A new production line for SolarEdge Technologies photovoltaic inverters opened earlier this month at the Flextronics facility in Newmarket, Ontario. Systems manufactured at the plant will meet the domestic content requirements of the Canadian province's feed-in tariff programs and will also be exported to other customers in North America.
The Californian City of Coachella is now home to a 420kW concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) system, which will provide solar energy to the Coachella Water Reclamation Plant. Developed by Johnson Controls and Solar Power Partners (SPP) using 55 SolFocus SF-1100S tracking CPV systems, the project is now connected to the regional electrical grid, serviced by the Imperial Irrigation District (IID).
Having originally announced plans to produce EVA encapsulants in China that would come on stream by June 2011, Solutia has said that its new manufacturing facility in Suzhou was ready to supply commercial-grade Vistasolar EVA encapsulant. This is Solutia's first new EVA production facility to be developed after the acquisition of Etimex Solar GmbH of Germany.
A major Asian solar cell manufacturer has placed an order for multiple hydrogen annealing furnaces from BTU International after the customer experienced a significant increase in absolute cell efficiency using the technology especially on Class B cells during an evaluation period.
centrotherm photovoltaics and Kinetics Germany have signed an agreement with Société Nationale de l'Electricité et du Gaz (Sonelgaz) to build an integrated solar module manufacturing facility in Rouiba, Algeria. When completed, the 43,000-square-metre site, located 30 km east of Algiers, will be home to Africa’s largest solar module factory and have an annual production capacity of around 116MW.
Solaria has officially unveiled its new manufacturing plant and solar array at the company headquarters in Fremont, California. The opening ceremony was attended by Lieutenant Governor of California Gavin Newsom, EPA Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld and several other state dignitaries.
According to Taiwan-based thin-film PV module manufacturer NexPower, it is the first thin-film producers to receive carbon footprint verification under PAS 2050 and ISO/CD 14067-1 standards. NexPower’s multi-junction PV modules were verified by DNV (Det Norske Veritas) in February, 2011 taking approximately four-months for the verification, according to the company.
Fraunhofer ISE is reveling in the afterglow of the first SiliconPV-International Conference on Silicon Photovoltaics. The even took place April 17 through 20th in Freiburg, Germany and brought 540 scientists from 21 countries together to discuss and focus on silicon technology. The theme for the three-day long event was “Advanced Cell and Module Concepts” and included over 130 presentations that were designed to promote communication between all the participants.
Another day, another cell efficiency record as selective emitter technology from Schmid has been used to support a claimed new cell efficiency record by customer, Sunrise Global Solar of 19.2%. The cells were verified by the University of Konstanz and the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.
Despatch Industries patent-pending VOC Thermal Oxidizers have already been making an impact at the company. Despatch reports that in the past six months it has collected orders to upgrade over 1.2GW of its installed base of CF series firing and drying services with its VOC technology.
