India’s Welspun commissions Asia’s largest solar power plant

India’s leading solar project developer, Welspun Energy Ltd., has commissioned Asia’s largest solar power facility in the state of Rajasthan ahead of schedule. Welspun Energy Ltd., part of the larger $3.5 billion Welspun Group, commissioned a 50-megawatt solar power plant at Jodhpur district, according to The Economic Times. This is the company’s biggest solar project to date as well as the biggest photovoltaic...

Read more...

First Solar acquires New Mexico’s largest P.V. project

First Solar, Inc. has acquired what will be the largest solar power project in New Mexico, the 50 megawatt Macho Springs Solar Project. The Macho Springs Solar project is being developed in Luna County, New Mexico by Element Solar Power. The project is expected to be completed in 2014, at which point it will produce enough renewable energy for over 18,000 homes while preventing 40,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year from reaching the atmosphere...

Read more...

Queen Creek Solar Farm providing solar power for Phoenix

China’s Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited has supplied solar photovoltaic modules to one of America’s largest operational solar power projects, the Queen Creek Solar Farm in Arizona. The 25-megawatt Queen Creek solar Farm is owned by PSEG Solar Source and is located on 148 acres of land southeast of Phoenix. The project, which was constructed by Juwi Solar Inc., began commercial operations in October...

Read more...

First Solar to deploy 2 MW of thin-film modules for China

Thin-film solar manufacturer First Solar, Inc. is set to bring its products to China with the announcement of its first commercial demonstration project in Xinjiang province. First Solar completed an agreement with Zhenfa New Energy Science & Technology Co., Ltd. to supply 2 megawatts of their thin-film modules to one of Zhenfa’s approved solar project sites by the first quarter of 2013. Zhenfa is said to be one of the...

Read more...

Sharp develops solar cell with highest efficiency conversion of 37.7%

Sharp Corporation has set the world record for solar cell conversion efficiency – 37.7 percent – the Osaka-based multinational announced. The Japanese electronics company said it achieved the breakthrough using a triple-junction compound solar cell wherein photo-absorption layers are piled together. Compound solar cells use photo-absorption layers made from compounds made up of two or more elements,...

Read more...

British firm to build Africa’s largest solar power plant

British renewable energy firm Blue Energy will build the largest solar photovoltaic facility on the African continent. To be located in Ghana, the 155-megawatt Nzema plant will become one of the biggest in the world – only three solar PV plants in operation today are bigger, according to the company. It will help Ghana raise its current generating capacity by 6 percent and meet 20 percent of the...

Read more...

Solar PV installation prices continue to fall in the U.S.

The price of installing a solar photovoltaic system in the United States fell substantially in 2011 and it is believed that this will be the case for 2012, according to a PV cost-tracking report from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. According to the report, the median installed price of residential and commercial PV systems in 2011 fell by roughly 11 percent to 14 percent...

Read more...

Yingli Green Energy Americas gets largest project supply agreement

China’s Yingli Green Holding Company Limited will supply 200 megawatts of solar photovoltaic modules for the Centinela Solar Energy Facility Project in Southern California. The project, designed to be one of the largest solar projects in the world, lies on 1,600 acres approximately 90 miles east of San Diego in Imperial Country, California. It will produce enough electricity to power more than 60,000 homes...

Read more...

U.S. testing HCPV technology at Edwards Air Force Base

The capabilities of high-concentration photovoltaics technology will be tested at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where a 200-kilowatt solar power field of this type is going to rise. The solar field will include a dozen commercial-scale dual-axis HCPV units manufactured by Semprius, Inc. of Durham North Carolina. The HCPV units will have the ability to track the course of the sun,...

Read more...

First Solar signs large projects in Asia

American solar company First Solar, Inc. announced several deals in developing markets in Asia and in Australia this month, including the recent partnership with an Indonesian company to bring more solar capacity into the Southeast Asian nation’s country’s energy mix. First Solar and Pembangkitan Jawa Bali Services signed a memorandum of understanding to work on the development of 100 megawatts’...

Read more...