Apple has announced in its Facilities Report it is to construct the largest end user owned, onsite solar array in the US. The rumours surrounding the technology company’s renewable energy goals have been put to bed. The 20MW facility, in Maiden, North Carolina, will be installed on 100 acres of land, supplying 42 million kWh of renewable energy annually. Apple will also be building a fuel cell installation, powered by 100% biogas to provide more than 40 million kWh of baseload renewable energy annually.
IDEA Polysilicon Company has selected centrotherm SiTec to provide basic engineering and the technology concepts for its first 10,000MT capacity polysilicon plant to be built in the city of Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. Actual construction timelines were not disclosed.
PPG Industries advised that its flat glass business in Fresno will be expanding its production capability in order to better allow the manufacturing of the company’s Solarphire PV glass. The move aims to serve solar customers throughout California, the West Coast and even Asia with a faster shipping timeframe.
Continued overcapacity and weak demand in the wafering sector has forced Bekaert to reduce wire saw manufacturing capacity with the loss of 1,250 jobs. Restructuring started in December 2011, which included reducing production in China.
Hyderabad, India-based Surana Ventures has completed construction of its 5MW solar module manufacturing facility in the Fab City, approximately 40km from Hyderabad. The company has also announced that it is seeking the necessary permission to commission a second 5MW module manufacturing plant in Gujarat.
According to Algerian newspaper El Watan, Edielec is to open a 12MW manufacturing facility producing about 54,000 solar modules annually. The plant is to become operational in March.
Industrial wastewater treatment (IWT) system manufacturer Saita srl has successfully installed an IWT for an unnamed Belgian solar cell manufacturer. This installation, which claims to recycle 97% of the wastewater used in the multicrystalline cell manufacturing process, marks the second such system installed by Saita, and the Italian company has set its sights on expanding the uptake of such systems across the PV manufacturing industry.
Solar distributor Donauer Solartechnik is, like several others in the industry, aiming to capitalize on emerging markets by opening a branch in Muscat, Oman. This branch will be the first step in the establishment of a sales and service network and will be directed by investor Saleh Ahmed Al Badi, chairman and president at NAS Oman international LLC, with whom Donauer has a joint-venture agreement.
Harnessing its R&D into both c-Si and a-Si thin-film technologies, Moser Baer Solar said that it would upgrade its solar cell processes using metal and intrinsic layer semiconductor technology (MIST) to achieve average cell conversion efficiencies of 21% and join the few cell producers at the top table above 20%.
Mage Solar revealed that it had opened a logistics centre in Dagenham, located near London, in order to better serve the British solar market. The company looks to the new site to deliver its PV system components to its installation partners at a more efficient speed. Mage Solar has had a sales team in the United Kingdom since the beginning of 2011 and noted that it continues to expand its network of installation partners.
