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.
WAAREE Energies, an Indian PV manufacturer and project developer, has been on a roll in the past few months and has been awarded yet another turnkey EPC contract for a 5MW thin-film PV plant from Taxus Infrastructure & Power Projects Pvt. The location of the project has not been disclosed.
The board of directors for the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the US government’s development finance institution, recently gave its approval of providing up to US$250 million for OPIC’s first solar power project in South Africa.
Gloom pervaded the Spanish solar industry when minister of industry, energy and tourism José Manuel Soria’s 19% tax on renewables receiving a FiT was announced in July to end the tariff deficit of US$30 billion. However, the cabinet has now launched a draft umbrella tax of 6% payable by all energy suppliers, irrespective of power generation method, lifting the mood a little.
After Arizona Public Service (APS) chose McCarthy Building to engineer, procure and construct its 14MW Hyder II Solar Power Plant in Hyder Arizona, the two companies noted that they have begun the permitting process for the new solar site.
