On September 4, Thai oil company Bangchak Public Petroleum Co. (BPP) connected its 44MW PV plant in Thailand — the largest silicon PV power plant in South East Asia, it claims. It is located in Bang Pa-In, Ayutthaya, which is around 40km from the country’s capital Bangkok.
IBC Solar has upped its corporate social responsibility profile by donating a 14.4kW solar power system to the Lewa Children’s Home in Eldoret, Kenya. A total of 120 solar panes and six inverters have been supplied to the orphanage, which house approximately 120 children aged between a few months to 18 years.
IKEA’s New Haven Connecticut store has officially launched its 940.8kW rooftop PV system, making it the Swedish company’s 32nd completed US solar project. Built across 118,000 square feet, the PV array uses 3,920 panels and is anticipated to produce nearly 1,099,800kWh of energy per year.
The Austrian government has doubled its renewables budget to €50 million for 2013 and set to decrease by €1 million annually. Economy and energy minister Reinhold Mitterlehner, social minister Rudolf Hundstorfer and environment minister Nikolaus Berlakovich have introduced a combination tariff and grant scheme.
Suspicions of the strength of German influence over European politics appear to not be unfounded. Earlier this week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for dialogue between the Chinese and European Commission. It has been announced that the EC and China’s Ministry of Commerce have signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Brussels to increase cooperation between the EC’s competition department and China’s antitrust authorities.
Jiangsu Zongyi Co. Ltd, a Chinese manufacturer of PV products and project developer, has built and connected one of Italy’s largest integrated photovoltaic plants — a 13.5MW rooftop solar array located in Marche in central Italy.
The US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has unveiled, it claims, the country’s first zero net-energy residential test facility, which is located at its campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The institute invited local, federal and state officials to mark the occasion by attending a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
AlsoEnergy revealed that it is currently monitoring over 200 solar installations throughout the US and Canada. The installations are found on public schools, colleges and universities, with the company providing energy production monitoring data, along with educational kiosks at each location.
Although heavily hyped as a low-cost alternative to conventional oil-based PV backsheet materials, start-up BioSolar said that it was to develop a new bio-based backsheet material that would aim to be of even lower cost in order to capture more customers. Back in March, 2011 the company had said it was supplying sample material for PV module manufacturers based in Asia for evaluation.
French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy and the Ministry of Productive Recovery has released a report detailing long-term operational recommendations and proposals for structural reforms to the renewables industry. The government will make a decision based on this report at a later unspecified date.
