Dow Corning veteran Robert Hansen, current company president, has been elected as the company’s new CEO, effective immediately. Hansen has been with Dow Corning for 29 years and was appointed as president of the company in November 2010. Dow Corning noted that Hansen will continue to serve as president, in addition to his role as CEO and that Stephanie Burns will remain chairman of the board of directors. “As chairman, I will remain deeply engaged providing counsel and advice on the company’s business strategy, as well as support to Bob as he transitions into his new role and I prepare for retirement,” remarked Burns.
NJR Clean Energy Ventures (NJRCEV), a subsidiary of New Jersey Resources (NJR), has closed on a 21-year lease with the Village at Manalapan Solar for 13-acres of land in Manalapan, New Jersey. NJRCEV intends to develop a 3.6MW, US$18 million ground-mounted solar system at the New Jersey site, which will service the wholesale electric market. This is NJRCEV’s first ground-mounted solar installation, which has a completion and in-service date for sometime this fall.
A massive 150MW PV project to be built in Arizona by Zachry Industrial will use Advanced Energy Industries (AE) ‘Solaron’ PV inverters and its ‘SafeGuard’ service program. The project would be one of the largest of its kind so far built in the US and is slated to begin construction in mid-2011 with completion in 2013. AE is also to be the inverter supplier at a 35MW project in California with Cupertino Electric.
Energy firm, Constellation Energy is to acquire ground-mounted PV power plants at multiple sites being built by Belectric in Sacramento, California. The projects, which are expected to be commercially operational by the end of 2011, will use 81,000 First Solar CdTe thin-film modules, totals 30MW (DC) of solar generation. Financial terms were not disclosed.
A 48MW project in Northern Italy worth several hundred million Euro is close to being sold by project developer SAG Solarstrom, after a 12MW section of the PV power plant was connected to the Italian grid via a new transformer substation specifically for the project. Italian Terna, which has already performed the technical acceptance and commissioning, is said to be planning to purchase the substation.
A new production line for SolarEdge Technologies photovoltaic inverters opened earlier this month at the Flextronics facility in Newmarket, Ontario. Systems manufactured at the plant will meet the domestic content requirements of the Canadian province's feed-in tariff programs and will also be exported to other customers in North America.
The Californian City of Coachella is now home to a 420kW concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) system, which will provide solar energy to the Coachella Water Reclamation Plant. Developed by Johnson Controls and Solar Power Partners (SPP) using 55 SolFocus SF-1100S tracking CPV systems, the project is now connected to the regional electrical grid, serviced by the Imperial Irrigation District (IID).
Having originally announced plans to produce EVA encapsulants in China that would come on stream by June 2011, Solutia has said that its new manufacturing facility in Suzhou was ready to supply commercial-grade Vistasolar EVA encapsulant. This is Solutia's first new EVA production facility to be developed after the acquisition of Etimex Solar GmbH of Germany.
Much weaker than expected demand in Europe impacted PV inverter manufacturer, Satcon Technology’s first quarter financial results. Although Satcon posted record revenue of US$62 million for a first quarter accounting period, the revenue figure was below initial projections of US$65 million to US$70 million. Some shipments were postponed to later in the year by some of its customers due to an inventory build, executives noted in a conference call to discuss financial results. Net loss for the first quarter was US$2.1 million.
India's largest private power utility firm, Tata Power, has commissioned a 3MW solar power plant in Mulshi. The project, which is one of the largest in the entire country and the first built in the province of Maharashtra, is spread over 12 acres and took nine months to complete.
