Employees at the Isle of Wight Vestas Wind (VWSYF) turbine plant continue to protest company plans to close down the plant and eliminate hundreds of jobs due to weak demand and lack of government initiatives to promote green energy. CEO Ditlev Engel said building wind turbines in Britain was “extremely time-consuming and extremely complicated”.
The goal of the employees is to force the government hand in providing more funding for green energy projects, just as … Read the rest
A lawsuit filed against Greenhunter Energy in Kansas has been dismissed. The lawsuit was filed by ethanol producer Orion Ethanol, Inc in June, 2008.
In a company press release, Gary C. Evans, Greenhunter’s Chairman, President and CEO, commented on the dismissal:
“Since this lawsuit was filed over a year ago against our companies and our largest institutional shareholder, we have vigorously denied all the allegations in the lawsuit and stated that this litigation was … Read the rest
Evergreen Solar just announced that it has finalized its contracts with Jiawei Solarchina Co., Ltd with the following provisions in place:
Evergreen will lease a production facility that Jiawei is building on its campus and use the facility to manufacture its String Ribbon wafers.
Jiawei will take those wafers and turn them into panels on a contract manufacturing basis. As part of the contract manufacturing agreement, Evergreen will pay Jianwei for its cell and panel … Read the rest
Nissan (NSANY) is making headlines this weekend with the unveiling of its version of the electric car, the LEAF. They probably won’t win any awards for the name of the car which according the press release embodies the air cleaning, purity qualities of a leaf by removing the emissions portion of the driving experience. Not the prettiest thing either.
Name and looks aside, the vehicle sounds impressive. The zero emission vehicle (well.. not exactly … Read the rest
BP Solar will begin work next month on what FedEx (FDX) is calling the largest rooftop solar project in the country, spanning 3.3 acres and 12,400 solar panels. The 2.4MW system, which is expected to be completed by November, will provide about a third of the power for the FedEx hub in Woodbridge, NJ. Under the agreement, BP will install and operate the system and sell the resulting energy to FedEX. This isn’t FedEX’s first … Read the rest
I’ll start calling them common sense Cowen because they’re the only ones (along with Wedbush) able to realize that this First Solar (FSLR) sell off is overdone and the Germany concern is an overreaction. Cowen is out defending First Solar this morning saying to buy on weakness
Hat tip to StreetInsider.com for the following analyst comments:
The firm says that the plans to offer rebates as an attempt to keep projects in Germany on track … Read the rest
Analysts have been, for the most part, negative on First Solar this morning which is why the stock continued to slide in pre market trading. It has stabilized though and holding steady in the 155 – 157 range. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a retest of the 150 before this is all said and done, particularly if this market ever goes into a meaningful correction. That would provide another great place to add a … Read the rest
I think Echelon (ELON) is a stock to watch this morning. We’ve seen other demand response/smart grid players (with the exception of Itron) such as EnerNoc (ENOC) and Comverge (COMV) take off like a rocket and now it may be Echelon’s turn. The company beat estimates last night by .06/share, posting a narrower loss of .23/share. Revenues also came in better than expected at $22.60 mill vs the $21.8 analyst expected. Guidance is a bit … Read the rest
Altairnano just announced that it has received a Small Business Innovation Research grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Technology . The grant will be used to develop better-performing energy storage options for the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), a contract valued at $100,000. With the grant, Altairnano will be able to research and develop new cell chemistries that maintain performance even in extremely high temperatures.
In a press release, Terry Copeland, … Read the rest
MEMC Electronics (WFR) and Q-Cells of Germany have established a joint venture to build large solar parks it was announced tonight. The equally owned park is in Strasskirchen, and is believed to be the largest ground mounted PV system in the country to use crystalline solar cells with a total capacity of 50MW. It’s being built by Q-Cells and has a completion date by the end of this year. The two companies are investing up … Read the rest