SPI Solar has obtained the rights to co-develop and construct 68 solar sites in Hawaii, which will total around 29MW and be developed across the islands of Oahu, Kona and Maui. The facilities will mostly be ground-mounted fixtures with some rooftop and shade structures built as well. All of the solar projects will feed into Hawaii’s utility power grids.
Energy Finance Company (EFC), using the Funding Solar Energy (FUSE) fund, activated its 625kW solar installation in San Antonio, Texas early last month. The rooftop project is located on a warehouse complex and uses over 2,700 solar panels. It will sell 100% of the power produced to CPS Energy under a 20-year PPA and is expected to generate nearly one million kWh of electricity in its first year of operation.
Solectria Renewables has announced that a 1MW PV installation equipped with its inverters has been commissioned by the Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors to provide energy to the Calle Real Campus. The installation is further equipped with 4,500 SolarWorld modules. EPC services provider Endelos Energy and the Santa Barbara County agreed to only use American-made products for the PV array.
Q-Cells has selected Satcon to provide 30MW of its Equinox Prism Platform solutions to two Californian PV projects, the company has announced. The sites are owned and operated by Californian utilities.
Chint/Astroenergy has completed a 50MW PV plant in Bulgaria, the company has announced. Once in operation, the plant will generate 1,858.548,000kWh of energy over a span of 25 and the energy will be fed into the local grid under a fixed FiT.
Norwegian-based Scatec Solar and IFC InfraVentures have entered an agreement to develop a number of PV plants in West and Central Africa, the companies have announced. IFC will be financing the projects while Scatec will be responsible for designing, developing, constructing and operating PV plants with a capacity of 10MW or more in different African countries. Among the first countries in which Scatec and IFC are planning to develop solar power plants are Benin, Cameroon, Togo, Niger and Burkina Faso.
Pakistan’s slow economic growth and energy shortage could be coming to an end if proposals from Suntech to establish 100MW in the country are realized. Speaking at a meeting of ministerial officials, Dr Shi Zhengrong, chairman of Suntech, announced plans for the phased installation of plants with a generating capacity of 20MW each.
Having increased the allocation of solar projects to 350MW by 2016, in February this year, Karnataka Renewable Energy Development (KREDL) is in the process of seeking government approval for a solar park, following in the footsteps of states like Gujarat. KREDL wishes to build the 1,000 hectare solar park at Mannur village in Bijapur, India, through a public-private partnership (PPP) model. According to the chairman of KREDL, C.M. Nimbannavar, the site is expected to generate 500MW of solar power.
CNPV Solar Power executives were on hand, May 2, at Enel Green Power’s inauguration ceremony for its solar geothermal hybrid project in Stillwater, Nevada. CNPV supplied its PV modules for the project, which has 33MW of geothermal capacity and 26MW of solar capacity. Initiated and owned by Enel Green Power, the project is said to be the world’s first and only geothermal hybrid project.
Episolar’s subsidiary, Siginik Energy, advised that it had signed a definitive PPA with the Electricity Company of Ghana for the construction of a 50MW ground-mounted tracking solar installation. The energy produced by the project will be bought by ECG for 25 years. The companies advised that this would be the largest solar installation in West Africa and one of the largest on the continent.
