NEWS I ROUNDUP


Soltecture open insolvency proceedings


THE executive management of Soltecture GmbH have applied to open insolvency proceedings. The responsible insolvency court in Berlin Charlottenburg has appointed Hartwig Albers from the law firm Brinkmann & Partner as the preliminary insolvency administrator.


Having extensively explored new financing options, the executive management saw no other viable option for averting the company’s impending insolvency at the present time.


Over the last two years, Soltecture has made extremely rapid progress in increasing the efficiency of its thin-film solar modules, securing a leading position in the area of CIGSe technology.


At the same time, the company positioned itself as a provider of architectonically attractive solutions for solar construction and was always successful in placing its products on the market. However, the high surplus capacity on the market has led to a dramatic drop in solar module prices, which – despite the company’s greatest


efforts to further reduce costs – could not be compensated.


Due to the outstanding technology produced by Soltecture and the already advanced stage of discussions with prospective partners, Soltecture is confident that operations can be continued at its headquarters in Adlershof with an industrial investor. Dr. Nikolaus Meyer (CEO Soltecture): “This is a tough day for our company.


However, the discussions over the last month make me extremely confident that with our technology we will be able to secure a new, strong partner as a shareholder. We will be working together closely with our insolvency administrator, Mr Hartwig Albers, to successfully negotiate an agreement with an industrial investor as quickly as possible”.


Once he has gained an overview of the company’s current situation, the preliminary insolvency administrator, Hartwig Albers, will then prepare the next steps in the preliminary insolvency proceedings.


GCL Solar Energy place Satcon order


SATCON TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION, a provider of utility-scale power conversion solutions for the renewable energy market, has announced that it has been selected by GCL Solar Energy, to supply forty-five of their Equinox 500 kilowatt (kW) inverters, along with over 1900 Satcon Solstice Subcombiners, 680 of its SSC Smart Subcombiners, and 64 medium voltage transformers, which will be used in the construction of a 76 MW solar power plant in the Caribbean.


“We’ve seen demand for solar PV continue to grow in the Americas over the last two years. First with commercial systems and most recently in large utility- scale power plants.” said Pete DeGraff, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales, Services and Marketing for Satcon.


“Satcon’s leading power conversion solutions continue to be deployed by the


most respected developers in solar, and we are very proud to have been selected by GCL Energy for this project.” The Equinox 500kW is the next generation of Satcon’s flagship 500kW solar inverter solution, which has been utilized by the industry’s leading solar developers on over a gigawatt of cumulative PV power systems.


With 98.5 percent peak efficiency and the industry’s widest thermal operating range, Equinox solutions improve system-wide energy harvest and solar plant yield for best-in-class performance, enabling the large-scale solar industry’s lowest Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE).


The efficiency gains, compared to other similar solutions, will enable utility-scale plants to produce millions more kilowatt hours over the life of the system, and add millions of dollars to the bottom line of the plant owner operators.


The San Luis Valley was chosen for its’ outstanding sunlight characteristics, high elevation and an ability to easily deliver the solar project’s output to the utility transmission system.


The Alamosa Solar project site is approximately 225 acres and consists of over 500 dual-axis, pedestal mounted tracker assemblies, each capable of producing approximately 60 kW of electricity from the sun. Each tracker assembly is 70 feet wide by 50 feet high and contains 7,560 Fresnel lenses that concentrate sunlight by a multiple of 500 onto multi-junction solar cells developed originally as part of the US space program.


The construction of the facility was contracted to M.A. Mortenson Co. Tom Bonner, President of Cogentrix stated, “Cogentrix has a long history of developing, constructing, and operating power plants employing a variety of technologies. We’re proud of the Alamosa Solar project and we are excited for what


Issue IV 2012 I www.solar-international.net 11


Worlds largest CPV project begin operations


COGENTRIX ENERGY, LLC (“Cogentrix”) has announced that the largest concentrating photovoltaic electric power generating facility in the world has successfully begun commercial operation. The Alamosa Solar Generating plant, located in the San Luis Valley of Colorado, produces 30 megawatts of solar power for use by customers of Xcel Energy’s subsidiary, Public Service Company of Colorado (“PSCo”).


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