A fruit and vegetable distribution centre in the south of France is now the site of the world’s largest building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) system, after 97,000 Solaire France Sunstyle PV roofing tiles were installed on the Saint Charles International in Perpignan.
Odersun’s thin-film solar cells will now carry the “Made in Europe” certificate, which was confirmed by the VDE Institute. The certificate allows solar plant operators using Odersun’s modules to participate in a 10% higher feed-in tariff from Italy’s Conto Energia IV.
Working with its 16 project partners Imec has launched the European FP7 project X10D. The collaboration will see the companies working towards the development of tandem organic solar cells that boast increased conversion efficiency, a longer lifetime and a smaller production cost. Imec advised that the overarching goal of the project is to bring OPV technologies into the competitive thin-film PV market.
Nearly 200,000 of Q-Cells' CIGS thin-film solar modules are being used in GP Joule’s 20.8MW Solarpark Ammerland, which is said to be the largest deployment of CIGS panels yet. The project, which celebrated its grand opening today, was constructed in just over eight weeks and was developed by Martin Bucher with Module24 selecting Q-Cells to provide its modules for the plant. Q-Cells noted that in addition to supplying its solar module technology, it also gave technical support during the project’s installation.
The Bundesnetzagentur, Germany's Federal Network Agency, will cut the country's solar feed-in tariff (FiT) by 15% in 2012. The subsidy reduction is more severe than the 12% forecasted by many industry insiders and was triggered by the 5.2GW of new capacity installed between October 2010 and September 2011.
Bisol and Avdira Solar have entered a contract, which will see Avdira Solar distributing 100MW of Bisol’s solar PV modules over the next three years. Avdira will commence with the delivery of its first 25MW throughout 2012. Both companies advised that the agreement was a way for them to each have a better foothold in the Greek solar market.
Responding to capacity expansion push-outs and cancellations at solar wafer manufacturing customers, Meyer Burger Technology has set in motion temporary adjustments to equipment production at its subsidiary, MB Wafertec. However, Meyer Burger reiterated that its 2011 net sales and earnings remained on target.
Citing some customer cutbacks in solar module manufacturing production levels and continued pressure on wafer prices that have declined more than 50% since April this year, PV Crystalox Solar is taking drastic measures to reduce cash burn in difficult times for the global PV industry. The company guided a significant reduction in wafer shipments, compared to previous forecasts, job losses and short time working.
Germany’s solar industry has endured a difficult year and the Federal Network Agency and transmission system operators (TSO) have responded accordingly by leaving the Renewable Energy Law (EEG) levy virtually unchanged at €0.3592 per kWh.
Siemens Energy has connected the 31MW Les Mées solar farm in southern France to the grid. The farm, which is owned by Eco Delta Développement (EDD) and comprised of six separate turnkey systems with 112,000 modules, is one of the largest PV installations in the country.
