Duke Energy has announced that ten new customer sites across North Carolina will have solar panels installed on their building or grounds as part of the company's distributed solar generation program. Duke Energy launched the program back in October 2009, when roof space was leased from four large manufacturing and commercial facilities for placement of solar panels.
After nearly being indefinitely closed down, Sydney’s Olympic Park plant has re-opened with an estimated 10,000 rooftop solar panel systems ready to be produced per year. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that 100 people will be newly employed with the plant by the end of the year.
Evergreen Solar released that it will offer $165 million aggregate principal amount of convertible senior secured notes due 2015. The notes will be offered and sold to qualified buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1993. The notes have not been registered under the Securities Act and may not be offered or sold in the US absent registration or following an exemption from such registration requirements.
Spanish renewable energy generators Iberdrola Renovables, Acciona and EDP Renovaveis shares took a hard hit after a Spanish news site, El Confidencial, released information, which stated that the Spanish government is looking to possibly retroactively cut pre-2009 renewable subsidies.
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.
