Global PV markets

Cambridge-based Eight19 today expanded its pay-as-you-go solar system into the world’s youngest country, Sudan. The company hopes to deploy 1,000 of its solar module, battery, light and phone charging systems to rural villages in the Nimule region.

Solar Frontier president, Shigeaki Kameda, attended a ceremony last month to activate the 10 megawatt (MW) Mt. Komekura Solar Plant, in the Yamanashi Prefecture, central Japan.

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) last week submitted a petition to have the standards for connecting smaller photovoltaic arrays to the grid changed. SEIA has sought to alter specifications that require installations to produce less that 15 percent of the annual peak load if they are to qualify for the “fast track” interconnection of small generation.

Equipment manufacturer Applied Materials has posted strong first quarter (Q1) 2012 results, including a non-GAAP operating income of US$240 million, from net sales of $2.19 billion. Sales were down $50 million year-on-year, but up slightly up from the fourth quarter (Q4) 2011.

Following in the footsteps of companies like California-based SunRun and Solar City, a new start-up company, DZ-4, is looking to bring decentralized solar power to Germany’s masses. In the following interview, founder Tobias Schütt talks to pv magazine about his plans and explains why such schemes have not already been introduced in Germany.

In its bid to become an “international knowledge hub and solar technology exporter”, Uzbekistan has unveiled its new International Solar Energy Institute (ISEI).

Having released his Fiscal Year 2013 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) budget request to Congress, President Barack Obama has requested US$2.27 billion be set aside from a total of $27.2 billion for the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).

It appears likely that the Italian government will remove the retroactive action from its Decreto Monti. While the decision means that incentives shall still be halted for photovoltaic systems larger than one megawatt (MW) on agricultural land, the deadline by which such systems must fulfill the feed-in tariff (FIT) requirements, will be moved back to March.

In light of increased financing costs and major European photovoltaic markets facing an uncertain immediate future, S.A.G. Solarstrom AG has today reported that earnings are down for 2011.

New research from the University of Cambridge in the U.K. is developing a method by which more of sun’s spectrum can be harnessed by a photovoltaic cell. In theory, the hybrid semiconductor method could push through the theoretical efficiency barrier limiting silicon solar cells.