Solon Corporation has agreed to build a 1.15MW PV system for the Tanque Verde Unified School District (TVUSD) in Tucson, Arizona, the company has announced. The system will be installed across the four campuses of Tanque Verde High School and Elementary School, the Emily Gray Junior High School and the Agua Caliente Elementary School. Solon Corporation will design and construct the system and maintain its operation once completed; the energy generated will we sold to TVUSD under a 25-year PPA. The project is expected to commence operation in early 2013.
SunPower has completed a 1.8MW PV installation at the main building of Bloomberg’s New Jersey campus, the company has announced. The system is owned by Integrys Energy Services and Bloomberg will be buying the generated electricity at below-retail rates. The system is equipped with SunPower PV panels as well as the SunPower T0 tracker system.
Distributed Energy Research & Solutions, or EnergySage, has been the recipient of one of 10 Department of Energy (DoE) SunShot Incubator investments worth US$500,000. The funding will be used to develop a web-based PV comparison-shopping platform that aims to deliver pricing transparency and encourage online networking among property owners and solar PV installers.
SPI Solar has obtained the rights to co-develop and construct 68 solar sites in Hawaii, which will total around 29MW and be developed across the islands of Oahu, Kona and Maui. The facilities will mostly be ground-mounted fixtures with some rooftop and shade structures built as well. All of the solar projects will feed into Hawaii’s utility power grids.
Tomorrow, GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) will release their “US Solar Market Insight: Q1 2012” report, which has found that the US solar industry continues to expand at the rapid pace that was seen in 2011. During Q1, the US installed 506MW, more than any other Q1 on record. The stellar growth seen over the first three months of the year is attributed to the strong expansion in the commercial market segment.
SolarCity and US Bancorp have announced a US$250 million fund to finance residential and commercial PV projects. The renewable energy tax equity fund is intended for homeowners as well as businesses, administrative, school and county buildings. The fund will be used to finance the solar panels and installations, while customers pay a discounted amount for the electricity. In the three years that SolarCity and US Bancorp have been collaborating, this is the sixth and largest fund, designed to make PV systems more accessible and affordable.
Energy Finance Company (EFC), using the Funding Solar Energy (FUSE) fund, activated its 625kW solar installation in San Antonio, Texas early last month. The rooftop project is located on a warehouse complex and uses over 2,700 solar panels. It will sell 100% of the power produced to CPS Energy under a 20-year PPA and is expected to generate nearly one million kWh of electricity in its first year of operation.
The inevitable fall-out from last month’s US Dept. of Commerce ruling against the import of Chinese solar products is now measurable in numbers, as the Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM) has revealed details of import figures for April. With US Customs and Border protection closely monitoring all imports to prevent companies dodging the anti-subsidy duties, imports in April came to US$70.7 million, down 66% compared to the previous month’s US$206 million.
Solectria Renewables has announced that a 1MW PV installation equipped with its inverters has been commissioned by the Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors to provide energy to the Calle Real Campus. The installation is further equipped with 4,500 SolarWorld modules. EPC services provider Endelos Energy and the Santa Barbara County agreed to only use American-made products for the PV array.
Q-Cells has selected Satcon to provide 30MW of its Equinox Prism Platform solutions to two Californian PV projects, the company has announced. The sites are owned and operated by Californian utilities.
