A power outage on October 4 at REC’s polysilicon production facilities in Moses Lake, Washington, caused a complete shut down of operations. REC said there had been no safety issues, but it would be two to three weeks before full production could be resumed at pre-outage levels, resulting in a 500MT reduction to REC’s previously guided annual output at the facility of 19,000MT.
Fronius International and Obvius Holdings have formed a strategic partnership for the development of a monitoring solution that provides “plug-and-play integration.” Fronius’ IG Plus and CL inverters are now supported by Obvius’ AcquiSuite, AcquiSuite EMB and AcquiLite EMB.
Enecsys advised that it has partnered with Ember for the company’s wireless ZigBee communications, which will be incorporated into Enecsys microinverters so that households and business can better monitor and improve their systems’ performance. The ZigBee system-on-chip (SoC) and ZigBee PRO software have been added to Enecsys’ SMI microinverter series and should allow for real-time and historical data to be populated for its users.
BrightSource Energy has supplied its solar thermal technology for use at Chevron Technology Ventures’ enhanced oil recovery (EOR) project in Coalinga, California. The 29MW thermal “Solar-to-Steam” facility uses 3,822 heliostats, each consisting of two 10x7-foot mirrors mounted to a six-foot steel pole, which are focused on a boiler on top of a 327-foot tall solar tower.
OneRoof Energy will be collaborating with CertainTeed and Integrated Electrical Services (IES) for a single-source roofing and solar solution. CertainTeed, a subsidiary of Saint-Gobain, is set to help with the bureaucratic process that comes with installing a solar system and will also supply solar products, permitting and design services and rebate and incentive processing for the OneRoof and CertainTeed customers including the offering of its SolarSelect Lease program for roofing contractors.
Although the financial costs remain unknown, an agreement has been reached over conservation issues arising from the 550MW Topaz Solar Farm project that First Solar is developing in San Luis Obispo County, California. A lawsuit against the project started by North County Watch and Carrizo Commons is expected to be dropped.
Citing the ongoing challenging market conditions, notably in its residential and commercial segments, SunPower will revise its revenue and earnings outlook for 2011. However, SunPower has a strong utility-scale project pipeline, especially within the US. The new 2011 guidance will be announced in a month, during its third quarter financial results, issued on November 3.
Having used Solyndra’s modules on a majority of its solar rooftop projects, EPC firm, Orion Energy Systems continues to champion the Chapter 11 firm’s technology and remains optimistic Solyndra could still emerge from the bankruptcy proceedings. Though its shares have fallen since Solyndra’s collapse, Orion Energy Systems claimed that it did not expect its business to be ‘adversely impacted.’
sinoPARTNER Technologie has finished installing a 280kWp PV system on the roof of a juvenile prison complex in Schifferstadt, Germany. The system, which was first connected to the grid earlier this summer, will be powered by ET Solar modules.
AES Solar subsidiary AES Illumina closed on a loan and financing package and has begun construction of a 24MW PV power plant in Guayama, Puerto Rico, said to be the largest solar power installation yet to be undertaken on the island. Global Energy Services will act as the primary construction contractor on the project.
