Mecasolar noted that it had received orders to provide its solar trackers for 56 PV projects in Greece, representing a 52% increase in six months. In June the company reached an agreement to deliver 351 solar trackers to Greece, 229 of them being dual-axis and 122 being single-axis.
Responding to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Energy Highway Initiative, Renewables Biz has reported that Entecco has submitted a project proposal for a PV or CPV project with a size up to 2,000MW that will be built in Seneca County, New York. Entecco’s Central Solar City (CSC) project would potentially be the largest single solar hub of its kind in the US.
AETI's (American Electric Technologies) ISIS 1MW solar inverter has been witness-tested to UL1741 by TÜV of North America. The integration of 1MW of liquid cooled power inverters with a 1MVA transformer and medium voltage switchgear, is aimed at reducing field installation costs. SEMV (Socios Energeticos de Mexico Verde) has selected AETI to a solar project in Mexico. Contract terms were not disclosed.
Bechtel Power has chosen Unirac to provide a PV system for the 110MW AC Catalina PV project in Kern County, California, the company has announced. The company will supply the Catalina PV park with a ground mounted system, installed on a 1,100 acre site. Unirac manufactured the system specifically for the project, which is expected to be completed in 2013.
The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has increased the country’s target of installed solar energy from 15GW to 21GW by 2015, it has been reported. According to an IMS Research report, China’s installations will exceed 4GW in the second half of 2012. The increase will further stimulate the domestic PV market at a time when the European market is expected to decrease. IMS Research reports that China’s capacity of c-Si modules will reach 32.6GE in Q1 ’12, even though the full year forecast for global installations is only 30.6GW.
According to the US Department of Commerce’s latest release of the ‘U.S. Imports of Merchandise’ database, solar-based products from China declined around 45% in May, compared to the same month a year ago. The Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM) claimed that this decline represented a positive impact of the recent anti-subsidy duties and anti-dumping duties applied to Chinese solar cells as users have therefore become concerned over the risks and uncertainties as well as cost issues of using Chinese modules for installations in the US.
Etrion’s Italian PV projects have exceeded the forecasted performance, the company has announced. The company has 60MW of PV plants in operation in Italy and in June 2012 the energy production was 9% above forecast and over 30% more than during the same time period in 2011. In the first half of 2012, Etrion generated over 57 million kWh of energy, which is approximately 42 million, kWh more than in the first half of 2011. The company is expecting a 15% increase in the total production in 2012 compared to 2011.
Amid the investigations and continual reports of US and European PV manufacturers closing their doors, it has been easy to neglect the idea that the PV manufacturing industry in China has taken a hit as well. Renewable Energy World pointed out that John Lefebvre, president of Suntech Power America, noted during Intersolar North America in San Francisco that over 50 Chinese PV manufacturing companies have also closed.
The Business Standard issued a report stating that the government of Madhya Pradesh has approved the Solar Energy Policy 2012 legislation, which will see the development of four solar PV parks that each generates 200MW of power. The projects will be set up in a public-private partnership.
ReneSola has entered into a supply agreement with Greek Big Solar, the company has announced. Under the agreement, ReneSola will provide Big Solar with 100MW of its Virtus PV modules. ReneSola further announced the revision of its 2012 half year shipment guidance of wafers and modules, which is expected to be up to 1GW. The company assumes that the full year shipments with be up to 2.4GW compared to previous estimation of approximately 2GW.
