First Solar just announced that it expects to slash its manufacturing costs by a third over the next 5 years. The company expects to cut costs from 92 cents per watt to between 52 and 62 cents per watt. First Solar expects to achieve its cost per watt goals by improving the conversion efficiency of its cadmium telluride panels to somewhere between 16 and 18 percent.
In an article posted on Reuters, First Solar … Read the rest
The Cali Air National Guard in Fresno will now be basking in the warm glow of solar electricity .. 600kw to be exact. Akeena Solar (AKNS) just finished installing 3819 panels across three new carports which will provide enough power to supply one third of the total power at the base, resulting in $100k in annual cost savings.
“As the largest consumer of energy in the United States, the military is an ideal role model … Read the rest
LDK Solar just announced that is has finished building its first 5,000 metric ton train in its new polysilicon plant in Xinyu, China. Once completed, the plant will have an annual capacity of 15,000 metric tons.
In a press release, representatives of both LDK and Fluor commented on the achievement:
“We are very excited to reach this major milestone in the construction of our 15,000 MT polysilicon facility,” commented Nick Sarno, Senior Vice … Read the rest
EMCORE (EMKR) is announcing yet another solar contract for space applications. Just last week Alison reported the news that Emcore had been awarded a NASA contract to produce solar panels for the Global Precipitation Measurement aircraft. Today, the company is announcing a $5.7 million contract with the Air Force to develop high efficiency solar cells for space applications and includes a provision for an additional one year award of $3.4 million for advanced IMM … Read the rest
About a year ago LDK Solar (LDK) announced a deal with JYT Corp (a competitor of GT Solar) to begin purchasing silicon ingot furnaces that would be capable of producing 800kg ingots, allowing the company greater quality, efficiencies and margins. The day may be just around the corner when the company can declare it is using those furnaces to their full capacity. Today, the company has announced it has reached a milestone by producing a … Read the rest
About once a week I’ll start highlighting a few stocks that I think are offering bullish setups. Please keep in mind though that this is a watch list and not a recommendation to buy or sell. Please do your own research. The following stocks recently moved big with record buy volume…
The first green stock I want to mention is Real Goods Solar (RSOL). The stock soared with record volume on June 5th following news … Read the rest
Trina Solar (TSL) is announcing that it in the 2nd quarter it will soon begin shipping 15MW of solar PV modules to Belgium solar project specialist Efinity.
“We are very pleased to announce this new sales agreement with Enfinity, to further strengthen the existing well established partnership with Enfinity. This new contract will significantly help to grow new projects in markets such as Germany, Belgium, Italy and other European solar markets,” stated Mr. Arturo … Read the rest
Canadian Solar just announced that it intends to bump up its yearly production of solar modules from 620 MW to 800 MW. The increase in production is scheduled to be in place by mid-August, and will prepare the company for an expected increase in demand.
To meet the new production goals, Canadian Solar plans to hire 2,000 additional workers on top of its existing staff of 3,000.
In an article from Reuters, Canadian Solar’s … Read the rest
Satcon (SATC), a leading provider of distributed power solutions is announcing today that it has installed four 250 kW PowerGate Plus inverters at the Orange County Convention Center in Florida for its 1.1 MW rooftop solar installation, the largest in the southeast United States. The solar installation was designed and built by Johnson Controls (JCI) and is expected to deliver over 1.1 kW hours in the first year while displaying the solar information inside the … Read the rest
Yingli Green Energy just announced that it has signed a sales agreement with China Mobile’s Shanxi subsidiary. China Mobile is building a video monitoring system in Shanxi to help catch forest fires, and Yingli will provide them with off-grid PV modules to help power the system. Under the contract, Yingli will provide a total of 269 units, which will provide .49 MW of power.
At the same time, Yingli announced that it has been chosen … Read the rest