Former CEO of the Carbon War Room, Jigar Shah, and Eric Graber-Lopez of BlueWave Capital will both be speaking at the May 11-12 Solar Future Eastern USA 2012 conference and both agree that within the next five years solar energy in a large part of the US will be cheaper than power from the grid. They cite the continued drop of solar panel costs, combined with transportation costs of electricity increasing as the factors leading to such an expanded solar market.
The Vineyard Electric Cooperative (CVEC) announced that it had awarded its Round II PV contract to Broadway Electrical and Cape, which consists of two tiers of PV installations that amount to 49.37MW of PV capacity. Broadway will design and install 44 PV systems throughout the Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard regions, helping to supply the areas municipal companies’ electricity at a fixed kWh rate for 20 years.
Power Engineering reported that the city of Xigaze in Tibet has a new 30MW solar plant in operation. This is the first phase of a large-scale PV project that is being developed by Linuo Power Group. LDK Solar’s 60MW industrial solar park and Chaorisolar’s 10MW installation are still under construction.
Solar collector manufacturer SkyFuel has announced that it now offers insurance on their product warranties. After a year of negotiations, German reinsurer Munich Re has agreed to back SkyFuel’s warranties.
Contrary to figures published by Bloomberg early last week announcing global clean energy investment was down by 22% Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) has published a report in defiance stating that nearly 50,000 clean energy jobs have been created in the US alone, through approximately 137 project proposals in Q1 2012.
SPI Solar recently entered a purchase agreement with the Greek Thermi-Taneo Venture Capital Fund. Thermi-Taneo will acquire three PV projects in the Evros region totalling 7.4MW from SPI. The purchase includes the permits to construct the PV plants as well as the land lease. Further, SPI will act as the EPC contractor for the 7.4MW PV projects, which are expected to complete construction in late 2012.
A one-year, US$70 million R&D and supply project is underway between materials supplier, Heraeus and Yingli Green. Resources are being allocated from Heraeus’ three global technology centres to develop next-generation silver metallization pastes for Yingli’s N-type ‘PANDA’ silicon solar cells.
The Argentinean President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is expected to attend the induction of the 5MW Cañada Honda solar park in the Argentinean province of San Juan. The park, developed by Emgasud is the largest South American PV project to date, according to Photon.
EDF Energies Nouvelles has awarded EPC company Bechtel a contract to partner with EDF’s subsidiary enXco’s on its Catalina Project in Kern County, southern California. Bechtel will also build the 7.2 mile transmission line to connect the facility to a nearby substation. The 110MW facility is to be built on 1,100 acres to produce enough energy to power approximately 35,000 homes.
Further confirmation that overcapacity in polysilicon production will continue to force prices lower comes from a new report from IHS iSuppli. According to the market research firm, total polysilicon production capacity is expected to reach 328,000MT in 2012, an increase of 15% from 285,000MT in 2011. However, this contrasts with expected demand this year of 196,000MT, a decline of 4% from 205,000MT in 2011.
