Spire was chosen as the recipient for an indefinite delivery indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract from the Federal Prisons Industries to provide integrator services for PV systems for Federal customers of Unicor. The contract has a five-year term with five, one-year renewal options. Its total value will not exceed US$75 million over the contract period and has no guaranteed minimum.
Due to a partnership with Enfinity and rail operator Infrabel, a two mile stretch of the high-speed rail tunnel on the E19 Highway in Belgium will have a rooftop solar power installation. The project will produce energy for the trains and stations on the rail line that serves both conventional and high-speed trains between Amsterdam and Paris via Brussels. The US$20.1 million project will generate 3.3MWh of electricity per year.
SunEdison has signed agreements with Huntington Beach for the installation of over 2MW of solar capacity at three Huntington Beach city properties. Work will begin on the three systems, which will be situated on carport canopies at the Huntington Beach Civic Center, Central Library and City Yard, in 2011. Once completed, the systems are expected to produce more than 63 million kWh of solar energy over 20 years.
The Silver State North Solar Project, the first large-scale solar energy project on U.S. public lands in Nevada, has received Department of the Interior (DOI) approval from Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar. Joining the project is Ecology and Environment (E & E), which prepared the environmental impact statement (EIS) for the 50MW (AC), 60MW (DC) facility, set for construction in the Ivanpah Valley, just south of Las Vegas.
The first wave of solar park announcements in the UK is in full swing. Many planned projects are designed to take advantage of the highest irradiance levels in the country, which are found in Cornwall. However, one of the pioneering sites, which is backed by a core team of experienced PV project developers and Q-Cells cofounder and former CEO Anton Milner, is planning a 5MW crystalline-based plant in Bourn, Cambridge.
Although the official ceremony to celebrate the installation of the 1.1MW solar energy system installed by Perpetual Energy Systems at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) won’t take place until the end of October, both organizations are celebrating not only the systems completion, but Caltech’s solar milestone. With this installation, Caltech has reached its goal to install 1.3MW of solar power by 2010 and will benefit from 1,646,668kWh of renewable energy in one year from the new system alone.
Constellation Energy will be developing a 5.2MW DC solar PV system with Johnson Matthey and Preferred Unlimited on the Johnson Matthey facility in West Deptford, New Jersey. Constellation Energy will not only own the system, but also be responsible for its financing, operation and maintenance. In turn, Johnson Matthew will be able to purchase the electricity produced on the site under a 20-year PPA.
5N Plus Corp was given US$500,000 in funding from the State Energy Program of Wisconsin, which will go towards purchasing equipment for the facilitation of the plants solar module recycling and creation of new jobs in DeForest, Wisconsin. The 60,500 square foot facility has a US$4 million investment behind it and is expected to be operational in the next few weeks. Along with its recycling capability, it will also be manufacturing specialty compounds for thin-film PV applications.
Iosil Energy has leased a 30,700 square foot facility from Meritex in Groveport, Ohio, as the location for its pilot manufacturing of high purity polysilicon.
Rocky Mountain Supercomputer Centers (RMSC) and Northrop Grumman have come together to introduce their maximizing and optimizing renewable energy (MORE) Power initiative. The new service is a technology that uses a laser-communications network optimization model by Northrup to help select the most effect sites for renewable energy projects. The MORE initiative will take worldwide wind and solar radiation data, which is collected by Northrop, and use it as a historical foundation in order to choose a site that will be the most productive for an alternative energy project.
