REC Systems and ABB have closed financing and begun construction of a 24.2MW solar power plant in Lazio, Italy. Authorisation for the 95-hectare project was granted in March 2010 and, when completed, the system’s 100,000 REC modules will generate around 37 million kWh of electricity a year.
Founder and President Emeritus of SunPower, Richard Swanson, has been selected as the recipient for the 2011 Karl Böer Solar Energy Medal of Merit. The honor comes with a cash award of US$50,000, which is funded by the Karl Böer Solar Energy Medal of Merit Trust. The Medal is given every two years to an individual that has made ground-breaking contributions towards the promotion of solar energy through research, development or economic enterprise or to an individual that has proven themselves with valuable and enduring contributions to the solar energy field.
During its fourth quarter in 2010, Clear Skies Solar released that it was expanding its market focus with a new division that would focus on solar installation projects in the sub-300kW division for commercial and residential installations. Moving forward with this resolution, the company has added new members to its sales and management teams including Allen Sosis as vice president of sales and marketing and John Conte as the national vice president of residential sales.
Over the next 18-months Georgia Power and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) will be performing a study that will assess how solar PV power systems affect Georgia Power’s distribution system. Testing will be conducted at fifty PV systems that will be installed in cities around Georgia including: Augusta, Columbus, Conley, Macon, Rome, Savannah and Valdosta. The panels installed will be owned by EPRI and installed by Georgia Power.
Amtech Systems’ subsidiary, Tempress Systems, started the New Year off on a positive note, receiving US$32 million in new diffusion processing systems in January alone. The company notes that the orders were made by both new and existing Asia-based companies.
Making progress on its goal of having 250MW of commercial rooftop PV power deployed within the next four years, Southern California Edison has interconnected seven new distributed-generation solar plants. The systems, located on more than 3.36 million square feet of ProLogis-owned warehouse roof space in the Southern California cities of Ontario and Redlands, have a combined installed generating capacity of 12.5MW (AC).
Siemens Industry has signed a supply and distribution agreement with Enphase Energy for the sale of Enphase’s solar microinverters systems through Siemens electrical equipment distributers network. The agreement will see Enphase furnish Siemens with its solar microinverters and Enlighten, a web-based monitoring service.
GCL-Poly Energy Holdings has signed a €36 million supply contract with AEG Power Solutions for its Thyrobox M power supply system. GCL hopes the Thyyrobox will help consolidate its position as one of the world’s leading polysilicon and wafer suppliers.
Yissum Research Development, the Technology Transfer Company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Vaxan Steel have signed a licensing and research agreement to develop silver nanoparticles and silver-coated copper nanoparticles for conductive inks.
BioSolar has advised that the production samples of its BioBacksheet technology have finished most of the Underwriter’s Laboratories (UL) material property tests and is on its way to receiving full UL certification. Tests on the product have included: material identification, partial discharge test and resistance to catching fire among other UL led testing. The last test, a measurement of relative thermal index (RTI) will soon be conducted.
