Installations

Forget New Jersey. The solar industry is “in a New York State of mind,” to paraphrase singer Billy Joel, now that two government agencies have launched a five-year, USD150-million initiative to fund new large-scale photovoltaic (PV) power projects in the region.

Scientists from Germany and the U.S. use a sunflower pattern to enhance concentrated solar efficiency. The RWTH Aachen University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) create a heliostat array that is more compact.

The Californian Public Utilities Commission approved today approved five renewable energy contracts worth 1,088MW. Three of the agreements were signed with Southern California Edison and Solar Star California–which is subsidiary of SunPower–for the Quinto, AVSP I and AVSP II photovoltaic projects, collectively worth 711 megawatt (MW).

There’s an old saying that everything is bigger in Texas—and San Antonio is no exception. Now, the city’s utility, CPS Energy, is about to sign a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with OCI Solar Power for up to 400 megawatts (MW) of energy—sealing one of the largest solar deals ever in the United States.

One of the largest electric utilities in the U.S., Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), has announced that 185-megawatt (MW) worth of new photovoltaic projects came online in 2011. The capacity was spread across eight project sites.

Germany renewables developer juwi announced today that it has completed the sale of a solar power plant with a capacity of 1,065 kilowatt (kW). The plant was commissioned in 2009 and has been operated by juwi for two years.

The Arizona State University (ASU), Salt River Project (SRP) and SunPower Corp. announced today that a one-megawatt (MW) project will go ahead, the first to use SunPower’s C7, concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) technology. SunPower hopes the trackers can achieve the lowest levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for photovoltaics.

Spanish photovoltaic provider Isofoton has reached an agreement to commercialize a photovoltaic electric vehicle (EV) charging system. The “Ferrolinera” EV charging stations will provide more than 1,000 EV charging points throughout Spain.

BYD and the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) have developed a battery energy storage station that they claim as the world’s largest possibly.

Rounding off a year in which the search engine giant Google invested $880 million U.S. dollars in renewable energy, the company has announced a final investment for 2011 of $94 million. The money will go to four photovoltaic projects in California.