Boeing and South Carolina Electric & Gas (SCE&G) will be working together to make Boeing’s South Carolina facility a 100% renewable energy site. The North Charleston site will produce renewable energy with the help of a 2.6MW rooftop solar installation. Both companies maintain that the solar system at the Boeings 787 Final Assembly site will be the largest solar installation in the Southeast and the sixth largest in the US.
Energy Conversion Devices’ (ECD) subsidiary, United Solar, revealed its plans for a 75,347 square foot manufacturing facility in Ontario, Canada. Anticipated to be operational by August, the facility will create up to 80 jobs for the production of the company’s thin-film solar laminates, which will be sold specifically in the Ontario solar market. United Solar plans to modernize the building and organize capital equipment, with total first-year project capital expected of US$4 million.
Solar Junction’s concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) cell has achieved a world-record efficiency of 43.5%. The company reported that the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) confirmed the commercial-ready production cell efficiency under their Measurement and Characterization Laboratory.
The recent announcement by the US Department of Energy (DOE) to invest US$457 million in solar technology development under the moniker of the SunShot Advanced PV Manufacturing Partnerships Program has given the industry a welcome boost. With the recent payout to the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE), news has emerged that Veeco has partnered with the CNSE for technology development and reduction of costs associated with CIGS technologies.
United Solar and Advanced Green Technologies (AGT) have finished work on a new 807kW system spanning six school rooftops in New York’s South Country School District. Each school will generate around 158,000 kWh of electricity per annum and save over US$25,000 in the process.
Just a few miles from First Solar’s manufacturing operations in Perrysburg, Ohio, CdTe thin-film start-up Willard & Kelsey Solar Group (also known as WK Solar) has purchased a module lamination system from Bürkle.
With the acquisition of US-based CdTe thin-film start-up PrimeStar now behind GE, the conglomerate is planning to expand its investments in PV with the building of a 400MW manufacturing plant, potentially bringing its total investment in the sector to over US$600 million.
Solar Frontier has signed a distribution contract with Italy’s DW Europe to help expand its CIS solar module marketing and sales base in southern Europe. The agreement will enable Solar Frontier to establish a comprehensive distribution network and presence within the burgeoning European solar sector.
This month’s international trade fair Society of Vacuum Coaters (SCV) will see Fraunhofer FEP launch its new transparent conducting oxide (TCO) layer. The titanium dioxide-based layer, which can be applied to PV glass layers, has similar conductivity and transparency to other indium-free materials, but also boasts greater resistance to chemicals and the ability to withstand temperatures up to 550°C.
OPEL Solar International, the joint venture between OPEL Solar and Ecotech Environmental Technology, has been awarded its first order, just over three months after its formation. The company will provide 5MW of its HCPV panels and dual axis trackers to one of China’s electric power companies. OPEL Solar International initially expected the order to be for 2MW, but looks at the doubled purchase order as a way for it to break into the HCPV market in East Asia. Deliveries should start in the second quarter of 2011 and be completed during 2012.
