Enel Green Power commissioned three new solar power plants in Italy, the largest of which is the 9MW Adrano plant in the Catania, Sicily province. The project sits on the same site that the company installed the first concentrated solar power plant in 1981. Installation was additionally completed on a 4.8MW plant in San Gillio and a 500kW plant in Sesto Campano. Together the three plants hold an installed capacity of 14.3MW and will generate 21,000,000kWh of electricity per year.
Activ Solar has completed the first two phases of its record-breaking 80MW PV project in Ukraine. When all four stages are completed, the power station, located on 160 acres of land in Ohotnikovo, will be the fourth largest development in the world.
Event organizers of 26th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (26th EU PVSEC), being held this year in Hamburg, Germany next month have said that the entire exhibition space has been fully booked with 950 exhibitors occupying 80,000 square metres of floor space.
Having undertaken a scan of the geographical map for PV demand, Jefferies analyst Jesse Pichel believes the long anticipated second-half year boom is proving elusive to see. In a research note to investors, the firm noted that demand improved in June, but July appears to have flatlined, despite increased factory utilization from major PV module suppliers. Pichel raised the alarm that inventory could be building again, after being consumed in the April-June timeframe.
The recently completed 10MW utility-scale solar project in Larissa, Greece, which is being hailed as the largest solar plant in the country, is sporting Yingli Green Energy Holding PV modules. The project was developed by Selected Energy, a subsidiary of Selected Textiles, and constructed by Biosar Energy. Financing for the 10MW project was provided on a long-term, non-recourse basis from the project finance team at Piraeus Bank.
OPEL Solar International has signed a contract to supply modules for Limen’s two 1MW high-concentration PV (HCPV) power plants in Sicily, Italy. The order is valued at US$5 million and OPEL will begin delivery of the Mk-I modules in late 2011.
Sustainable Energy Technology and Würth Solar will be working on a 90kW demonstration project, which will be installed at the Lycée Technique Louis Couffignal in Strasbourg, France. Using Sustainable Energy’s Paralex system design and Würth Solar’s CIS modules, the project is part of a cooperation agreement the two companies hold that aims to provide commercial and institution customers with “parallel” solutions for rooftops in France.
Q-Cells closed the sale of its Finsterwalde II and III PV power plants to Blue Forrest Solar Holding, a joint venture formed between DIF Infrastructure (DIF) and the NIBC European Infrastructure Fund (NIBC). The two plants have a combined installed capacity of 40MWp, which when added with the Finsterwalde I PV power plant Q-Cells sold in 2010, leads the entire site to have an 82MWp installed capacity.
Over the next few months Parabel is planning to install PV rooftop systems with a combined capacity of around 6MW in the German states of Brandenburg and Saxony.
Ten years to the day that Q-Cells manufactured its first solar cell, the company has revealed that it is independently launching production of its Q.Peak high-performance module at its Solar Valley Thalheim headquarters. The new production line was commissioned on July 25 holding a 130MWp production capacity and will produce the Q.Peak modules from monocrystalline solar cells made in Germany.
