The Tucson Airport Authority (TAA) and Tucson Electric Power (TEP) will be coming together for a second time since 2007 for the installation of a solar energy project. TAA’s board of directors approved a 20-year land lease with TEP, where TEP will pay a fixed rental rate of US$46,716.50 per year to lease 50 acres of land south of the Tucson International Airport.
IB Vogt and Sonthalia have renewed their partnership wherein IB Vogt will embark on a concept study and provide engineering services for a PV factory in Falta Solar Hub area of India. The PV factory is expected to be completed between 2011 and 2012 and is part of the Solar Mission that the Indian government approved for the generation of 20MW of solar power in India by 2022. The size of the contract has not been disclosed by either party.
Semprius has completed the installation of the first microcell-based HCPV research development and demonstration (RD&D) system at Tucson Electric Power (TEP). The installation, which was completed in August this year, combines Semprius' HCPV modules with an automated solar tracking system from Siemens. The TEP project is part of a joint development agreement signed by Semprius and Siemens at the beginning of 2010, which aims to achieve the deployment of numerous new HCPV systems at test sites around the world.
The Greater Toronto area will be home to a new solar panel manufacturing facility courtesy of Eclipsall Energy. The company is investing over CAN$10 million for the 64MWp plant, which is anticipated to be operational during the first half of 2011. The need for expansion of the manufacturing line will be evaluated later in 2011.
Opel Solar will build a 446kW solar power plant at the headquarters of Toray Plastics in North Kingstown, Rhode Island. Construction work on the facility, which will be made up of 1650 PV panels mounted on 50 of Opel's TF-800 trackers, is scheduled to begin in spring 2011 and when completed it is expected to generate around 625MWh of electricity every year.
Deutsche Bank is to finance two SkyPower solar parks, with a combined capacity of around 18.5MW, in Ontario, Canada. The 10MW Stone Mills and 8.5MW Thunder Bay facilities will generate 400 million kWh over 20 years and are scheduled to be completed by mid 2011.
United Solar has finished work on a solar power project for the rooftop of the Moon Palace Hotel in Cancun, Mexico. The development was led by Enel Green Power, with support coming from the Mexican Environment Ministry, SEMARNAT, and the Italian Ministry of the Environment, and will generate 220MWh of electricity per year.
A single-junction organic photovoltaic solar cell with a surface area of 1 square centimetre has been demonstrated by Konarka Technologies to have a 8.3% efficiency.
