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The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) has signed multiple 20-year power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Recurrent Energy for 60 megawatts (MW) of solar power to be developed in the southern portion of Sacramento County, the U.S. These are the first agreements to come out of the utility’s feed-in tariff program (FIT) introduced in January of this year.

Changes in incentive schemes and new regulations could see the total capacity of photovoltaics (PV) installations “fall considerably” in 2011, meaning new markets would have to pick up the shortfall. The news comes as IMS Research says that 14.6 gigawatts (GW) of new PV capacity will be added worldwide this year.

Germany’s Bundesrat upper house of parliament has agreed to a compromise proposal to slightly reduce the cuts for solar power incentives. The reductions will be implemented over a three month period.

U.S.-based Air Products is to build a 1.5 megawatt (MW), 12-acre solar farm at its corporate headquarters in Allentown, Pa. Construction is scheduled to begin this autumn and should be completed by next spring.

Silexsolar Pty Ltd is to expand its photovoltaics (PV) panel production capacity at its Sydney Olympic Park (SOP) manufacturing facility in Australia by seven megawatts (MW), in response to strong demand for its panels from the domestic rooftop solar panel market. AUD$7 million is expected to be invested.

A new installation of solar panels at Furman University in the U.S. is expected to quadruple the solar energy output on campus.

Germany’s lower house of parliament has agreed to a compromise proposal for a slight reduction in cuts to solar power incentives over a three-month transition period, reports Reuters.

An etching technique that makes silicon wafers more efficient and a “mammoth power generator that sets a new standard for the production of solar energy” – both developed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory – have been named among this year’s most significant innovations by Research & Development (R&D) Magazine.

Solar Semiconductor, Inc. and Conex Energy, Inc. have announced the agreement to develop over 300 megawatts (MW) of solar opportunities at various locations in California, the U.S. and Ontario, Canada.

The Ontario Power Authority (OPA) has proposed a new pricing category of 58.8 Canadian cents per kilowatt-hour (¢/kWh) for ground-mounted solar photovoltaics (PV) projects of ten kilowatts or less, instead of the original 80.2 ¢/kWh. The new price category, says the OPA, will better reflect the lower costs of installation for these types of projects versus rooftop projects.