Power Plants

The German Federal Network Agency has released preliminary photovoltaic (PV) installations in the country for 2009, which highlight the significant growth that took place between October and December 2009. In total, 3.8GW was installed in 2009, a 60% increase over 2008. 2.3GW was installed between October and December. “According to the figures we have done in the past year, a significant build up of solar systems. The installed capacity has increased from 6.0 gigawatts in 2008 to 9.8 gigawatts in 2009," noted Matthias Kurth, President of the Federal Network Agency, in a statement.

Recurrent Energy has signed agreements with Kaiser Permanente for the development of 15MW of solar power systems at several different locations across California. Recurrent will build, own, and operate 16 solar power systems installed across 15 Kaiser Permanente hospital and office rooftops, ground spaces and above existing ground-level parking spaces and garages.

Polysilicon, wafers and solar module prices all declined severely in 2009, according to a new report from iSuppli. On average, crystalline module prices dropped 37.8%, solar wafer prices fell by 50%, and polysilicon prices declined by 80%.

After significant polysilicon and wafer price declines in 2009, MEMC executives have become more upbeat about demand and price stability entering the first quarter of 2010 and beyond. In a conference call to discuss fourth quarter results, the company noted that capacity utilization of silicon wafer production was at approximately 80%, with a demand recovery underway in the semiconductor industry, enabling a firming in prices to that sector. In solar, price declines were said to have moderated and the company was now shipping wafers to 10 of the top 25 PV manufacturers, compared to having made shipments to only 2 solar customers at the beginning of 2009.

The UK feed-in tariff rates have now been finalized, offering its residents a financial incentive for producing renewable energy. The government has confirmed the proposed rate, which will begin to take effect from April 1, 2010.

After a fair amount of digging and the much needed help of our German correspondent we can now confirm that the reports of a 16-17% cut in feed-in tariff rate for Germany were true, and the cuts are to go ahead from April 1, 2010. Click here to see the analyst's thoughts on these cuts.

Possibly the largest ever dichlorosilane (DCS) redistribution process (RDR) project has been successfully completed by Dynamic Engineering (DEI) for GCL Solar’s polysilicon plant. The RDR project for GCL was designed to process 10,000 mta of DCS, which eliminates the byproduct through conversion of DCS to trichlorosilane (TCS). GCL Solar is planning to expand polysilicon production to 18,000 MTA by end of 2009 and 21,000 MTA by end of 2010.

Organic photovoltaics developer Solarmer Energy has achieved the highest conversion efficiency recorded so far for a plastic OPV champion cell—7.9%. The aperture-area test results, recently certified by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, represent an improvement over independent exams conducted a few months ago at Newport Corp.’s Technology and Application Center’s PV Lab, where cell efficiencies of 7.6% and module efficiencies of 3.9% were recorded.

Earlier this month, the two main bodies in the Italian renewable energy world, Gruppo Imprese Fotovoltaiche Italiane (GIFI), the Italian Photovoltaic Association, and Federazione Nazionale Imprese Elettrotecniche ed Elettroniche (ANIE), proposed a new set of Feed in Tariffs (FiT) for Italy, which are planned for 2011, according to a Barclays Solar report.

DuPont and the U.S. Department of Energy will collaborate in a $9 million solar research program to develop ultrathin moisure-barrier material solutions for flexible thin-film photovoltaics. Some $3 million of the funding for the three-year effort comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with DuPont contributing the remaining $6 million.