In what it says are efforts to realign its business away from upstream manufacturing, Schott Solar announced today that it will discontinue its wafer manufacturing processes. 290 jobs will be affected by the move.

In a country where development projects are often bold, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has launched a solar park that, when completed, will be worth some 1,000 megawatts (MW).

Only one month after the country’s only photovoltaic module manufacturer suspended production, a new 60 megawatt (MW) module assembly plant has opened in the city of Adelaide, South Australia. The fab will produce around 300,000 240V modules per year.

Thin-film manufacturer First Solar has been investing heavily in politically lobbying, both in Washington and in the state of California, a report from Bloomberg has observed today. USD2.2 million has been spent since 2007.

In a move that has been anticipated for some months, Californian photovoltaic manufacturer SunPower has announced that it will purchase French solar company Tenesol SA from Total SA.

While the economic environment of falling prices and oversupply is pushing many photovoltaic manufacturers to the brink, a new major entrant to the market could present a whole new set of challenges to incumbent manufacturers.

Rounding off a year in which the search engine giant Google invested $880 million U.S. dollars in renewable energy, the company has announced a final investment for 2011 of $94 million. The money will go to four photovoltaic projects in California.

For the second time, an Australian state government safety review has found that non-compliant photovoltaic installations are posing a fire risk to some homes. The country’s Sustainable Energy Association has heavily criticized the review, which was carried out in the state of Western Australia (WA).

German manufacturing equipment supplier Singulus Technologies announced today that it supplied equipment for the new Avancis thin-film fab, which opened earlier this month.

Despite yesterday’s High Court ruling that the British Government’s slashing of the renewable feed-in tariff (FIT) was illegal, some parts of the renewable sector have said that it could be bad for the industry.