In a bid to kick-start the photovoltaics sector in the Netherlands, Van der Valk Solar Systems, the manufacturer of components for the horticultural industry, has joined forces with GH Solar. So far, solar progress in the country has been slow, due to lack of a renewable subsidy structure; however the introduction of a feed-in tariff is expected in the near future.
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.
Scheuten Solar has finished work on three turnkey PV systems for Italian furniture manufacturer Natuzzi SpA. The rooftop facilities in Santeramo in Colle, Matera and Laterza consist of approximately 14,000 panels, took two-and-a-half months to complete and will reduce Natuzzi's annual CO2 emissions by 3400 tonnes.
The Tucson Airport Authority (TAA) and Tucson Electric Power (TEP) will be coming together for a second time since 2007 for the installation of a solar energy project. TAA’s board of directors approved a 20-year land lease with TEP, where TEP will pay a fixed rental rate of US$46,716.50 per year to lease 50 acres of land south of the Tucson International Airport.
The 37th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialist Conference (PVSC) will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2011 and has opened its call for papers to be presented at the June 19th through June 24th conference in Seattle, Washington. Authors who wish to submit their papers should provide a technical abstract by the February 21, 2011 deadline. Details on the abstract submission process can be found here.
SunPower and Kern Community College District have opened a 1.1MW solar power system at Bakersfield College. The system, which will supply one-third of the college’s electricity, took five months to build and features a 3.1-acre parking lot canopy structure with nearly 3,700 PV panels.
SolarEdge Technologies has chosen One Network to market and install its PowerBoxes, PV monitoring portal and three-phase solar inverters. One Network has installed 7MW of PV and tracking equipment in France in 2010 and hopes its agreement with SolarEdge will see it break the 10MW barrier next year.
Semprius has completed the installation of the first microcell-based HCPV research development and demonstration (RD&D) system at Tucson Electric Power (TEP). The installation, which was completed in August this year, combines Semprius' HCPV modules with an automated solar tracking system from Siemens. The TEP project is part of a joint development agreement signed by Semprius and Siemens at the beginning of 2010, which aims to achieve the deployment of numerous new HCPV systems at test sites around the world.
Solar Power Partners and JCM Capital have joined forced for the creation of a fund that will develop, finance, own and operate 200MW of Ontario-based solar projects. Although the amount of the dedicated fund was undisclosed, the two companies have already started 20MW of projects, which will begin construction in 2011.