Power Plants

The Tar Heel State has just activated the final phases of a new 17.2MW (DC) solar farm in Davidson County, courtesy of a partnership between Duke Energy and SunEdison. The solar project was built in five phases on over 200 acres of land using more than 63,000 solar PV panels. It is anticipated the plant will produce 28 million kWh of solar-generated electrcity per year.

Enfinity has begun development on three solar PV projects in California and also announced that work is underway on its 36MWp Stardale installation in East Hawkesbury, Ontario. The California projects include solar installations for the City of Parlier, Greenfield Union School District (GUSD) and the Muroc Joint Unified School District (MJUSD). The three projects combined will have a yearly energy generation of 4 million kWh and over 80 million kWh throughout the next twenty years. Enfinity will supply the financing and development services for all the California projects.

GSE has reported that Italy has installed 1.85GW of new solar photovoltaic capacity in 2010, a 160% increase over the 711MW installed in 2009. The regulator stated that 2.8GW of PV in more than 140,000 plants have applied for participation in the nation's feed-in tariff to date, a figure which may reach 3GW when all plants are accounted for. The original story concerning the significant increase in PV installations based on the GSE figures has been relocated in the Editors' Blog section. This piece highlights issues over figures that were reported in that story, which said that 5.8GW was installed in Italy in 2010.

An existing customer in Asia has placed orders worth approximately US$169 million with Meyer Burger for wire-saw equipment used in solar wafering operations.

Portland General Electric (PGE) has started the search for an independent evaluator (IE) to help it conduct multiple bidding processes for new electric generation supplies in 2011.

A New Hampshire pub, whose history dates back to the 1930s, is getting a 21st century overhaul, with the addition of a 126-panel solar array. Construction of the system for the Flying Goose Brew Pub & Grille will be carried out by groSolar and get underway in the coming weeks.

Hypo Group has cancelled its hire purchase agreements with SonnenEnergie for PV installations in the German municipalities of Tutzing, Habach, Hechendorf and Waldstetten.

Jean-Marc Gilson has been appointed as Avantor Performance Materials’ new chief executive officer. Gilson will work alongside the company’s executive chairman, Raj Gupta, and core leadership team, and be responsible for managing the company’s strategic development and future global direction.

Solar Universe has completed its US$7 million Series B funding round, which was led by RockPort Capital Partners and further supported by returning investors. With the funds from the Series B funding round, Solar Universe expects to expand its business into new regions and increase its product offerings. In addition, the company has welcomed Kevin Daughtery as executive vice president of operations and Laurie Anthony Baggio as chief development officer.

Upon completing one year of operation, SkyFuel’s SkyTrough parabolic trough concentrating solar collectors system has also concluded its first testing period conducted by engineering firm Sargent & Lundy. The Solar Energy Generating Station (SEGS) II in Daggett, California was visited by the engineering firm, who reviewed the test methodology, daily performance data, and instrumentation and engineering drawings for 24 data collection days. The firm concluded that "the thermal output of SkyTrough solar collector assemblies (SCAs) can be expected to achieve the predicted levels."