SunEdison has announced the connection of a 25MW solar power plant in Gujarat, India to the grid. The plant is located in a solar park. Charanka in the Patan district. The park is home to a variety of PV facilities by different developers, generating over 200MW in total. SunEdison’s plant is equipped with more than 89,000 PV modules and has been completed in only four months. As a participant in the Gujarat solar project, SunEdison has connected a total of 45MW in the Gujarat region.
Waaree Energies has connected a Greentech Power 5MW solar power plant near Kolayat in the Rajasthan region to the grid, the company has announced. The plant is equipped with Waaree crystalline PV modules, produced at the company’s manufacturing plant in Surat.
Canadian Solar and SkyPower Energy have entered a purchase agreement under which Canadian Solar will purchase a majority in 16 of SkyPower’s Ontario PV projects. Fifteen of these projects are included in Ontario’s FiT program while one is part of the Ontario renewable energy standard offer program.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the University of Florida and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) will lead the consortia that will form the US-India Joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center (JCERDC), funded by the Department of Energy (DOE) with US$125 million. The US institutions are teaming up with three Indian institutions: the Indian Institute of Science-Bangalore, the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology-Hyderabad and the CEPT University-Ahmedabad.
Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E) and Southern California Edison need to explain their methods in calculating the quantity of net-metered energy to the grid, the Californian Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has announced.
Subsequent to the announcement last week of Los Angeles’ approval of a feed-in tariff, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has signed an ordinance authorizing the city’s Department of Water and Power to now establish a pilot program. Approval of the program by the Board of Water and Power Commissioners has been scheduled for April 17.
Despite our reports in March and earlier this month, the Brazilian Secretary of Energy Planning and Development of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Altino Ventura Filho, has announced that solar energy will not form part of auctions in order to augment generation of solar power.
Heliotrop’s HCPV1024 consortium was recently awarded €16 million by the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME), which will support a total investment program of €44 million to build manufacturing facilities and install Heliotrop CPV modules.
In the first quarter of 2012, financial investment in clean energy has been the weakest since 2009, states Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The figures published demonstrate investment was down 28% from Q4 2011 to just US$27 billion – 22% lower than the equivalent figure in the first quarter of last year. This includes venture capital, private equity, public markets and asset finance, but excludes small-scale projects and corporate and government RD&D.
One of the largest installations in the Southeast US has been completed using US-based Suniva modules. The 5MW solar power plant located in Haywood County, Tennessee was Designed and built by Signal Energy, and managed by the University of Tennessee Research Foundation (UTRF).
