Europe

A waste law bringing PV modules that are made or sold in Germany under mandatory producer responsibility rules came into force on 24 October.

France-based renewable energy company Tenergie has successfully refinanced its 54.4MW of solar assets for €150 million (US$166 million) with a bank syndicate led by Credit Agricole Group.

US residential solar installer SolarCity has said global expansion remains on its agenda despite the premature demise of its exploratory foray into the UK market via subsidiary Zep Solar.

SolarCity is looking to hire as many new employees in just one day as it does on average every month, targeting the hire of 500 workers across 10 US states.

United Nations' chief environment scientist Jacquie McGlade has attacked the UK government over its stance on renewable energy subsidies.

German research institute ISC Konstanz and specialist PV equipment supplier Eurotron have launched a new 300W interdigitated back contact (IBC) module, the ‘ZEBRA’, which will be put into pilot production next year.

The European Commission is expected shortly to reject a request to exclude Chinese prices from the benchmarking index used to the set the price at which Chinese cells and modules must be sold in the EU.

Germany-based PV module manufacturer Heckert Solar said was expanding production capacity to around 300MW to improve cost competitiveness.

A keynote panel comprising the heads of some of the UK’s largest solar developers have concluded that consolidation in the solar sector is inevitable as cuts to support frameworks take hold.

SolarMax branded string and central inverters are being once again in production, though not in Switzerland its former home.