Power Plants

GCL Solar Energy and SolarReserve have agreed to enter into a joint venture towards the development, building and operation of solar PV facilities in the U.S. The joint venture, titled GCL-SR Solar Energy, has a 1,100MW portfolio of PV development projects, which range in size from 5MW to 20MW at 40 different sites across the United States. Construction is anticipated to start on up to 400MW of PV projects in the near future.

Day4 Energy has agreed to supply Orciano Ambiente, an Italian solar project developer, with Day4’s 60-MCI solarModules for a 1MW ground-mounted solar PV system in Orciano, Pisano, Italy. This will be the first ground-mounted PV system for the town and is expected to reach completion by December with full operations to begin in February 2011.

Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide will be issuing its first production series of solar roofs for its Fisker Karma electric car with the US$9.4 million production release it has received. The release will see Quantum work with Asola of Germany to begin volume production for the solar roofs during the early part of 2011. Quantum claims that this is the largest continuous and most highly curved solar roof for a passenger car.

SolarWorld is to submit a voluntary public takeover offer to the shareholders of Solarparc in a bid to acquire the company shares needed to continue forward integration into the global project business. SolarWorld intends to offer Solarparc's shareholders one SolarWorld share in return for each Solarparc share.

Sputnik Engineering has received the Frost & Sullivan 'Global Price Performance Value Leadership of the Year Award 2010'. The prize was presented to the Swiss company after a full product price, performance ratio, feature, user friendliness, service and customer orientation study was carried out in comparison with the main competitors in the inverter market.

Avantor Performance Materials is to change the name of Mallinckrodt Chemicals to Macron Chemicals in a bid to move further away from the former Mallinckrodt Baker identity. The rebranding, which will take effect from March 7, 2011, will not involve any product or manufacturing alterations.

Solar inverter market leader SMA Solar almost reached its production capacity limit as semiconductor component supply constraints eased. Third-quarter sales reached a record €626.7 million and totalled €1.44 billion for the first nine months of the year. SMA reiterated that it still expects newly installed PV power of up to 17GW in 2010, with German solar installations running at about 5.3GW through the end of September.

A significant increase in sales and bookings has forced GT Solar to raise its revenue guidance after reporting on its second fiscal quarter sales of US$229.3 million. This represented nearly a 70% growth over reported sales of US$135.2 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2011 and approximately 120% growth over the second quarter of last fiscal year when sales were reported at US$104.2 million. GT Solar reported an order backlog of US$1.16 billion, with US$544.6 million in its polysilicon segment and US$601.1 million in its PV segment.

The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has approved a pre-feasibility study for the construction of the first phase of First Solar's 30MW thin-film solar power plant located in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia. This phase marks the beginning of 2GW which are to be implemented in the area through 2019.

MEMC Electronic Materials reported a 31% sequential increase in solar materials sales, primarily from wafers, in its third-quarter results. A 20% increase in shipments and modest improvement in wafer ASPs helped sales for the group reach sales of US$503.1 million, up 12.2% from US$448.3 million in the second quarter of 2010. Its subsidiary, SunEdison, reported sales of US$21.5 million and has 1,023MW in its project pipeline, of which 155MW is under construction.