SkyPower has secured a CAD$67 million revolving credit facility from Deutsche Bank, to be used to support the ongoing development of SkyPower's portfolio of utility-scale solar projects in Ontario, Canada. The facility is a letter credit facility innovatively structured to leverage the benefits of Ontario's green energy program and feed-in tariff.
Q-Cells North America has chosen Satcon Technology to supply an additional 40MW of its Prism Platform solutions for its Starwood solar project in Sault St Marie, Ontario. Q-Cells will use a combination of eight 1.25MW Equinox Prism Platforms and 24 1.25MW Solstice Prism Platform solutions at the site.
Bringing two decades of extensive experience in renewable energy, software and semiconductors to the company, solar industry veteran Cary Vandenberg has joined eIQ Energy’s executive team. As vice president of sales he will be responsible for strengthening its sales management, business development and international business in order to expand its product offerings and customer installations.
A power outage on October 4 at REC’s polysilicon production facilities in Moses Lake, Washington, caused a complete shut down of operations. REC said there had been no safety issues, but it would be two to three weeks before full production could be resumed at pre-outage levels, resulting in a 500MT reduction to REC’s previously guided annual output at the facility of 19,000MT.
BrightSource Energy has supplied its solar thermal technology for use at Chevron Technology Ventures’ enhanced oil recovery (EOR) project in Coalinga, California. The 29MW thermal “Solar-to-Steam” facility uses 3,822 heliostats, each consisting of two 10x7-foot mirrors mounted to a six-foot steel pole, which are focused on a boiler on top of a 327-foot tall solar tower.
OneRoof Energy will be collaborating with CertainTeed and Integrated Electrical Services (IES) for a single-source roofing and solar solution. CertainTeed, a subsidiary of Saint-Gobain, is set to help with the bureaucratic process that comes with installing a solar system and will also supply solar products, permitting and design services and rebate and incentive processing for the OneRoof and CertainTeed customers including the offering of its SolarSelect Lease program for roofing contractors.
Although the financial costs remain unknown, an agreement has been reached over conservation issues arising from the 550MW Topaz Solar Farm project that First Solar is developing in San Luis Obispo County, California. A lawsuit against the project started by North County Watch and Carrizo Commons is expected to be dropped.
Citing the ongoing challenging market conditions, notably in its residential and commercial segments, SunPower will revise its revenue and earnings outlook for 2011. However, SunPower has a strong utility-scale project pipeline, especially within the US. The new 2011 guidance will be announced in a month, during its third quarter financial results, issued on November 3.
AES Solar subsidiary AES Illumina closed on a loan and financing package and has begun construction of a 24MW PV power plant in Guayama, Puerto Rico, said to be the largest solar power installation yet to be undertaken on the island. Global Energy Services will act as the primary construction contractor on the project.
Constellation Energy has started to construct a 16.1MW solar installation in Emmitsburg, Maryland as part of the state’s Generating Clean Horizon’s initiative. The US$60 million facility will be financed, owned and operated by Constellation Energy with Maryland’s Department of General Services and the University System of Maryland purchasing the produced electricity under a 20-year PPA.
