For the first time a database of photovoltaic installations at U.S. universities and higher education institutions has revealed that the cumulative installed capacity has increased by 450 percent in three years.

A one-megawatt (MW) photovoltaic project has been dedicated at the Hickory Ridge landfill site near the U.S. city of Atlanta. While small compared to many photovoltaic power plants, Republic Services, Inc. still claims it is one of the state of Georgia’s largest.

German solar power plant company, Solar Millennium AG is set to sell its pipeline worth 2.25 gigawatts (GW) to turnkey developer solarhybrid. The conditional agreement of the sale was announced today.

Worldwide utility-scale inverter company Satcon, which has its headquarters in Boston, U.S., has been selected by Q-Cells to provide inverters worth 40 megawatts (MW). The inverters are for the Starwood project in Ontario, California.

On the final closing of a Department of Energy (DOE) loan guarantee for the project, SunPower will sell to NRG Energy the California Solar Ranch. Construction on the project began last month and is expected to be completed in two years.

In another sign of trying times for photovoltaics, manufacturing industry association SEMI has reported that the book-to-bill ratio for equipment manufacturers has fallen below parity. This indicates that supply is exceeding demand.

Major U.S. discount retailer Walmart has announced plans to expand the number of its stores featuring photovoltaic installations by 60. This means 75 percent of Walmart stores in California will have solar arrays.

An American research team has received funding to fabricate and test photovoltaic cells with an efficiency of 40 percent or more.

Chinese-based cell and module manufacturer Hanwha SolarOne has secured a USD$100 million loan from the Standard Chartered Bank and Korea Development Bank.

New research from the Australian National University (ANU) shows that if a proposed carbon tax goes through the Australian Parliament on schedule, retail grid parity will be reached right around Australia in a matter of weeks.