Markets

The Indian government has unveiled its Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM) guidelines.

It is time for the U.S. to implement feed-in tariffs (FITs), according to representatives of the state and regional solar industry associations, who met during last week’s Intersolar North America, held in San Francisco.

Spain’s government wants to pass drastic retroactive and future cuts as well as ceilings for photovoltaics (PV) feed-in tariffs, pv magazine has learnt. This is the result of a two-day round of talks between government and industry representatives.

QinetiQ will today bring Zephyr, its solar powered high-altitude long endurance (HALE) Unmanned Air System (UAS) back to earth after two weeks in the air. Celebrating, the company says it has smashed a number of long-standing official and unofficial world records.

The global building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) market will reach USD$8.2 billion in revenues by 2015 driven by the cost advantage that BIPV can provide versus conventional photovoltaics (PV) solutions, according to NanoMarkets, a U.S. Virginia-based market research and analysis company.

Photovoltaic (PV) module shipments are set to decline by nearly 10 percent quarter on quarter in the first quarter of next year, according to IMS Research’s latest report.

The Australian state of Victoria has unveiled its plans to increase electricity supply from large scale-solar power to five per cent by 2020. Premier John Brumby announced that target was Australia’s most ambitious solar commitment and would be backed by the nation’s first feed-in tariff (FIT) for large-scale solar.

Utility-scale solar is set to be a big new trend, Brad Meikle, senior analyst and managing director of Renewable Analytics has told pv magazine. He also issued pricing advice on how module manufacturers can create a larger market for themselves.

As Intersolar North America drew to a close, analysts left the industry with upbeat forecasts for the solar market. “Things couldn’t be better in 2010,” Jefferies analyst Jesse Pichel told pv magazine.

The U.S. should be looked at as a long-term growth market said Shayle Kann, a senior analyst at GTM Research, during a talk at Intersolar North America in San Francisco, the U.S. on Thursday. “It’s not a place where you can come and develop projects and make a killing quickly,” he stated.