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.
As the Sept. 30 deadline for closing loan guarantees approaches, the US Department of Energy has finalized another one, this time for $337 million for the 150MW (AC) Mesquite Solar 1 power plant in Arizona. The project is owned by Sempra Energy, which has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement to sell the electricity generated to Pacific Gas & Electric.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) advised that it had awarded a US$737 million loan guarantee to Tonopah Solar Energy for its 110MW Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project. Sponsored by SolarReserve, the 100MW CSP solar power tower is said to be the first of its kind in the US and the tallest molten salt tower in the world. The project will be built on land leased from the Bureau of Land Management in Tonopah, Nevada.
Sopogy’s Concentrating Solar Collectors have received OG-100 classification from the Solar Rating and Certification Corporation (SRCC). The certification qualifies Sopogy’s collectors for the solar programmes of a number of US states and validates the performance of Sopogy’s collector technology. The SRCC is the US’s independent accreditor for solar thermal products and Sopogy’s MicroCSP collector passed all of the third-party laboratory and outdoor tests; it was awarded the OG-100 certification after meeting all durability, safety and thermal performance requirements.
