Nikini Automation Systems has told pv magazine it has made Sri Lankan history by becoming the country’s first company to enter into a net metering agreement for its photovoltaics (PV) system. The company also called on Sri Lanka’s businesses to make PV a part their corporate activities.

Germany-based Conergy Group has begun construction on its second solar park in the Czech Republic. The 1.48-megawatt project is situated on the site of an old pig farm near Velky? Ty?nec, about 80 km northeast of the country’s second-largest city, Brno.

Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. has been selected to supply 34.5 megawatts (MW) of solar panels for the first phase of the largest solar power plant in Thailand and Southeast Asia. Owned and operated by Bangchak Petroleum Public Co., Ltd., and integrated by Solartron Public Co., Ltd., the planned 44 MW (38 MW AC output capacity) solar power plant will be located just outside of Bangkok.

Yingli Green Energy Holding Company Limited has announced its in-house polysilicon manufacturing facility, Fine Silicon Co., Ltd. has successfully started commercial operation. The plant has a designed capacity of 3,000 metric tons per year.

SunPower Corporation has completed a 505-kilowatt solar power installation for Horizon Power, a government-owned utility providing power to remote and regional communities and resource operations in Western Australia.

Centrosolar Group AG has said it expects to see revenue in excess of €370 million this year, despite a “substantial” fall in demand in the German market, predicted to take place in the third quarter of this year. The company adds that the high increase in solar module production capacity in April, from 110 MWp to currently around 155 MWp, has not been enough to meet fully the high level of demand from both Germany and other European core markets, particularly France and Italy.

TÜV Rheinland AG has opened its seventh laboratory worldwide in the Indian city of Bangalore for testing solar modules and systems. The company has invested €2 million in the new solar test centre, which will, in particular, offer services to India’s growing solar industry. The test centre has 2,000 square meters of space, including an outside test field of 500 square meters, with equipment such as five climate chambers and two sun simulators. This, says the company, makes it the most up to date and largest laboratory in the entire South Asian economic area.

Cumulative photovoltaics (PV) installations will top 120 gigawatts (GW) by the end of 2014, according to IMS Research’s recently launched “Global PV Demand Database”. The report also revealed that annual PV installations will grow steadily at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of more than 20 percent between 2011 and 2014. In these four years, says IMS, some 80 GW of new PV capacity will be added globally. Growth rates are predicted to slow over the next four years, however, compared to the huge 95 percent growth rate forecast for this year.

Dr. Farooq Abdullah, the Hon’ble Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy urged the Indian solar photovoltaics (PV) industry to focus on developing research initiatives, during the Solarcon India 2010, held in Hyderabad, India last week.

The government of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh in India has undertaken several outstanding initiatives in solar photovoltaics (PV), according to K. Rosaiah, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, who was speaking at the Solarcon India 2010 show in Hyderabad, India.