Installations

Hong Kong-based Wellkey Solar Technology Co. Ltd has signed an agreement with the Sanshui Government of Foshan City, Guangdong Province, China to set up its photovoltaics (PV) module production line in LePing High Tech Industrial Zone, located near Guangzhou Airport. The company has said it plans to reach one gigawatt (GW) of annual module production capacity by 2015.

??Solarwatt, located in Dresden, Germany has invested over €35 million in a new solar module production line and logistics center. Operations have already begun on the production line, where capacity has been expanded from 200 to 400 megawatts peak. The company added that up to 140 new jobs are expected to be created in the region.

Underwriters Laboratories (UL), has opened a testing and certification facility for photovoltaic (PV) equipment in Ise City, Mie Prefecture, Japan. It added that it has plans to open a further facility in India.

The largest solar power station in the Czech Republic opened on Wednesday in the village of Veprek, some 20 kilometers north of Prague, according to Chinese news agency, xinhuanet.

One of Europe’s largest photovoltaic (PV) power plants is set to be built in the Puglia region of Italy. The 48-megawatt (MW) park will reportedly consist of 600,000 solar panels spread across 250 acres.

Spain-based photovoltaics (PV) module maker, Eurener has told pv magazine it is working with the Chilean government and University of Atacama to develop a PV installation in the Atacama desert. Although still in the planning stages, the company’s aim is to provide off grid solutions to people who are still living without electricity in the periphery of the Atacama, based in Chile, South America.

Mitsubishi Electric Corporation has supplied 1.2 megawatts (MW) worth of photovoltaics (PV) modules to Japan Airport Terminal Co., Ltd, in Tokyo, Japan, which manages Tokyo International Airport.

France needs to revise targets for solar energy and further cut subsidies to curb costs to consumers that may balloon to €54 billion euros (USD$70 billion) by 2020, according to Bloomberg, which was quoting a government report.

Germany-based Masdar PV has signed a contract with IG Solar PVT Ltd to supply 1.5 megawatts peak (MWp) of silicon-based thin film photovoltaics (PV) modules. Under the contract, the company has said its modules will be used on rooftops by Indian construction project developer MAG, which constructs villages in India “under the aspect of sustainability”.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has announced that the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Sandia National Laboratories is investing USD$8.5 million for four projects, which have reached Stage III of the Solar Energy Grid Integration Systems (SEGIS) program. DOE reported that these investments will be matched more than one-to-one by the SEGIS contractors to support more than USD$20 million in total projects.