JA Solar and MEMC Electronic Materials' subsidiary MEMC Singapore have entered into a joint venture to produce solar cells in China. The JV will establish a solar cell production facility at JA Solar's Yangzhou site. The facility will have 250 MW Of annual PV solar cell production capacity.
Magma Energy Corporation and Plutonic Power Corporation announced the companies have entered into an arrangement agreement to merge and form a new company called Alterra Power Corporation. The new company will have a port-merger marketing capitalization of about USD 575 million.
All Plutonic Power shareholders will receive 2.38 shares of Magma Energy, and Magma will change its name to Alterra Power. The conclusion of the merger will result in 470 million shares of Alterra Power Corporation issued and outstanding and 487 million shares on a fully diluted basis. The merger incorporates several renewable energy sectors in which the companies were holding assets – geothermal, hydro and wind energy at locations in the US, Canada and Iceland. Additionally, there is an option on a solar project in Ontario, Canada.
Several European energy companies have expressed support for deeper carbon emission cuts. The companies which support this kind of change include Scottish & Southern Energy, DONG Energy and Eneco, all of which are involved in major wind energy development projects in the North Sea and UK waters.
REpower introduced its latest wind turbine model in the 3.XM series, the 3.2M114 wind turbine, which has 3.2 MW of capacity, a hub height of 143 meters and a 114 meter rotor diameter. The unit has been designed to make the most of low wind-speed conditions, prevailing mostly in hilly and foresty areas in continental Europe (in Southern Germany for example).
The US Department of Energy (DoE) and Masdar are going to collaborate in testing a new special coating material to be used in the PV industry. PV solar installations suffer from numerous handicaps which are a result of real life operation conditions. One of these negative operational factors are moisture and cementation problems which occur on the surface of solar modules. Basically, dust sticks to the surface of the modules, and is glued to the surface with the help of moisture which accumulates as condensation from the surrounding air ("morning dew"), and creates a coating which grows over time reducing the amount of sunlight that gets through to the reactive layers in the solar modules. This significantly reduces PV module performance, and requires constant cleaning of the surfaces, a task that becomes quite a chore when you have to clean hundreds of thousands of modules at a large scale facility.
Gamesa and E.ON have signed an agreement under which Gamesa is to supply E.ON with the company's latest commercially available units, the G128-4.5 MW. At least one, but possibly two of these units, will be installed at a site operated by E.ON in Europe. They are to be delivered in 2012.
Analytical Graphics Inc (AGI) and Raytheon Network Centric Systems will be collaborating on the development of wind turbine/radar modeling tool which will help determine whether a proposed wind farm location and wind turbine layour will interfere with radar system operation, or more specifically radars used to monitor airtraffic and weather conditions. Another member of the team, Remcom, based at the State College in Pennsylvania and affiliated with AGI, will provide expertise in electromagnetic stimulation.
The largest wind turbine blade manufacturer, LM Wind Power, announced the company has signed the United Nations Global Compact, which requires the company to reassess its greenness. LM Wind Power will be making a large scale effort to become greener and cleaner throughout its production operations.
GE Capital, the investment arm of GE, NRG Energy and ConocoPhillips, one of the leading integrated energy companies in the world, are forming a joint venture in order to invest and become collaborative partners for companies working on emerging clean energy technologies. The three companies have set aside an initial USD 300 million for the joint venture, called Energy Technology Ventures. The funding will be used for investments in 30 venture and growth stage companies, over the next four year period. First benficiaries of the new joint venture's investment round are in companies involved in "potentially game-changing" technologies in the fields of solar energy (PV) – Alta Devices (advanced materials, higher efficiency), cleaner coal technology – Ciris Energy (biochemical conversion of coal to methane at large scale), and biofuels produced from non-food biomass crops/stock – CoolPlanetBiofuels (low-grade biomass to high-grade fuel conversion).
Petra Solar announced the official opening of its Network Operations Center (NOC) for integrated solar and smart grid solutions. NOC will enable the company perform remote command and control operations on its solar and smart grid assets in the field, which includes locations in the US, but also other locations around the world. The system offers improved grid realiability features.
