Manufacturing

Germany-based Solar Millennium AG, Erlangen has sold 50 percent of the stakes in its 50-megawatt (MW) parabolic trough solar thermal power plant – Ibersol – to Ferrostaal AG, Essen for an undisclosed amount. Located in the province of Extremadura, Spain, construction is expected to begin on the plant this autumn. It is hoped by spring 2013, it will be connected to the grid.

Nevada Solar Works LLC. has won a contract to install 1.3 megawatts (MW) of photovoltaics (PV) projects in the City of Reno, the U.S. The Reno City Council announced the contract, approving a one MW fixed tilt ground mount system at the Reno-Stead Water Treatment Plant, and 295 kW in fixed tilt roof and ground mount installations at five other locations throughout the city.

DuPont has announced production of polyvinyl fluoride (PVF) polymer resin – a “critical” raw material used to make the company’s Tedlar polyvinyl fluoride film – has begun at its Fayetteville Works facility in the U.S. The film is used for photovoltaics (PV) panel backsheets.

centrotherm photovoltaics AG, based in Germany, has signed several contracts for production systems and equipment in its solar cell business area with “well-known” Asian customers for undisclosed sums of money.

Neo Solar Power Corp. has started building a NT$30 billion (USD$937 million) solar cell manufacturing plant in Tainan, Taiwan, according to Bloomberg.

Premier Power Renewable Energy, Inc., REgeneration Finance, LLC. and the Douglas County School District, which serves over 56,000 students, have announced the development of three megawatts (MW) of solar electric power generating projects at 31 different sites – 30 schools and one athletic stadium – in Douglas County, Colorado, the U.S.

Germany-based SMA Solar Technology AG has received certification from Underwriters Laboratories (UL) for its transformerless inverters. This, says the company, is a world first for transformerless inverters and means that it can distribute them in the U.S. market for the first time.

Multi-crystalline solar wafer manufacturer, LDK Solar Co Ltd, has started construction on a 1.5-gigawatt (GW) solar cell and module facility in Hefei, China, according to China Business News. It says that the project is worth around RMB 2.5 billion.

MiaSolé, located in the U.S. will be supplying Germany-based juwi Solar GmbH with 608.5 megawatts (MW) of copper indium gallium (di)selenide (CIGS) photovoltaics (PV) modules.

SunEdison has installed a 296 kW rooftop mounted photovoltaics (PV) system in San Diego, the U.S. as part of AT&T’s national solar initiative. San Diego Mayor, Jerry Sanders, officially switched the system on yesterday. Additionally, AT&T outlined five other Californian solar contracts it has with SunEdison, which, including the San Diego system, are expected to see around two megawatts (MW) of PV capacity installed by the second quarter of next year.