Storage

A large-scale storage system co-located at a German solar farm by the PV plant’s developer Belectric, has been given the green light to operate in the grid-balancing frequency response market.

Horizontal tracking systems provided by IdeemaTec Deutschland GmbH will be utilised by the Jordanian government programme for renewable energies in three projects — totaling 43.5MW.

Polysilicon producer REC Silicon reported a 48% decline in polysilicon sales in the first quarter of 2015, driven by a number of negative impacts.

Ecoppia, a developer of water-free PV solar panel cleaning solutions, has announced that its E4 robotic solar panel cleaning system is now operational on five PV installations in the Middle East — comprising of over 35MW of installed capacity.

Major polysilicon producer Wacker Chemie said its capacity could reach around 80,000MT by 2017 as it optimises production in Germany and ramps its new plant in Tennessee.

Germany-based PV materials manufacturer Heraeus is to open new R&D centres in mainland China and Taiwan.

Semiconductor equipment makers Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron have agreed to terminate plans for a merger after the US Department of Justice (DoJ) warned about loss of competition from the procedure.

Following recent news that Holland’s Orange Solar will open a module factory aimed at “reviving” European PV manufacturing, BIPV specialist Onyx Solar will begin work on a factory in Spain.

Wuxi Suntech the PV module manufacturing arm of Shunfeng International Clean Energy (SFCE) has confirmed the development and testing with Taiwan Carbon Nanotube Technology Corporation (TCNT) of a high-strength, lightweight carbon and glass fibre composite PV module frame, the first such development of its kind in the PV industry.

Taiwan-based solar wafer producer Green Energy Technology (GET) reported March 2015 sales almost flat with the previous month.