A Valenza, Italy building owned by Finpiemonte Partecipazioni and deemed as an architectural landmark has a new solar rooftop system courtesy of Solyndra. Working with Ardea Energia and EGEA, the local utility company for the region, through a power purchase agreement, Solyndra designed and built the 370kWp solar system on the building that, among other private and public businesses, is home to the Palaexpo Jewelry Company.
Opel Solar will build a 446kW solar power plant at the headquarters of Toray Plastics in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. Construction work on the facility, which will be made up of 1650 PV panels mounted on 50 of Opel's TF-800 trackers, is scheduled to begin in spring 2011 and when completed it is expected to generate around 625MWh of electricity every year.
Deutsche Bank is to finance two SkyPower solar parks, with a combined capacity of around 18.5MW, in Ontario, Canada. The 10MW Stone Mills and 8.5MW Thunder Bay facilities will generate 400 million kWh over 20 years and are scheduled to be completed by mid 2011.
China Sunergy and Pythagoras Solar have signed a five-year contract to develop, manufacture and market BIPV products in China. The agreement runs from 2010 until 2015 and will see Pythagoras Solar produce photovoltaic glass units and China Sunergy supply up to 75MW of solar concentrator cells as they attempt to capitalise on the growing demand for BIPV products.
Titan Tracker has held meetings with several Indian companies, with a view to securing licensing agreements to supply solar trackers for several utility-scale projects. After participating in last month's Delhi International Renewable Energy Conference, these meetings are a further signal of Titan's desire to play a key role in the Indian government's Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission.
Under a 6MW distribution agreement, Focused Energy is to offer Upsolar's line of modules to its North American customers throughout 2011, with an option to extend the contract by an additional 2MW. Focused Energy began shipping Upsolar's modules in June 2010 on a trial basis and has now opted to expand the distribution agreement into 2011.
Bentek Solar recently shipped over 60MW of its circuit breaker re-combiners. “There are no fuses with these 100% circuit breaker re-combiners that provide maximum performance and safety with UL 489 breakers. The circuit breaker serves as a disconnect that complies with NEC requirements while providing circuit protection like that from a fuse. The price of circuit breakers is comparable to the cost of a fuse plus individual disconnect, while circuit breakers require much less maintenance since there are no fuses to replace,” said John H. Buckley, sales and marketing lead at Bentek Solar.
GT Solar has received the first orders for its sapphire crystallization system. The two orders, which total more than US$84 million, are from Jiangsu Jixing New Material and Jiujiang Sapphire Tech and mark GT Solar's entry into LED equipment market.
Rhodia is planning to install 12,000m² of PV panels at the Rhodia Belle-Etoile site in Rhône, France. Solairedirect, the solar module manufacturer, and OFI Asset Management will partner Rhodia on the project, which will boast a peak capacity of 2MW and produce two million kilowatt hours of electricity per annum.
United Solar has finished work on a solar power project for the rooftop of the Moon Palace Hotel in Cancun, Mexico. The development was led by Enel Green Power, with support coming from the Mexican Environment Ministry, SEMARNAT, and the Italian Ministry of the Environment, and will generate 220MWh of electricity per year.
