Bryan Crabb has joined the California Solar Energy Industries Association (CALSEIA) as its new executive director. Crabb comes to CALSEIA after serving as director of government affairs at both First Solar and OptiSolar. He is lauded as having vast experience in solar policy as well as legislative and regulatory experience.
Bloomberg has reported that General Electric (GE) will be putting the construction of its Colorado-based solar panel factory on hold for at least 18 months. Lindsay Theile, GE spokeswoman, noted that sharp price declines and a global oversupply of panels were factors in the company’s decision.
Greentech Media reports that New Jersey’s Senate and General Assembly have agreed to pass the solar “resurrection bill” (A-2966), voting to approve the substitutions and amendments. The legislation is said to potentially sustain a healthy rate of solar project development and job growth in the state.
International Power Canada’s (IPC) 10MW Brockville Solar project has begun construction in Leeds County, Ontario. The project site has been cleared and final engineering has commenced. The company expects for civil works to continue through the summer in order to construct the racks for the modules.
According to Solarbuzz’s “Polysilicon and Wafer Supply Chain Quarterly Report,” polysilicon prices are expected to fall 48% while wafer prices drop 56% year-over-year in 2012; results which have so far led to only 12 Chinese PV polysilicon manufactures still producing, and of those, more than half running at reduced utilization rates.
Pike Research recently released its “Community and Residential Energy Storage” report, which forecast the CRES market growing from US$19.2 million in 2012 to US$872 million in 2022 with a total worldwide capacity of 780MW. The 10-year increase is set to be driven by the expansion of distributed solar PV capacity, the adoption of plug-in EVs and the spread of dynamic pricing programs.
MEMC Electronic Materials advised that during Q2 2012, it had completed sales contracts for four solar projects in Europe totalling 98MW. The company completed solar projects worth 60MW in Bulgaria and 38MW in Italy.
Ontario’s Thunder Bay Airport Solar Park has been chosen as a finalist in Intersolar North America’s 2012 Solar Project Award competition. The project, owned and developed by SkyPower and EPC-contracted to Canadian Solar was hand-selected by an expert panel as one of entries under the “Solar Projects North America” category.
During next week’s Intersolar North America, July 10-12 in San Francisco, Rehm Thermal Systems will have its latest vacuum soldering technology on hand, including its VS 160S vacuum soldering system.
Clenergy will be providing its PV-ezRack SolarTerrace I-B ground mounting system for a 40MW solar power station being developed in Jiayuguan, China by one of the country’s leading utility company’s and a well-known, but unnamed Chinese PV panel manufacturer. Clenergy’s PV-ezRack is the company’s newest product. It features beam and support components, which are standardized and fasteners of the same specification.
