Bosch Solar Energy has begun construction of what will be one of the largest solar projects in the UK. Located in Trefullock, southern England, the 5MW park is expected to be connected to the grid this July.
SolarEdge Technologies and SolConTec International have signed a business partnership for the distribution, system design and installation of SolarEdge performance optimizers and PV inverters. SolConTec is expected to roll out the technology across Germany, Italy and Greece.
Ideematec and Solaria are collaborating to produce 40MW of their new STS-1 tracking system, which uses Solaria’s low-concentration, high-efficiency PV modules with Ideematec’s trackers. The companies will offer over 80,000 of the new ground-mounted tracking system units, which are specifically designed for large commercial and utility customers.
Enecsys has officially introduced its new SMI-D480W-60, 480W micro-inverter, which affixes to the railing system and can receive DC input from two independent solar modules. The Duo micro-inverter allows maximum power point tracking from both modules and is said to diminish the inverter cost in comparison to the one micro-inverter per module model.
MetCap Energy Investments, a Turkish project developer, has revealed that it will use GE Energy’s FlexEfficiency technology at its integrated renewables combined cycle (IRCC) power plant in Karaman, Turkey. The project carries a 530MW rating and features a 50Hz 9FB gas turbine, a steam turbine, a generator, 22MW of GE wind turbines and 50MW of eSolar’s concentrated solar thermal tower technology. The natural gas, wind and solar thermal power will all be incorporated in the IRCC power plant with GE’s Mark Vie plant control system.
Konarka Technologies’ New Bedford, Massachusetts facility now features the world’s first OPV semi-transparent BIPV curtain wall, laminated onto seven of the company’s south and east facing 56”x67” windows. Utilizing its own Power Plastic technology, Konarka was able to incorporate the technology into the building structure, producing the largest OPV installation of its kind.
Adding to its range of central inverters, Power-One introduces the Aurora Ultra-1400 with an output power of up to 1.4MW. This liquid-cooled inverter, which displays power conversion efficiencies of up to 98.7%, is the largest product in the Power-One range and has been designed for large commercial and utility-grade installations.
Cylindrical PV system manufacturer Solyndra is set to introduce its 200 Series Metal Roof Solution at Intersolar Europe. The non-penetrating adjustable mounting system is designed to meet the additional solar installation challenges posed by metal roofs, which currently make up a significant portion of the large, low-sloped, commercial, industrial and agricultural rooftop markets.
As part of its updated second-quarter and fiscal year 2011 financial outlook, SunPower boosted its expected quarterly revenues to between $550 million and $600 million, while annual sales are forecast to end up in the $2.8 billion-$2.95 billion range. Because of the new Italian policy environment, the company said it will be reallocating 85MW of product from its utility group in Italy to residential and commercial customers in Europe and elsewhere.
LDK Solar released its unaudited financial results for its first quarter, which ended March 31. While the company did see its gross margin increase both year-over-year and sequentially, revenue and sales were lower in comparison to its fourth quarter 2010 results. Q1 2011 revenue reached US$766.3 million, a 16.8% sequential drop from Q4 2010’s US$920.9 million. However, in a year-to-year comparison, sales grew 120.5% from US$347.6 million in Q1 2010.
