DEGERenergie has hired several new key personnel to its international offices in order to better serve, and build better relationships, with its customers. Customers in Germany and other European countries will now be serviced by Hendrik Walter and Steffen Bahlinger.
Payom Solar advised that as of February 10, it had completed its energy bond issuing a volume of €27,548,000 in subscription. Finished ahead of schedule, the bond has a €1,000 denomination and holds a five-year maturity with an interest rate of 7.5%, due April 8. The company notes that the original subscription period was scheduled to March 20, but after talk about the future of FiTs, coupled with other developments in the solar market, no further subscriptions had been received.
As expected by solar industry observers and trade groups, Germany’s cabinet of Chancellor, Angela Merkel has approved plans proposed by Economy Minister Philipp Roesler and Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen to drastically curtail the feed-in tariff in an attempt to limit future PV installations, after a record 7.5GW was installed in 2011.
Solar PV capacity in the Ukraine is set to double in 2012, as a result of generous renewable incentives. Europe’s second-largest country currently hosts Europe’s biggest photovoltaic plant, a 100MW behemoth installed by Activ Solar GmbH last year, and is set to benefit from continued investment due to the scaling back of feed-in tariff schemes across Europe.
Updated: Due to an aggressive FiT cut of between 20% for residential and 30% for large-scale PV installations, the German government will introduce the FiT cuts from March 9, 2012 to eliminate a rush of installations to beat the tariff change. However, this would first need to be ratified in the cabinet and parliament, which could be sanctioned next week.
Better than expected market demand, across multiple regions in the fourth quarter of 2011 has led to Canadian Solar to significantly increase its module shipment guidance ahead of releasing Q4 and full-year results on March 7th. Previously, the company guided fourth quarter shipments to be in the range of 340MW - 360MW, inline with third quarter shipment levels and in contrast to many of its tier 1 rivals. However, the company expects shipments to be in the range of 430MW - 440 MW.
The US Department of Energy’s (DoE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has appointed Ken Powers as its new deputy laboratory director and chief operating officer, effective March 5.
GCL-Poly Energy Holdings and Bank of America Merrill Lynch have closed the initial transaction to fund 15 solar power systems that will be developed by GCL-Poly’s US subsidiary, GCL Solar Energy. The 15 solar sites will total 5MW of solar energy and serve the Palmdale School District in southern California.
The CPV solar cell business segment of Emcore accounted for US$19.1 million or 51% of the company's total revenue in its FY2012 first quarter, representing a decline of US$2 million from the prior quarter. However, Emcore reported a CPV cell order backlog of approximately US$51.7 million, an increase from US$43.5 million in the prior quarter. The order increase was due to the first order from its China-based JV CPV module operations, Suncore, which is starting assembly operations to meet a US$100 million project contract in the country.
Borrego Solar has again secured funding for US$47 million from US Bank and East West Bank for solar energy projects in California, US. The fund will be used to build 6MW of installations for three school districts and two plants in Massachusetts – the largest of which is expected to be 4.7MW. The company said these projects are expected to create 400 local jobs and generate enough electricity to power nearly 2,000 homes.
