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).
Two of IKEA’s German stores have recently been fitted with solar installations and connected to the grid thanks to the partnership between the home furnishing company and REC Solar. IKEA selected REC Solar out of 200 solar installation providers, who then provided the modules and installed the solar systems on IKEA’s store roofs.
Semiconductor capital equipment supplier Tegal and consultancy se2quel Partners have formed sequel Power, a new company focused on the development and operation of very large-scale solar photovoltaic-based utilities in the United States, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. At least 10 projects in the range of 750MW (DC) to 1.1GW (DC) are in various stages of negotiation, and all are located in high-insolation regions, according to company sources.
IBC Solar has sold its 11.2MW facility in Manzano, Italy to Allianz Specialised Investments. With 47,000 polycrystalline and 3,600 thin-film hybrid modules, the Udine-based park is one of IBC’s largest developments and was connected to the grid on December 7, 2010.
Plutonic Power and GE Energy Financial Services have agreed to buy three of First Solar’s power plants in Ontario, Canada. Permitting for the projects, which have a combined capacity of 50MW, is expected to take place this spring and construction scheduled to start in June.
Renewable energy project developer Sustainable Energy Capital Partners (SECP) has formed a joint venture partnership with Korean independent power producer Posco Power to develop and build a 300MW photovoltaic power plant in Boulder City, Nevada. Global engineering/construction/management services firm Parsons has also signed on to the project.
DuPont Apollo, a subsidiary of DuPont, and China Everbright International have put the finishing touches on a 1.3MW rooftop PV installation at DuPont Apollo’s Shenzhen, China, production facility. The two companies assert that this is the largest single structure thin-film PV rooftop installation in China.
Southern California Edison has signed 20 contracts with six different independent power producer firms for nearly 240MW (AC) of solar photovoltaic systems to be deployed close to major transmission lines in various parts of the utility’s service areas in Southern California.
