Projects

Two years in the making, Arizona’s largest commercial-scale solar power project has been completed. Located in Pinal County, the 20MW project sits on 144 acres and began operation earlier this year. Iberdrola Renewables will own and operate the facility with Salt River Project (SRP) purchasing the entire output of the plant under a 25 year agreement.

Moser Baer Clean Energy Limited (MBCEL) has commissioned a 23.8MW solar power plant in Lauta, Germany, said to be the company’s largest to date. Funded with approximately €50 million long-term debt financing from DKB bank in Germany – the same financier for the company’s Thuringen and Meissens projects, the farm uses c-Si technology, SMA central inverters and was built with Conecon as the construction partner.

Martifer Solar has signed a turnkey contract to install a 6.6MW PV system in Murcia, Spain. Under the terms of the agreement, Martifer will not only build the plant, but also supply all the equipment and carry out operation and maintenance.

First Solar has begun construction on what will be Australia’s first utility-scale PV project once it reaches completions, Located near Geraldton, the 10MW (AC) Greenough River Solar Farm will be built over a nine-month period, with local civil contractor WBHO Civil providing Phase 1 construction services. Civil work on the project began November 4, with on-site construction for structural supports and above ground electrical work following soon.

Nautilus Solar Energy advised that three of its rooftop PV systems in Ontario, totaling 1.25MW, had reached official commercial operation today. The projects are owned by Nautilus’ unit, Nautilus Solar Canada Limited Partnership and are supported by the Ontario Power Authority’s (OPA) FiT program, which will see OPA purchase the electricity produced by the systems for a fixed rate over a 20-year period.

Just one week after completing an 80MW project in Ukraine, Activ Solar has added a further 20MW to the country’s burgeoning solar portfolio by installing Phase II of the Perovo Solar Power Station.

Social media giant, Facebook, is entering the solar cogeneration arena with help from Cogenra Solar, which will be developing a renewable hot water and electricity solar cogeneration array on the rooftop of Facebook’s Menlo Park campus fitness centre. Cogenra advised that this is not only Facebook’s first venture into solar energy at its corporate campus, but that the company will be the first corporate campus to use solar cogeneration.

A fruit and vegetable distribution centre in the south of France is now the site of the world’s largest building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) system, after 97,000 Solaire France Sunstyle PV roofing tiles were installed on the Saint Charles International in Perpignan.

Work will begin next year on the first phase of the 500MW Desertec concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in Morocco, according to German newspaper Süddeutschen Zeitung. The initial development stage will cost around €600 million and add 150MW of capacity to the yet-to-be-named site.

Astronergy, a unit of Chint Group, advised that Munich RE had selected its thin-film amorphous microcrystalline silicon PV panels for a 1.65MW solar project in Thailand. The plant was commissioned on October 28 with Astronergy noting that various Chint subsidiary components were being used for including inverters and BOS system elements.