Markets

In a surprise move, the Spanish Council of ministers has implemented a temporary suspension of the renewable energy feed-in-tariffs (FIT) for new installations in Spain.

Following the official announcement this week that Italy’s energy regulator, GSE, will not open a register for large-scale photovoltaic plants in the second half of 2012, the government has now said it wants to apply a retroactive measure to Article 65 of Law Decree n. 1/2012 (“Decreto Monti”) which, if passed into law, will affect photovoltaic installations on agricultural land.

Eastman Chemical Company and Solutia Inc. have entered into a definitive agreement worth around $4.7 billion, under which Eastman intends to take the U.S.-based chemical products company over.

Wacker Chemie has posted full year 2011 financial losses, primarily due to the weak performance of both the solar and semiconductor industries, and higher raw material costs. It managed to remain well in the black, however.

Photovoltaics subsidies are a highly contentious subject within the German Federal Government. Federal Minister of Economics Philipp Rösler has drawn up his own paper, which might have led to a compromise with the Ministry of the Environment. Yet at Wednesday’s meeting it was rejected.

A report looking into the commercial viability of transparent electronics provides a very positive assessment of its opportunities within the solar industry, including predictions of in excess of 1,000 percent growth in some areas. It additionally identifies the key players to watch.

According to reports from parties involved in the negotiations, no conclusive result was reached at a meeting of Germany’s ruling coalition’s energy task force yesterday. Still, it seems likely that there will be rapid changes to the solar subsidies.

While a new survey on photovoltaic inverters has revealed that price is the over-riding factor in customer purchasing requirements, it was also found that many are willing to pay more for efficiency gains. Meanwhile, monitoring and diagnostics, multiple power point trackers (MPPT), and energy storage were identified as key inverter features.

In France, the photovoltaic feed-in tariffs (FITs) continue to drop. As the country’s regulator, CRE (Commission de Regulation de l’Energie) announced, the tariffs for new installations connected in the first quarter 2012 will decrease by four to ten percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2011.

According to the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA), in 2011, photovoltaic installations grew 11 GW over 2010. While emerging markets played a vital role in this growth, they have yet to fulfill their “enormous” potential.