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A ground-breaking ceremony was held yesterday in Hackensack New Jersey, at a brownfield site that will be converted into a 1.06 megawatt (MW) solar farm. At the same time, local utility Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G), a subsidiary of PSEG, has applied to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities for approval the expansion of its 233 MW “Solar 4 All” solar loan program.

Solarwatt CEO, Detlef Neuhaus says that BMW heir Stefan Quandt will guide the company’s restructuring as the “anchor investor”. Not all jobs can be retained though.

After a lengthy process, the Philippines’ Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC) has approved feed-in tariffs (FITs) for a number of renewable energy sources. For photovoltaics, a FIT of PhP9.68/kWh (US$0.23/kWh) has been announced.

A study released by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) shows that the technical potential of photovoltaic and concentrated solar power (CSP) is the highest in the US case.

German state Saxony Anhalt will not provide any support for the insolvent Sovello. The state’s Economics Ministry accuses the company of not having a viable sustainable business concept in place.

The French energy and ecology minister, Delphine Batho announced that the government has approved 214 solar power projects totaling 541 MW. Two tenders were opened last year, one for projects on rooftops between 100 to 250 kW and another for bigger projects.

A report released today by the Australian government has found price reductions in photovoltaic equipment and installation costs have meant that renewable energy is growing increasingly competitive, as a utility-scale generation source, with conventional energies in the country. The Australian Energy Technology Assessment (AETA) Report and Model predicts that photovoltaics will have the lowest LCOE of all evaluated technologies by the mid-2030s.

During the Intersolar North America, held in San Francisco July 10-12, pv magazine took the chance to turn the spotlight on some key firms in the City and Bay Area. Part two of our series features “crowdfunding” solar startup, Solar Mosaic.

Just one day after grid failures resulted in 300 million people going without power for hours in New Delhi, a “ultra mega” solar power project has been proposed in the state of Gujarat. The Gujarat government is reportedly in talks with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to investigate funding such a power plant.

Kyocera and six other companies have formed a new company to build and operate a 70 megawatt (MW) photovoltaic power plant in the Kagoshima Prefecture in Japan. The new company will be called the Kagoshima Mega Solar Power Corporation and Kyocera will be the largest shareholder.