REC Systems and ABB have closed financing and begun construction of a 24.2MW solar power plant in Lazio, Italy. Authorisation for the 95-hectare project was granted in March 2010 and, when completed, the system’s 100,000 REC modules will generate around 37 million kWh of electricity a year.
Making progress on its goal of having 250MW of commercial rooftop PV power deployed within the next four years, Southern California Edison has interconnected seven new distributed-generation solar plants. The systems, located on more than 3.36 million square feet of ProLogis-owned warehouse roof space in the Southern California cities of Ontario and Redlands, have a combined installed generating capacity of 12.5MW (AC).
Unirac and Canadian Solar Solutions have come together to offer its residential and commercial customers 30MW of Canadian Solar’s PV systems coupled with Unirac’s mounting solutions for rooftop installations in Canada. Canadian Solar will provide the engineering, procurement and construction services for the projects, while Unirac will supply its racking technology. Both companies look to their partnership as a way for their customers to further take advantage of Ontario’s FIT program.
Parity Solar has installed a built-in photovoltaics (BIPV) system at the New Area Court House complex in Zhenjiang, China. The crystalline and thin-film modules are being installed over the skylight on the complex’s roof and will have a power generation capacity of 200kW.
Solar power is coming back to Adrano, home of the one of the first CSP systems. Enel Green Power is starting construction on a new 9MW photovoltaic power plant on the Sicilian site where the historic Eurelios CSP array once operated.
9REN has obtained a new order from Helios to develop, build, and manage a 1MW PV power plant of 1MW in Buseto Palizzolo in the Italian province of Trapani.The location of the new project is close to a 1.9MW system previously contracted with Helios and already under construction.
Scheuten Solar has signed 10MW of new contracts for its turnkey projects in Belgium. The contracts relate to mostly large-scale PV systems on industrial rooftops and include the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) along with operation and maintenance on the systems.
Two of IKEA’s German stores have recently been fitted with solar installations and connected to the grid thanks to the partnership between the home furnishing company and REC Solar. IKEA selected REC Solar out of 200 solar installation providers, who then provided the modules and installed the solar systems on IKEA’s store roofs.
Siemens Energy and Suntech Power Holdings have entered into a framework agreement wherein Suntech will provide solar PV modules for various European solar installations. Siemens notes that over the past seven months, the company has received orders for PV plants that have a combined capacity of over 80MW in six countries.
The exotic animals and plants at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden will soon be vying for visitor attention with a new attraction – America’s largest publicly accessible urban solar panel array.
