COMPANYNEWS
Mesquite Solar 1 DOE recipient
U.S. ENERGY SECRETARY Steven Chu has announced the offer of a conditional commitment for a $359.1 million loan guarantee to Mesquite Solar 1, LLC to support the development of a photovoltaic solar generating project. The optimized 150 megawatt (MW) alternating current (AC) photovoltaic (PV) solar generation project is sponsored by Sempra Generation and will be located in Maricopa County, Arizona, approximately 45 miles west of Phoenix. Sempra Generation estimates the project will create up to 300 construction jobs and 7- 10 full time operating jobs.
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“Taking advantage of the clean, renewable power in places like Arizona will help strengthen our nation’s position as a leader in solar power,” said Secretary Chu. “This innovative photovoltaic facility creates new jobs while producing greater efficiencies that will help make solar energy a more viable and reliable source of power in the future.”
Mesquite Solar 1 will be one of the first large-scale utility PV power plants in the U.S. to use U.S.-manufactured innovative transformerless and liquid cooled inverter technology, which allows for significant improvements in energy output, a decrease in operating costs and improved reliability.
The facility will avoid the emissions of over 193,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions of over 38,000 vehicles. The project is anticipated to generate nearly 350,000 megawatt hours of electricity in the first full year of production, or enough to power over
First Solar reaches 4 GW milestone
FIRST SOLAR announced that it has manufactured 4 gigawatts (GW) of thin-film photovoltaic solar modules since beginning commercial production in 2002.
A 4GW generation capacity is enough solar electricity to power around two million households, displacing more than 2.5 million metric tons of CO2 emissions a year, the equivalent of taking 500,000 cars off the road.
31,000 homes. Power will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric Company.
The Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office administers three separate programs. The loan guarantee programs support the deployment of commercial technologies along with innovative technologies that avoid, reduce, or sequester greenhouse gas emissions, while ATVM supports the development of advanced vehicle technologies. Under all three programs, DOE has issued loans, loan guarantees or offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees totalling over $33 billion to support 33 clean energy projects across the U.S.
The program’s 18 generation projects produce over 28 million megawatt-hours annually, enough to power over two million homes. To date, the program has committed over $10 billion in loan guarantees to solar generation projects.
Q Cells seeks USA entry
QSOLAR has filed an application to obtain Underwriters Laboratories (UL) certification in the United States.
UL certification is required for the Company to sell its’ products in the United States and the process of receiving this certification is substantially the same as the European certification
process which QSolar has already received. The UL certification is required in order for the Company to fulfil the $74.5 million letter of intent received from Commercial Solar Design Inc. of California as previously announced on April 21, 2011.
Andreas Tapakoudes, President & CEO
of QSolar commented, “We fully expect to complete the UL certification this year. This will be an important milestone because it opens up the very large US marketplace to QSolar’s leading Spraytek, Kristal and Kristal Rainbow product lines and provides eligibility for the various incentive programs that are available by US regulators.”
The company also announced that its second factory at Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany, has begun producing solar modules one month ahead of schedule. The four new production lines are still expected to ramp to full production during the third quarter of 2011, bringing annual capacity at the two Frankfurt factories to more than 500 megawatts.
First Solar, which is one of the world’s leading producers of photovoltaic solar modules, also has manufacturing sites in Perrysburg, Ohio and Kulim, Malaysia, as well as new plants under construction in Mesa, Arizona and Vietnam. It recently completed the production ramp of its two newest plants in Malaysia.
www.solar-pv-management.com Issue VI 2011
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