Americas

Chile's Environmental Assessment Service (Servicio de Evaluación Ambiental, SEIA) has approved a 698MW solar power development.

Major US residential solar lease provider Sunrun has partnered with due diligence company SolarBuyer on a quality assurance programme for its PV systems.

Former CEO, Mike Miskovsky of PV module mounting systems designer, Zep Solar has joined another innovative company in the PV sector, robot controlled tracking systems firm, QBotix. SolarCity acquired Zep Solar for US$158 million all stock transaction in October, 2013.

Internet giant Google is to provide US$145 million equity finance for an 82MW US PV project in the portfolio being operated by SunEdison’s spin-off yield co, TerraForm.

There will be almost no new utility-scale solar in the US in 2017 following the cut to the investment tax credit (ITC), according to GTM Research.

Electric power generator NextEra Energy Resources and PV systems provider First Solar have begun construction on a 250MW PV plant on the border of California and Nevada.

Sharp Corporation could be preparing to sell on Recurrent Energy, the US PV project developer it acquired in 2010, according to news reports.

Tesla’s lithium-ion ‘Gigafactory’ will be built in Nevada, company officials including chief executive Elon Musk revealed alongside the US state’s governor at a press conference yesterday afternoon.

PV developer OCI Solar Power is making progress on a number of solar projects that will add 145MW of solar power to Texas’ energy mix this year.

Solar power provider SolarCity is expanding its operations once again with the addition of 20 new operations centres in seven states.