Enphase Energy has welcomed Dennis Hollenbeck as its new vice president of engineering; a role that will allow him to combine his 25 years of high-volume, low-cost system design and ASIC development experience and executive management skills.
Solar development and EPC company Premier Power has promoted from within made two changes to its executive team, naming company cofounder Miguel de Anquin to president and Stephen Clevett to COO, the position formerly held by de Anquin.
Bisol has completed a 1MW rooftop solar power plant installation in the Koroška region, a northern part of Slovenia. Working with Intereuropa and Volksbank International the company began the PV system installation in November 2010 and, as noted during the system’s opening ceremony last week, was able to connect the solar project to the grid a month and a half later.
SkyPower and Fort William First Nation have signed an agreement that will see SkyPower construct a 10MW solar park on First Nation’s land in Thunder Bay, Ontario. This is the first Canadian large-scale solar project, and is said to be the only, that is being developed on Fort William First Nation’s reserve.
The travel industry will become a little more “green” as Hertz has announced its solar initiative, which aims to install 2.3MW with sixteen solar systems at their facilities located in: Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania by Q3 2011. The first project in the initiative, a 235kW solar electric system at the Denver International Airport, has already been completed and is anticipated to generate 342,766kWh of AC output.
Mark Roe, formerly of Apple, has joined SolarCity as its new vice president of operations. During his time at Apple Roe was senior director of worldwide service; a position which saw him manage global service operations for new product introduction, technical training, field support and feedback, service engineering and Apple Retail service among other functions.
IC Sunshine, a division of Axio Power Holdings, has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Hawaiian Electric wherein IC Sunshine will sell the utility electric power from the soon to be constructed 5MW solar farm in Campbell Industrial Park on Oahu. The PPA is awaiting final approval from the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission, but sports a 20-year contract price that is fixed with slight annual increases.
Kyocera will supply 3MW of its multicrystalline silicon solar modules for two of Tohoku Electric Power’s upcoming developments in central Japan. Construction of the 2MW Shichigahama and 1MW Hachinohe plants will get underway this month and be completed in January 2012.
Southern California Edison (SCE) has signed a power purchase agreement with First Solar for its 250MW (AC) Silver State South plant. First Solar’s ground-mounted system, which will be located on 2,500 acres of public land near Primm, Nevada, will start generating electricity in 2014 and be fully operational in May 2017.
German PV equipment manufacturer Centrotherm has won the bidding to develop a major new solar plant in Algeria. Despite reports to contrary, Centrotherm has yet to sign a contract with the Algerian Government for the new system, which will be located 30km east of the capital city, Algiers.