SunPower has announced a deal that will see it sell the co-located Antelope Valley Solar Projects (AVSP) to MidAmerican Renewables for an undisclosed amount. The AVSP will be worth some 579 MW when completed.

New data has revealed that solar installers in the U.S. are being slowed down by red tape, which is pushing up the installed price. The survey data was collected by solar financers Clean Power Finance, which gathered responses from installers across 12 states.

A second commercial scale community solar project has been launched in Australia. The 400 kW rooftop installation will be installed in Sydney and is being organized by Embark.

Since 2010, Toshiba has sold 150 MW of SunPower modules to the Japanese residential market. In an agreement announced today the partnership will continue until 2018.

Crowdfunded or community photovoltaic installations are becoming a growing trend around the world. The latest, by a non-profit group in the Australian city of Melbourne, has launched a 740 kW community solar roof.

In an ominous sign for the flexible CIGS manufacturer, U.S.-based Global Solar is reported to have been laying off staff at its Tucson, Arizona manufacturing facility. Reports are that the company has cut 95 staff.

The release of a new 20 MW quota for small-scale photovoltaic installations in Malaysia has been postponed until Q1 2013. The FIT quota is for installations smaller than 500 kW and was scheduled to be released on December 17th.

Photovoltaic integrator SunEdison has announced the signing of 85 MW of PPAs, with utilities in California. The five PPAs in total have been signed with Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas and Electric and Riverside – one the first Californian municipal utilities to sign a PPA of this size.

Vertically integrated photovoltaic manufacturer Yingli Green Energy has signed what it claims is its biggest ever module supply agreement. The company will ship 200 MW of its modules to Southern California for a utility scale project for Centinela Solar Energy.

Companies that both develop and install photovoltaic power plants – known as system integrators – have topped the latest list of large scale solar developers. German and American companies remain on top, however new entrants from Austria and China have made a dramatic jump in the ranking.