The Isle of Wight, located off the southern coast of Great Britain, has a new 1.6MW solar plant to thank for helping to contribute to its electricity grid. The project was completed using 80 strings, each with 88 solar modules, and outfitted with SunMaster CS20 inverters from Mastervolt. The company advised that this is one of the largest systems with sting inverters in Britain.
UK-based Oxford Instruments Plasma Technology (OPIT) has promoted Dan Ayres to managing director, effective immediately. Last summer Ayres was appointed to the newly-created role of general manager having already worked at the company for over ten years. He has been based in operations, product management and project management.
KACO new energy and Neon Energy recently signed a framework agreement at the Ecotec trade fair in Athens, which will see KACO provide Neon Energy with 50MW of its inverters for solar projects in Greece. Neon Energy plans to develop 100kw, 200kW and 500kW systems in the country over the course of this year.
Activ Solar has completed the EPC phase and begun commissioning of a 31.55MW solar PV plant in Mityaevo, Crimea, the autonomous republic of Ukraine. The ground-mounted plant has been equipped with over 134,000 polycrystalline solar modules and will be operated by Austria-based Activ Solar, which has to date installed over 215MW of solar PV projects in Crimea.
Jürgen Becker, state secretary of the German Federal ministry of the environment, pointed out at the Helios Project conference in Athens, that there are several opportunities to accelerate the development of solar energy in order to create new jobs and economic growth in a time of crisis.
Around 150 industry experts gathered at the Third PV Power Plants Conference in Vienna to discuss the issue of advances in solar module technology as preventing large-scale savings for the European market, at the Third PV Power Plants Conference in Vienna. The conference, which took place March 28 - 30, was attended by executives from many of Europe’s top solar farm projects, many of whom lamented the lack of standardization in Europe. The issue was raised on day one of the event by Projektierers Belectric CEO Bernhard Beck.
Exosun advised that it had completed construction of its 3.8MW Porette de Nérone power plant, which has now entered the commissioning phase and is expected to produce its first kWh in May. The plant is outfitted with Exotrack HZ solar trackers and is expected, upon grid connection, to generate nearly 6,235MWh of electricity per year.
Solar Millennium’s week has started with a low as the company revealed that its US subsidiaries and investment filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Furthermore, the company’s former CEO, Utz Claassen, is suing the company, and certain of its subsidiaries, for US$265 million, claiming harm by defamatory statements to the public and press after he retired in March 2010.
Phoenix Solar advised that it had recently amended its restructuring plan, including its business development plan for the next few years, due to cuts in FiTs for solar power in several of its key markets. Due to the changes, the financial negotiations have been put on hold and the moratorium that was agreed to with the syndicate banks and other bilateral lenders and guarantors, including trade credit insurers, was extended at the end of last month to allow financing negotiations to continue.
As per the modifications to the German Renewable Energy Act last week, effective April 1st, 2012, new feed-in tariff payments for rooftop PV plants smaller than 10kW will be €0.195/kWh (USD$0.261/kWh). The rates for rooftop PV up to 1MW will be €0.165/kWh (USD$0.221/kWh) and rates for ground-mounted and rooftop PV of 1-10MW in size will be €0.135/kWh (USD$0.180/kWh).
