China’s success will cause Germany’s solar manufacturing industry to vanish, predicts a member of EON’s managing board. Klaus-Dieter Maubach stated the industry will become non-existent in five years time.
The difficult solar market in the last quarter of 2011, led Elkem Solar to suspend operations at its plant in Kristiansand, Norway. However, the company has advised that full production has been restored due to an increase in orders for Elkem Solar Silicon.
Solar IPP Sonnedix has announced the acquisition of a 5.4MW ground mounted facility in France from Element Power Solar. Fully operational since February 2011, the plant is located in St Martin Lalande, near Carcassonne and expected to generate in excess of 6,000MWh per annum.
As revealed in Hanwha SolarOne’s recent quarterly financial conference call, the PV module manufacturer is moving downstream to become a project developer and financier. As part of those business changes the company has formed a joint venture with project developer S.A.G. Solarstrom to initially build-out 20MWp of rooftop projects - mainly in Northern Italy - that are expected to be completed by the end of June 2012.
Volker Böhm, insolvency administrator of the bankrupt Solar Millennium in Erlangen, has sold PV Power Holding shares to Bavaria-based Schoeller Renewables. Solar Millennium held 50% in PV Power Holding, a developer of PV projects in Italy.
Canadian Solar and Lightsource Renewable Energy have announced the completion of joint projects in the UK. Ground-mounted PV plants were built in Cornwall (Bodmin), Lincolnshire (Spalding) and Somerset (Taunton), with a combined capacity of 6.4MW.
The first roll-to-roll flexible OPV thin film plant using vacuum deposition of oligomers has been officially opened by Heliatek. The €14 million facility in Dresden, Germany has 1 pilot/production line initially with the expectation to launch commercial product offerings in around the third quarter of 2012. The first key market Heliatek is addressing is BIPV and has plans to raise a further €50 million for a full-scale production line. An opening ceremony was attended by the Prime Minister of Saxony, Stanislaw Tillich.
Diversification in both business segments and on a regional basis proved successful for Portugal-based Martifer Solar which said its revenue increased 33% to €293.2 million in 2011. Unlike some of its rivals, the company also posted positive EBITDA of €20.1 million and a net profit of €9.5 million. The company noted that was the fourth consecutive year of positive financial results.
Q-Cells’ EPC capabilities will be called upon for the construction of four new PV power plants totalling 2.4MW in the central Greek region of Thessaly. Of the four plants, two will be roof-mounted on industrial building rooftops in the towns of Larisa (530kWp) and Farsala (830kWp), while the remaining two ground-mounted projects will each be 500kW will both be situated on an open-field site near the town of Larisa.
French solar panel manufacturer Senersun has signed a deal with the French project developer AEG Aquitaine to furnish residential homes in the South West of France with 1MW of PV modules. Altogether, Senersun will supply more than 5,400 of its crystalline solar panels for the residential applications, which will be installed on rooftops.
