Belgian rail network operator Infrabel has opened its new Paris to Amsterdam high-speed rail link tunnel, which features 16,000 solar panels on its 3.4km rooftop. The plant will produce electricity for the railway infrastructure on the Antwerp North-South junction, including signaling, lighting and heating railway stations, as well as powering the trains.
Balance of System designer and manufacturer Bentek Solar has signed a 25MW supply agreement with Borrego Solar. The contract will see Bentek Solar supply a range of disconnecting combiners, re-combiners and disconnect safety systems to be used on Borrego Solar’s commercial and utility scale projects.
Soitec and Schneider Electric have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (Masen) to develop concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) technology in the North African country.
The 37th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC) at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle, Washington June 19 -24, is ready to welcome the cream of the PV crop. The final program was recently announced with presentations during the week focusing on 10 technical areas, including crystalline silicon technologies, organic PV and space technologies. Over 1,200 technical abstracts from around the world were submitted for consideration, marking a new record for IEEE PVSC.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has offered a conditional loan guarantee totalling US$1.2 billion to help build a 280MW Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant in southern California. If confirmed, the DOE guarantee will help fund the construction and start-up of Abengoa’s Mojave Solar Project (MSP), which is to be located around 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles in San Bernardino County.
Solon and UniSource Energy Services (UES) have agreed to develop a 1.22MW solar PV system on six acres of land owned by the Kingman Unified School District (KUSD) and located behind La Senita Elementary School in Arizona. The companies state that this will be the largest single physical PV system on school property in the state with UES owning and operating the system while Solon takes the lead on the engineering, procurement and construction services.
Former managing board member Scott Landstrom has been selected by the Direct Grid Technologies board as the company’s new CEO. Guy Ward, the previous Direct Grid CEO, will take on the role of executive chairman. A 25-year veteran of senior executive leadership, Landstrom previously worked at Lam Research as the VP of global field operations with prior executive experience coming from his time as president of Volex.
Kyocera Solar’s new MyGen US-made solar kits are now available for residential and light-commercial solar energy installations being developed by new and veteran solar professionals alike. The domestically produced pre-engineered kits include modules, inverters, racking, monitoring, grounding, manual, drawings and all the marginal components needed to complete a solar installation.
In reporting first quarter financial results, metals specialist Timminco, noted that it had rebranded its solar grade silicon operations as ‘Timminco Solar’ and was executing a strategic marketing effort to communicate to PV manufacturers its ‘value proposition’ for the product. Timminco management said that the firm had shipped 135MT of solar grade silicon from inventory in the first four months of the year with 63MT alone shipped in April, 2011.
In an attempt to close the gap between design and manufacturing new PV inverter technology, SMA Solar Technology is acquiring dtw Sp.z o.o., one of Poland's largest electromagnetic components manufacturers. SMA said that dtw had been a supplier to the inverter firm for 10 years. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, though dtw was said to have annual revenue of €74 million. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and scheduled to be completed in July 2011.
