PV julist and juwi have finished work on a 7.4MW rooftop installation at Goodyear Dunlop’s logistics centre in Philippsburg, Germany. The system is the world’s third-largest roof array and has the capacity to generate 7.3 million kWh of electricity every year.
United Solar has installed 80kW of its Uni-Solarbrand modules on Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas cruise ship, reports Design-Build Solar. The modules cover 2,000 m2 and will generate 111,108kWh of electricity annually for the ship’s shopping area.
Technic has appointed Wilson Xia as its Asia-Pacific technical director of photovoltaics. Xia’s new role will see him working on the research and development, applications engineering and distribution of the company’s TechniSol photovoltaic processing technologies.
Plutonic Power and GE Energy Financial Services have agreed to buy three of First Solar’s power plants in Ontario, Canada. Permitting for the projects, which have a combined capacity of 50MW, is expected to take place this spring and construction scheduled to start in June.
NanoMarkets has published a new report claiming that novel encapsulation and substrate materials are the key to the long-term survival of organic photovoltaics (OPV) and dye-sensitized cell (DSC) photovoltaics. The report, titled 'Encapsulation and Flexible Substrates for Organic and Dye-Sensitized Photovoltaics', predicts that a US$1.3 billion encapsulation and substrate market will be possible by 2017, if manufacturers of these materials can offer products that will facilitate use of OPV and DSC technology into the building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) sector.
CIGSSe photovoltaic module manufacturer Stion said it will build a new production facility in Mississippi as part of an incentive agreement with the state that includes a $75 million loan and other tax and training incentives. The project, which will be the first thin-film solar panel factory in Mississippi, will deliver more than 1000 jobs and $500 million of investment over the next six years.
CSIRO and Dyesol have completed the first stage of their joint project developing higher performance dyes for dye solar cells (DSC). The first six months of the programme has seen Dyesol build a research-scale assembly and testing facility at CSIRO’s Newcastle-based centre, in south-east Australia.
In a blow to homegrown U.S. solar manufacturing, Intel spinoff SpectraWatt will be laying off most of its workforce and possibly closing down operations, according to published reports. The crystalline-silicon PV cell manufacturer will let more than 100 employees go starting in March of next year and may shutter its less-than-year-old factory located in IBM’s Hudson Research Park in Hopewell Junction, NY.
EME Energie Management Eberlein has partnered with Bosch Solar Energy on a three-year contract for the delivery of 31MWp of thin-film silicon solar modules. EME plans to use the solar modules at various field and rooftop projects in development.
