Installations

An up to $646 million federal loan and loan guarantee has yet to be secured by First Solar for its 230 megawatt (MW) Antelope Valley Solar Ranch One (AVSR), following the delay of a construction permit.

The Germany solar incentive debate continues. While it was announced last week that there are plans to introduce a feed-in tariff (FIT) cap on photovoltaic modules, yet another proposal has suggested that only 80 percent of fed-in solar electricity should receive a tariff.

Europa Profil Aluminium S.A and Neon Energy will work on 41 photovoltaic parks in Greece worth a total of 20.7 megawatts peak (MWp) in 2012.

As was announced yesterday, the U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has proposed yet more changes to the country’s photovoltaic feed-in tariffs (FITs). While the move has been described as a “huge step forward”, the industry says the impending tariff reductions will be “destructive”.

The PV Legal project has found that while positive progress has been made in reducing bureaucratic barriers to photovoltaic implementation, there are still many in place, which continue to hinder development. Grid connection was highlighted as the biggest bottleneck.

In a bid to make the U.K. photovoltaic feed-in tariffs (FITs) more “predictable”, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has put forward a number of reforms. “Transparency, longevity and certainty” are said to be key to the new scheme, which has been inspired by Germany’s tariff structure.

Representing a “major” milestone, U.S. project developer, SolarReserve has completed a 540 foot solar power tower for its 110 megawatt (MW) solar thermal plant.

Solenergy Ltd has installed photovoltaic systems on 26 residential and agricultural roofs in the Israeli settlement of Ram-On.

The traditionally semi-nomadic communities residing in southern Israel’s Negev desert have been the subject of disputes involving land, poverty and access for some time. A wave of initiatives to encourage villages to gain official recognition status, in order to profit from covering privately owned land with ground-mounted photovoltaic systems, is providing one method of aiding negotiations, despite the thorny social issues that come with them.

Germany’s Federal Environment Minister, Norbert Röttgen, has confirmed his attendance at the first “Energy Storage – Summit for the Storage of Renewable Energies” conference, scheduled to be held in Düsseldorf this March. During the event, he will address the issue of energy storage transformation.