Renewable energy service provider, RGS Energy, is to develop and operate a 2.6MW solar power plant in Massachusetts, USA.
Thin-film manufacturer Hanergy Solar has supplied electric supercar maker Tesla with two solar charging stations for electric vehicles in China.
Independent power producer, Etrion Corporation, has issued an €80 million bond in the Norwegian bond market, with plans to list the new bonds on the Oslo Stock Exchange within the next 30 days.
The Republican governor of Oklahoma has issued an executive order ruling that the body responsible for setting electricity tariffs in the US state should support the distributed generation of electricity, including wind and solar.
Leading PV energy provider, Yingli Green Energy, has announced a public offering of 25 million US shares to fund its downstream project development activities.
Chinese building materials and glass company CNBM is to buy German CIS thin-film manufacturer Avancis.
Utility solar developer, SunEdison, has reached financial close for two solar power plants in Ontario, Canada.
Germany’s energy minister Sigmar Gabriel has said he may be willing to compromise on the amount of a proposed surcharge on residential self-consumption of solar electricity.
Internet giant Google and PV energy provider SunPower are to jointly finance a new US$250 million residential solar lease programme in the US.
Insolvent Sunways, majority owned by bankrupt LDK Solar, has received interest from several prospective buyers of its PV inverter business, according to the company’s preliminary insolvency administrator.
NPD Solarbuzz (Santa Clara, California, U.S.) has released a new report where it predicts that solar photovoltaic (PV) demand to grow 50% in the Middle East and Africa in 2014 to 1.6 GW. It also finds that demand will nearly triple to 4.4 GW by 2018, with an upside potential of 10 GW, and expects that ground-mounted PV plants will represent 70% of this market.
Google Inc. (Mountain View, California, U.S.) and SunPower Corp. (San Jose, California, U.S.) have announced a new program to provide financing for residential solar photovoltaic (PV) leases for roughly USD 250 million in PV systems. Google will commit up to USD 100 million to the program, and SunPower roughly USD 150 million.
SolarWorld AG's (Bonn, Germany) U.S. subsidiary reports that it will serve as the sole solar photovoltaic (PV) module supplier to community solar programs in the U.S. states of North Carolina and Utah. The company estimates that it has supplied 3 MW of U.S.-made PV modules since 2009 to 26 “solarize” programs, which aim to provide easy and low-cost residential PV installations to residents of municipalities.
Energy project finance solutions provider Mercatus Inc. (New York City) reports that it has formally adopted the Solar Access to Public Capital (SAPC) Working Group standard contract documents for both residential and commercial solar photovoltaic (PV) installations, as part of its efforts to accelerate solar securitization. The SAPC documents were developed by a working group convened the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL, Golden, Colorado, U.S.), an effort that Mercatus was part of.
While acknowledging some recent improvements, the International Energy Agency (IEA, Paris) has called upon the Netherlands to step up efforts to decarbonize its energy supply and to set a long-term framework to achieve 2030 goals, in a review of Dutch policies. IEA released the review on April 22nd, 2014. The agency notes that among member nations the Netherlands remains one of the most fossil fuel-intensive nations among IEA members, and says that a stable policy framework is needed in the nation beyond 2020.
Citing the release of the nation's Solar Strategy and good investment conditions for ground-mounted solar photovoltaic (PV) plants, IHS Technology (London) has increased its near-term UK PV market forecast, predicting that the nation will install 2.5–3 GW annually until 2018. The company expects the UK to install 2.4 GW of PV in 2014, including 1.5 GW of utility-scale plants. IHS estimates that the nation has already installed 922 MW of utility-scale PV in the first quarter of 2014.
Solar Frontier KK (Tokyo) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the State University of New York College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE, Albany, New York, U.S.) to explore the possibility of joint research and development (R&D) and production of thin-film solar photovoltaics (PV) in the U.S. state of New York. The two organizations will conduct a technical and economic feasibility study, as part of Solar Frontier's plans to establish production of its copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS or CIS) technology outside of Japan. The nation currently hosts all of Solar Frontier's PV module production.
SkyFuel Inc. (Arvada, Colorado, U.S.) has announced that it will supply its parabolic trough technology for the solar thermal portion of a hybrid solar-geothermal plant being built by Enel Green Power (Rome) in the United States. The solar thermal field will be integrated into the heating loop of the Stillwater geothermal plant. This addition will return the temperature of the brine from geothermal wells to its original design point and thus allow for the existing turbines at the plant to run at full capacity.
Marubeni Corp. (Tokyo) has held an opening ceremony for a 82 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) plant which it has commissioned in Southern Japan's Ōita Prefecture. This is the largest PV plant completed in Japan to date. Marubeni began commercial operation of the Oita plant on March 12th, 2014, fifty days ahead of schedule, and began construction on the project in March 2013.
AVANCIS GmbH (Torgau, Germany), manufacturer of CIS solar photovoltaic modules, on April 22nd, 2014 announced that it is carving-out its business activity to sell it to the Chinese building materials and glass manufacturer CNBM (China National Building Materials Group Corporation, Beijing, China). The new owner plans to restart PV production in Torgau under the same company name "AVANCIS GmbH". The transaction will close following the registration of the new company at the commercial court and the granting of the necessary approvals, AVANCIS reports in a press release.