The governor of the state of Kaduna in Nigeria, Sir Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Helios Energy, a Germany energy company, for a 30MW solar power project. Dr. Jeremy Gaines, the coordinator of the Nigerian-German Energy Partnership, signed on behalf of the German firm.
8minutenergy Renewables, a developer of utility-scale solar PV projects, has received conditional use permits (CUP) for three of its large-scale PV projects from the Imperial County Board of Supervisors. The projects have a total capacity of 275MW and will be built in the Imperial Valley, California, US, in partnership with Gestamp Solar.
GCL-Poly Energy Holdings has been given the green light to begin preparing for the construction of a 310MWground-mounted PV system and a 30MW rooftop solar project in Dantong, Shanxi province, China, after it received approval from the National Energy Beruau.
Canadian Solar advised that the sale of its Canadian Solar 1 installation has been completed with the utility-scale power plant sold to Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners for US$48.4 million. Canadian Solar was the developer, EPC and construction financier for the project, which is built near the town of Napanee. The installation is connected to the grid and uses nearly 50,000 of the company’s CS6M modules.
SolarWorld noted that its large-scale system business expansion has been successful thus far with the company pointing to 33MW of total power being connected to the grid in Germany during Q2 2012. The company connected five solar farms in commercial and industrial areas in the Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The farms will supply over 30 million kWh of power per year.
On the back of a two-day blackout in India which caused tragedy, chaos and loss of face at the end of July, Bloomberg has revealed that US solar giant First Solar is drawing out plans to develop solar farms in India as repeated power outages spur on demand for solar power.
Ingenostrum, a Spanish developer of PV projects, is planning to build another large-scale solar power plant in Antofagasta, Chile, Photon has revealed.
Non-governmental organization (NGO), the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), is accusing US thin-film manufacturers of using a loop hole in the Indian government’s renewable energy scheme to “ruin the Indian domestic PV industry”. Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) initiative mandates a domestic content requirement, however, only for crystalline PV and not for thin-film.
IBC Solar’s Turkish subsidiary IBC Solar Yat Ve Tic has announced that it has completed the installation of its Konya PV plant, which it claims is the first grid-connected PV power plant in Turkey.
Following its two requests for tenders (RFTs), the French government has selected bids for 541MW of solar plants, using various technologies, including, five projects from Element Power Solar, which total 18MW. Element Power’s projects include the 2.06MW Tournus installation, the 9.51MW site in Orain, Besset’s 2.16MW project, the 2.66MW installation in Soucia and Sydom’s 1.36MW installation.
