The world’s largest exhibition for the solar industry, Intersolar Europe, drew to a close on June 10, boasting record exhibitor and visitor numbers. Around 77,000 visitors and 2,280 exhibitors attended the exhibition from 156 countries. A snap-shot of visitor and exhibitor feed-back is highlighted in this introduction video from PV-Tech, to this year’s event.
Construction on the world’s largest solar thermal power plant was officially begun at a groundbreaking ceremony held on Friday June 17th. Attending the ceremony for the Blythe solar power plant facility was US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, California’s Governor Jerry Brown and Joseph DeConinck, Blythe’s mayor, as well as representatives of the Solar Trust of America and Solar Millennium.
Etrion and Phoenix Solar are joining forces to build a 2.6MW PV system in Nettuno, Italy. The plant is scheduled to be completed by the end of August and consequently will not be affected by the changes introduced under the recently-passed Conto Energia IV bill.
iGen Energy has finished the first phase of its 96kW rooftop solar installation on a production facility in Buxton, UK. The project will be the first in the country to feature Q-Cells’ Q.SMART thin-film modules and is being built for cleaning chemicals manufacturer Selden Research.
In the fifth award announcement regarding a solar project or company this week, the US Department of Energy said it has offered a conditional loan guarantee commitment of $150 million to 1366 Technologies to help the Lexington, MA-based silicon PV innovator to scale and expand manufacturing of its DirectWafer technology. The company plans to use the funds to bring its first plant, a 20MW facility in Massachusetts, online in 2013, and then to begin construction on a second 1GW plant that same year in an as-yet undetermined US location.
A 1.7MW solar PV power system comprised of 7300 Motech crystalline-silicon panels has been installed at AstraZeneca's campus in Wilmington, DE. The project is expected to produce about 2.1 million KWh annually, which will account for approximately 10% of an office building's electricity needs.
Solaire Generation has unveiled its new Premium F2 solar carport at General Electric’s (GE) complex in Plainville, Connecticut. The electricity generated by the 98.7kW system will be used to power up to 13 vehicles and is GE's largest charging station of this kind in North America.
Siemens has acquired a minority stake in US company Semprius for an undisclosed sum. The purchase of the approximately 16% share will see Siemens assist Semprius’s HCPV technology development and provide Siemens with an insight into a new CO2-free power generation technology that is nearing market maturity.
An important but unintended consequence of the global PV industry meeting at Intersolar Europe, held last week in Munich, Germany was a general fear that the market could decline this year after poor installation figures in key European markets stalled hope of continued growth. According to IHS iSuppli, spot prices from the top Chinese brands had been running at US$1.49 per watt for c-Si modules before Intersolar, yet as the show prices had fallen to US$1.30 per watt. This has prompted the market research firm to guide prices to decline to the US$1 per watt by the first quarter of 2012.
The latest quarterly edition of the ‘U.S. Solar Market Insight’ report, published by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and GTM Research, reveals continued strong growth in PV installations in the US. Grid-connected PV installations in the first quarter of 2011 increased 66% compared to the same quarter a year ago to reach 252MW. Cumulative grid-connected PV in the US has now reached over 2.3GW, according to the report. PV module production also increased in the US, growing by 17% relative to the fourth quarter of 2010, and up from 297MW to 348MW.
