Installations

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.

Power Integrations has today announced it has powered up a USD$3.6-million solar photovoltaics (PV) array at its San Jose headquarters in the Edenvale Technology Park, in California, the U.S. At 600 kilowatts, the system is among the 10 largest solar facilities in Silicon Valley, says the company. The installation took six months to complete.

The Kyocera Corporation is set to begin full-scale production at its new Yasu solar cell manufacturing facility in Yasu City, Shiga Prefecture, Japan.

Solar company Cenergy Power and Primex Farms, grower and processor of pistachios and trader of dried fruits and nuts have begun construction on a 1.1 megawatt (MW) solar photovoltaics system at Primex’s Wasco pistachio facility, located in California, the U.S.

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.

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.

SunEdison, a division of MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc. has announced it is to develop and build industrial and retail rooftop photovoltaics (PV) projects worth 1.5 megawatts for CanFirst Capital Management in Canada.

In order to reduce the cost of energy in the country and also of imports of solar panel devices, Mozambique is to start its own production of solar panels to capture and transform solar energy into electric power.

Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. has said it will be supplying Azure Power, an Indian, independent solar power producer, with several megawatts of solar panels under a new partnership, in order to develop utility-scale solar projects across various states in India.