Khosla Ventures has formed a partnership with Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's company, Tony Blair Associates. The partnership is aimed at helping Khosla's clean technology companies maximize effectiveness in achieving environmental goals. As part of the relationship, Blair joined Vinod Khosla on May 23 to tour the Calera green cement demonstration plant in Moss Landing, Calif.
An announcement by Sharp Solar outlining the potential boom in the Turkish PV market has referred to the country’s government’s recent introduction of a €0.28 feed-in tariff for the first 10 years, with a rate of €0.22 thereafter for another 10-year period. Turkey receives an average of seven hours of sunshine per day, with a radiation intensity of 1,300 kilowatt-hours per square metre.
Q-Cells supervisory board has hired Dr. Marion Helmes as the new CFO, effective July 1, 2010. Dr. Helmes comes to the CFO post after Dr. Nedim Cen, who has held the position on a temporary basis since March, while also serving as chairman for Q-Cells board of directors.
Solarbuzz has announced Finlay Colville as the new senior analyst who will be in charge of improving the company’s reporting on solar manufacturing equipment, which includes technologies and trends and forecasts in the solar industry. The new appointment comes after Solarbuzz’s recent acquisition by the NPD Group last month.
Michael Trousseau, former chief operating officer of EDF Energies, was informed by the company’s board of directors that he would have to leave his position with the company. The departure was announced at the board’s April 15 meeting.
Dr. Weiming Zhang (pictured left) has been selected as the new vice president of technology for the PV business unit of Heraeus Photovoltaics. His new position will see him leading and expanding an international group of scientists, engineers and technicians while also developing and implementing strategies to amplify Heraeus’ product channel, customer collaboration and market penetration.
Equity Solar has appointed Greg Knight, formerly of GT Solar, as its chief technology officer. Knight was brought on board to assist in the commercialization of the room temperature wet chemical growth (RTWCG) technology licensed by Equity Solar.
Ranier Aringhoff has been appointed as chief operating officer and management board member of the Desertec Industrial Initiative joint venture. The former president of Solar Millennium will be responsible for the conceptual preparation and planning of reference projects.
BrightView Systems has announced the addition of Hai Benron to its management team, to support global marketing and sales efforts within the thin-film market. Benron will be positioned as the company's director of global business.
SolarEdge Technologies has appointed former SMA America president John Berdner as its general manager for North America, where he will direct operations in the region for the distributed solar power harvesting and PV monitoring solutions company.
