Power Plants

Volker Böhm, insolvency administrator for German Solar Millennium has sold the company’s stake in Flagsol to industrial solutions provider Ferrostaal, it has been announced. Ferrostaal has announced that it will take over and continue operations as well as take over all 80 Flagsol employees. Flagsol’s headquarters will also remain in Cologne, Germany.

PV plant developer Sonnedix has bought a PV plant in the north-east of France, the company has announced. The 24MW Toul 3 project, located near the city of Nancy, has been constructed by EDF EN Services and is part of the 115MW Toul-Rosières PV park, the largest European solar park. Toul 3 has been constructed on a former NATO site, and is equipped with 500,000 First Solar panels as well as SMA inverters. The PV plant is expected to commence commercial operation this summer.

Parabel has completed and connected the Jännersdorf Solar Park to the grid, the company has announced. The PV plant generates 40.5MW of energy and is located on a site of 90 hectares. It is equipped with 167,550 Trina Solar, Suntech and Hareon modules as well as 1,894 Siemens inverters and 5.216 Schletter module tables.

In 2011, California became the first US state to install more than 1GW of customer-generated solar energy, according to figures published by the California Public Utilities Commission. The report, California Solar Initiative (CSI) also demonstrates that 311MW were installed in the investor-owned utility territories last year. The CSI program has received a budget of US$2.4 billion and is aiming to reach 1,940MW of solar capacity by the end of 2016.

According to Solarbuzz’s “Polysilicon and Wafer Supply Chain Quarterly Report,” polysilicon prices are expected to fall 48% while wafer prices drop 56% year-over-year in 2012; results which have so far led to only 12 Chinese PV polysilicon manufactures still producing, and of those, more than half running at reduced utilization rates.

Pike Research recently released its “Community and Residential Energy Storage” report, which forecast the CRES market growing from US$19.2 million in 2012 to US$872 million in 2022 with a total worldwide capacity of 780MW. The 10-year increase is set to be driven by the expansion of distributed solar PV capacity, the adoption of plug-in EVs and the spread of dynamic pricing programs.

Inverter supplier Santerno has been awarded a supply contract worth 155MW for its skid inverter stations to be installed in an Imperial Valley, California solar plant. The company is yet to disclose further details on the project.

Japan has published its latest strategic energy plan, originally formulated in 2003 and reviewed every three years by conference bodies as well as various opinion polls. The latest revision includes a road map of energy-based economic growth and reformation of the energy infrastructure. The strategy is to ensure growth and encourage multi-faceted international trade by taking into account the social cost and price differences between nuclear, thermal and renewable energy generation.

MEMC Electronic Materials advised that during Q2 2012, it had completed sales contracts for four solar projects in Europe totalling 98MW. The company completed solar projects worth 60MW in Bulgaria and 38MW in Italy.

Ontario’s Thunder Bay Airport Solar Park has been chosen as a finalist in Intersolar North America’s 2012 Solar Project Award competition. The project, owned and developed by SkyPower and EPC-contracted to Canadian Solar was hand-selected by an expert panel as one of entries under the “Solar Projects North America” category.