Power Plants

Bio-based PV module backsheet developer, BioSolar claims that a customer is preparing a batch of solar panels with its ‘BioBacksheet’ material for full panel recertification by Underwriter's Laboratories (UL). In March, 2011 the company announced it was supplying sample material for PV module manufacturers based in Asia for evaluation.

As part of its utility-scale project pipeline in Imperial Valley, California, 8minutenergy Renewables has signed a 25-year contract to sell 200MW (AC) from the planned Mount Signal Solar project to San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E). The Mount Signal Solar project is expected to begin supply to SDG&E in mid-2013 and has an 18-month construction time, employing 450 direct jobs and more than 500 indirect jobs in Imperial County. The contract is pending approval from the California Public Utilities Commission.

Solar Frontier provided 10MW of its CIS thin-film solar modules to power the Mt. Komekura Solar Power Plant in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, which started operations on January 27. Shigeaki Kameda, president of Solar Frontier, was in attendance for the plant’s opening celebration.

A 7.5MW solar plant, worth €22.8million has been built in the north-west province of Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand.

Japan’s Kagawa government in western Japan has announced that Kokusai Kogyo Holdings and Orix Corp will each build a solar power plant, to start operations in July and September. The plants will have a capacity of 2MW.

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.

Applied Materials’ Varian VIISta ion implant platform will be using Praxair Electronics’ UpTime sub-atmospheric dopant gas delivery system. Praxair Electronics noted that it is also the preferred sub-atmospheric dopant supplier for the Solion implant tool developed by Varian Semiconductor Equipment.

Hydro One Networks, NEC and ON Semiconductor have joined Semiconductor Research Corporation’s (SRC) global Energy Research Initiative (ERI) joining established members such as Applied Materials, Bosch, First Solar and IBM. The now 10 member ERI will continue to focus on finding new materials, devices and methodologies for power control/management and energy collection, conversion and storage.

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.