Pioneering solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse will have to stay in Hawaii until April 2016 after sustaining irreversible damage to its batteries from overheating.
Eight new PV plants — totaling 67.3MW of capacity — have been added to North Carolina’s energy portfolio, boasting the “Tar Heel State’s” overall capacity to 103.5MW for the partnership between Sol Systems, National Cooperative Bank (NCB) and Strata Solar.
Utility solar systems in the US offer significant cost and environmental benefits over rooftop residential PV systems due to higher electric output and economies of scale, research suggests.
Developer Sky Solar has announced that the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has approved US$55.7 million loan to finance the construction, operation and maintenance of six PV plants and their connected facilities in Uruguay. The China Co-Financing Fund and the Canadian Climate Fund for the Private Sector, both led by IDB, will also offer additional loans of US$19.3 million and US$10 million, respectively.
Griguol Impianti Elettrici is at an advanced stage of constructing the world’s largest bifacial PV system ‘La Hormiga’ at 2.5MWp in Chile, using technology from Italy-based module manufacturer MegaCell, which is part of Mega Group.
The revised US trade duties on Chinese solar panels have created further ambiguity with SolarWorld welcoming the changes, even though the world’s top two producers appear to have benefitted from the changes.
Renewables including solar are expected to account for 26% of total microgrid capacity in the US by 2020, up from just 6% today, according to GTM Research’s latest report.
The US Department of Commerce has reviewed its final anti-dumping (AD) and anti-subsidy (AS) rates on Chinese solar firms with most tier-one firms having their rates cut.
Solar developer First Solar has agreed to sell power at US$0.0387/kWh, thought to be the lowest electricity price ever, from a 100MW solar plant to utility NV Energy, according to a filing with the Public utilities Commission of Nevada.
