China’s Solar PV Players Ramp Up Overseas Investments

Chinese solar photovoltaic (PV) companies aren’t waiting around for the US International Trade Commission (ITC) and Commerce Dept. to decide whether or not China has been improperly subsidizing the industry and engaging in predatory pricing in the US market – they’ve begun shifting investment overseas.

Flexible thin-film solar PV manufacturer Ascent Solar Technologies announced yesterday that China’s TFG Radiant Group is acquiring an additional 21% equity stake in the company by purchasing shares owned by Norsk Hydro Produksjon AS for $4 million. The purchase price, at about $0.50 per share, is a 19% premium to Nasdaq-listed Ascent’s $0.42 closing share price on Tuesday, and will bring TFG’s overall equity in Ascent to 41%.

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India seems to aim higher and think bigger in terms of its solar energy: from a set goal of 20 GW, the National Solar Mission grew its prospects to 33.4 GW all around the country, according to a report by Bridge to India.

The first step is to have 14.15 GW by 2018. By then, solar energy will have its own respected place on the national grid and more progress will have been made regarding the emissions level.

This will be possible due to the increased production of PV cells and the possibility of cheap imports from China. The final cost is estimated at around 40% less than what it is now.

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World's largest solar plant powers up

Spanish venture is as big as 210 football pitches and has 600,000 mirrors. But there’s a dark side

Just under a month ago, on an empty mountain plateau in Andalusia, the last of 600,000 parabolic mirrors were connected, and Andasol, the world’s largest solar power station, become operational. It is, as it glints in the Spanish sun, a shining example – literally – of what renewable energy offers.

Big almost beyond belief, it is powerful, clean and looks unlike any power station you could ever imagine. Spread over terrain which covers the equivalent of 210 football pitches, there is nothing to see behind the security fences and drainage ditches but interminable lines of gleaming, eerily silent, parabolic mirrors. They gyrate simultaneously to follow the sun’s path through the sky – for all the world like an enormous Star Wars android army awaiting orders from above to destroy the local populace.

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From the 16th to the 19th of January, twenty renewable energy and cleantech developers from across Egypt, Ghana, India, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, UAE and USA will showcase cutting-edge projects and conduct full business presentations at the Project Village at the World Future Energy Summit (WFES) 2012 in Abu Dhabi.

With 1 GW worth of of renewable projects being showased at the Project Village, the presentations represent a gigantic amount of local Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) region renewable energy.

Developing countries have overtaken developed ones in the growth of renewable projects, and the MENA region is key for the development of renewables.

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There are many new technologies

There are many new technologies being developed to create cheaper, more efficient solar panels – however researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory just announced that they have found a way to create more efficient photovoltaic cells using 50% less energy. The technique hinges upon a new optical furnace that uses intense light instead of a conventional furnace to heat silicon to make solar cells. The new furnace utilizes “highly reflective and heat-resistant ceramics to ensure that the light is absorbed only by a silicon wafer, not by the walls inside the furnace.”

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Düsseldorf Airport Installs One of The Largest Solar Arrays in Germany

The Düsseldorf International Airport is about to flip the switch on one of the largest solar arrays in Germany. The 8,400 panel, 2 megawatt solar array spans the space of six soccer fields, and it was finished in time to start feeding power to the grid before the clock strikes 2012. To prove the solar array’s everyday worth, the airport has installed a real time statistics ticker in the airport lobby so passengers can see how much energy it is creating and how much carbon dioxide is being diverted from the atmosphere.

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The German Solar Industry Association (BSW) has announced that German solar power producers have increased electricity output this year by 60 percent over 2010 to 18 billion kWh. This is more than three percent of total power output volumes.

The solar sector has already produced enough electricity to power approximately 5.1 million households in Germany.

Gehrlicher Solar AG

BSW’s managing director Carsten Koernig stated that “solar energy has become an indispensable ingredient of a successful energy strategy shift”. The solar sector has already produced enough electricity to power approximately 5.1 million households. This accounts for about one-eighth of all households in Germany.

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