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The final report submitted by the parliamentary panel on the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year has declared the catastrophe a “man-made disaster”. It states that the meltdown “could and should have been forseen and prevented”.

Scheuten Solar has announced its photovoltaic module production in Germany’s Gelsenkirchen will continue, following the takeover of the company by Aiko Solar Group. However, 160 jobs have been lost.

According to the CEO of Spain-based solar development company, Solarpack, finding demand for photovoltaic projects is one of the biggest challenges today. Regarding the U.S.-Sino trade case, he further believes that “everybody has to realize where their competitiveness lies.” In the following interview, Pablo Burgos discusses competitive strategies, bureaucratic hurdles, solar policies and project pipelines with pv magazine.

Germany’s Schott Solar AG has announced it will close its crystalline photovoltaic operations in the Czech Republic down. The news follows the company’s decision to exit the crystalline business.

The Renewable Energy Corporation (REC) has walked away from a restructuring deal with bondholders after failing to gain approval from them for the measures. The company has, however, pushed ahead with plans to raise capital through two share issues and has been in successful in negotiating for a large bank loan’s maturity to be pushed back to 2014.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has said that over one GW of customer-generated solar energy has been installed in the U.S. state to date. The milestone was said to have been reached in 2011.

According to Bridge to India, the second phase of India’s National Solar Mission (NSM) will include a Domestic Content Requirement (DCR). Meanwhile, it says that the depreciating rupee is creating difficulty for India solar project balance sheets.

GE Energy has made the decision to put construction on hold at its Colorado thin-film fab for “at least” 18 months. The fab was to have an annual production of capacity of 400 MW when fully ramped, employing CdTe semiconductor technology.

Sharp has confirmed it will move its European solar business from Germany’s Hamburg to the U.K.’s Wrexham. By the end of the fiscal year, the next phase of the company’s restructuring should be complete. Furthermore, it is looking to enter new business areas.

On the back of the new feed-in tariffs in Japan, which came into effect Sunday, July 1, Germany’s Deutsche Bank says that while it expects to see an increase in installed photovoltaic capacity, and thus falling costs, implementation hurdles still exist.