With the acquisition of Solarfun and its recent name change to Hanwha SolarOne, the PV manufacturer is to change its NASDAQ ticker symbol to ‘HSOL.’ This will take effect when the market opens on February 15, 2011.
John McLane has accepted the president position with GCube Insurance Services, a worldwide insurance provider for the renewable energy arena. McLane was named one of the top five energy insurance brokers in the U.S. by Risk & Insurance Magazine in 2006 and will rely on his 30-year background in insurance and risk financing programs for utility scale renewable energy projects to guide him in his new position.
Taiwan-based solar cell producer Neo Solar Power (NSP) has posted its 10th consecutive month of increased revenue, reaching a new record high of approximately US$84.1 million (NT $2.44 billion) for January, which represented a 5.74% increase month-over-month, and 150.06% year-over-year. NSP has raised its capacity expansion target to 1.3GW in 2011, up from the 1.2GW previously guided.
Preliminary financial results from SolarWorld show the integrated module manufacturer posted revenue of €1.3 billion in 2010, a 29% increase over the previous year, when revenue of €1.01 billion was reported. Shipments of wafers and solar modules also increased over the previous year, reaching 819MW, up 42% over figures logged in 2009 when shipments reached 578MW.
Sungevity has appointed Mac Irvin as the company’s new chief financial officer. With over 20 years of experience in equity investments, fundraising, leasing and other structured transactions for domestic and international markets, Irvin will be leading Sungevity in its corporate finance and accounting activities as well as acquiring project financing for their solar leasing product.
Siemens Industry has signed a supply and distribution agreement with Enphase Energy for the sale of Enphase’s solar microinverters systems through Siemens electrical equipment distributers network. The agreement will see Enphase furnish Siemens with its solar microinverters and Enlighten, a web-based monitoring service.
GE Capital, NRG Energy and ConocoPhillips have jointly committed US$300 million in capital for a new joint venture: Energy Technology Ventures. The JV will fund around 30 venture-and growth-stage companies over the next four years, including the next generation photovoltaics developer Alta Devices. Although details about financial details of the JV and the initial investments have not been disclosed, the JV will focus early investments in companies developing “game-changing” technologies.
China’s drive to consolidate its leading position in PV manufacturing has been reinforced with a credit facility offered to JinkoSolar from the Bank of China that could be worth approximately US$7.6 billion over a five-year period.
Steed Technology recently completed the full acquisition of outstanding stock for Applied Technology Specialists (ATSI). Steed has confirmed that manufacturing of all products will remain in Northern California, while research and development will continue in Oklahoma. Both companies will now operate under the Steed name.
The Murfreesboro Solar Project has not broken ground yet, but that has not stopped GreenCo Solutions and the North Carolina Electric Membership Corporation (NCEMC) from announcing their intent to buy renewable energy certificates (REC) and electricity, respectively, from the solar project that Duke Energy acquired from SunPower in December 2010.
