SolarBridge Technologies has revealed that its Pantheon microinverter has passed all necessary tests and has been granted the safety standard for PV inverters: UL 1741 certification by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA). The company claims that this is the first integrated microinverter that comes with a 25-year warranty to receive such certification.
The initial reports from a key number of PV manufacturers and suppliers highlighted that little damage to manufacturing operations occurred as a result of the massive earthquake last Friday. However, concern is now focused on the shortage of electricity that affects approximately 45 million people in Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO) service area covering Tokyo, Tochigi, Gunma, Ibaraki, Chiba, Kanagawa, Saitama and Yamanashi prefectures.
Power-One has begun shipping central inverters from its Chinese manufacturing and design facility in Shenzhen. By the end of 2011, the site will have an annual manufacturing capacity of 1GW.
Last week, Linuo Power Group marked the opening of the first stage of its 700MW PV plant in Jinan, China with a stone-laying ceremony. The plant, located in the Shandong province, cost CNY2.5 billion and will help Linuo to achieve an annual production capacity of 1000MW.
Production of polysilcon continues to expand as major suppliers attempt to keep pace with market demand. Wacker Chemie has updated plans to expand its polysilicon production that includes spending €130 million on debottlenecking measures to add 10,000MT more capacity. Wacker noted that it is essentially sold out under supply contracts through 2014.
A group of 15 investors have launched a legal challenge to overturn Spain's decision to cut its feed-in tariff. The group, who are thought to have invested more than €4 billion in the Spanish PV industry and includes private equity and infrastructure funds such as Impax Asset Management and Hudson Clean Energy Partners, are appealing the decision under the international Energy Charter Treaty.
Delta Energy Systems’ inverter lines have been certified for compatibility with First Solar’s latest FS-Series 2 and FS-Series 3 thin-film modules. First Solar’s System Design and Application certification covers both Delta’s Solivia 2.5, 3.0, 3.3 and 5.0 EU G3 string inverters and its central inverter line.
PV module encapsulants supplier, STR Holdings posted 2010 sales to the solar sector of US$259.2 million, an increase of 73.4%, compared to sales of US$149.5 million in 2009. Management noted that the increase in sales was due to increased market share gains with its current Tier 1 Chinese customers as well starting to supply a large Asian module manufacturer in the year.
Tenaska Solar Ventures has chosen Soitec’s Concentrix concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) technology to power its new 150MW Imperial Solar Energy Center (ISEC) West plant in Southern California, with local utility SDG&E agreeing to buy the power generated from the site under a 25-year PPA. The company also announced plans to build a 200MW capacity CPV module manufacturing facility in the San Diego area. The ISEC West project has applied for a DOE loan guarantee as well.
