1,138 aleo S_18 type modules with a total output of 250 kilowatts.
