Power Plants

The 9REN Group recently closed on a funding lease from UniCredit Leasing that will go towards the financing of the Pacione 1 PV power plant. The Italian PV plant, located in the Taranto province, is complete and holds a 6.5MW capacity. Grid connection is expected to occur in the next few weeks.

With significant ingot and wafer capacity expansions, notably underway in Asia, the demand for slurry recycling is working in tandem. With a claimed 40% market share, SiC Processing is raising €100 million via a bond issue to further expand operations in Asia and other regions.

James Michael “Mike” Williams and Katherine “Kate” Reid Sherwood have been newly appointed by SunLink as the company’s senior vice president of engineering and senior vice president of sales, respectively. “SunLink has expanded its senior management team to help us manage our rapid growth, develop new product lines, and improve our customer service,” said Christopher Tilley, CEO of SunLink. “Both Mike Williams and Kate Sherwood have the experience and drive to help SunLink build out a world-class and scalable organization as the leader in the PV mounting and balance of systems solutions space.”

Lux Research’s new report, “Shorting Out the Myths of Solar Power Electronics: What Fits and What Fails,” has examined the power electronics options that are becoming increasingly available to solar installers and project developers in order to help establish what technologies actually offer the best performance and lowest cost in the residential, commercial and utility solar divisions.

Arizona Public Service (APS) is expanding upon its AZ Sun program with the development of a new 17MW PV facility in Gila Bend, Arizona. With the Paloma Solar Plant, APS’s AZ Sun program will have committed 83MW of solar capacity out of the 100MW it aims to finance and own upon the program’s completion, which is intended for sometime in 2014. First Solar was contracted by APS to design and build the Paloma Solar Plant and expects to have it online by September.

A polysilicon supply contract has been signed between OCI and Yingli Green Energy to the tune of US$950 million. The contract will commence in January 2012 and is expected to continue through to the end of 2018.

Rumours of a tie-up with Samsung have proved true, with the news that MEMC will establish a new joint-venture firm with Samsung Fine Chemicals to produce polysilicon for the PV industry. The agreement between SFC and MEMC's affiliate, MEMC Singapore, includes building a 10,000MT plant in Ulsan, Korea, close to an SFC chemical plant. Production ramp is targeted for 2013.

DuPont Microcircuit Materials (MCM) and Holst Centre have formed a partnership to focus on advancing the technology of printed electronics, specifically in the areas of printed structures on flexible substrates, which are used in a variety of markets including flexible display, RFID, lighting, biomedical and organic photovoltaics (OPV).

Scatec Solar has signed on with Fotowatio Renewable Ventures and Italgen to build a 6.16MWp solar project in a former quarry close to Guiglia, Italy. The solar installation should be connected to the grid by this fall and generate over 7.5 million kWh yearly. The companies did not release the financial terms for their agreement nor any information about the 26,000 modules or BOS that will be used for the installation.

TerniEnergia is working on sixteen industrial-sized PV plants, which combined will produce 18.3MW of solar electricity. The plants are located in the Umbria, Marche, Piemonte, Molise, Lazio and Puglia regions of Italy and are expected to be completed by March 31. Last year, TerniEnergia notes that it completed 76 PV plants for an installed power of 77.2MW.