Power Plants

Solar PV has reached grid parity in Spain, Germany and Italy according to a new report by the consultancy Eclareon.

Ukraine’s ministry of energy and coal industry has announced Crimea’s solar power projects are to stop receiving payments under the country’s feed-in tariff.

The state senate of Vermont in the US has approved an increase in the cap placed on solar net metering.

US solar provider RGS Energy (Real Goods Solar), which operates in the residential, commercial and utility sectors, has reported full-year results for 2013, in which the company saw revenues rise year on year by 9%.

Led by BofA Merrill Lynch, SolarCity has secured US$250 million in a new financing facility to support the roll-out of more than 200MW of PV system installations in the US.

Concentrator PV (CPV) specialist, Soitec, has said its 44MW Touwsrivier solar power plant in South Africa has reached 50% commissioning.

Duke Energy Renewables has granted turnkey engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) services to Swinerton Renewable Energy for its Pumpjack and Wildwood PV projects located in Bakersfield, California.

One of Mexico’s largest retail companies, Tiendas Soriana, is teaming up with global photovoltaic company, Hanwha Q Cells, to install solar across 120 of Mexico’s supermarkets.

Renewable project developer, Invenergy Solar Development, has acquired semiconductor manufacturer Soitec’s 7MW solar plant.

Although the shutdown of its Sichuan Phase I polysilicon production line impacted profitability in 2013, tier one PV manufacturer, ReneSola reported a 142.5% year-on-year increase in PV module shipments, reaching 1,728.8MW with plans to reach 2.5GW in 2014.