An international group of solar industry trade associations meeting in Shanghai last week has issued a joint declaration appealing to China, the European Union and the United States to avert a trade war and negotiate a settlement to disputes over solar panels, according to one person who attended the meeting. The groups also urged the creation of a permanent inter-governmental committee, modeled on one in t ...

Japan's Shinsei Bank has signed a project financing agreement with Japan Renewable Energy to provide a ¥10 billion (US$97 million) loan to fund the development of 40MW worth of PV projects. The solar power projects will be built on around 50 hectares of land in the city of Mito and the town of Shirosato in Japan’s Ibaraki prefecture by Japan Renewable Energy. Construction is due to commence in June while co ...

LDK Solar, the Chinese solar-panel maker that has reported seven straight quarters of losses, said it agreed to provide 500 MW of wafers to Realforce Power Co. The company will start shipments this month through December 2014 to Realforce, a solar-cell and panel maker in China’s eastern province of Shandong. Financial details weren’t disclosed. LDK reported last month that it had a net loss of $517 million ...

Toronto-based private investment firm JCM Capital has announced plans to co-develop and fund costs for approximately 100MW of PV projects in Japan. The company said it would focus on projects of 10MW and larger, and was seeking partners to develop project sites of 40 hectares and above. JCM will fund project costs through to the construction-ready stage and rely on its construction and long-term financing p ...

Nippon Paper Industries Co., Ltd. will launch Shikoku's largest mega-solar project at 21 MW in collaboration with Mitsubishi Corporation on part of the land owned by Nippon Paper Industries in Komatsushima-shi, Tokushima Prefecture. The construction of the facilities will commence this autumn. The electricity to be generated will be sold to Shikoku Electric Power Co., Inc. from the latter half of 2014 under ...

DuPont Microcircuit Materials and JA Solar Holdings Co., Ltd., recently collaborated to achieve a reported 19.4% solar cell efficiency. JA Solar's 6-inch monocrystalline Cypress modules in a 60-cell format now generate a maximum power output of 270W and a conversion efficiency of 16.51%; its 6-inch full-square monocrystalline modules in a 60-cell format generate a maximum power output of 280W and a conversi ...

Chinese solar done right is as good as just about any - but if you're considering going solar using modules made in China; you might want to do so soon. First it was the USA; soon India and the EU - and now there's a push for Australia to add an "anti-dumping" penalty on cheap solar panels from China sold in the country. China's domination of the solar panel market has had major benefits for end consumers; ...

In an effort to expand the use of renewable energy and take measures to help reduce pollution, Hyundai will install South Korea's largest rooftop photovoltaic power plant at its manufacturing factory in Asan, where vehicles like the Sonata Hybrid are built. Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) will purchase the electricity generated by the solar modules and sell it to nearby areas. Nearly 40,000 such mo ...

A Vijayawada-based solar energy equipment manufacturer, Jyothi Solar Power Projects has claimed that by using two new technologies together with the existing PV panel system, 91% of the Sun’s energy could be converted into electrical power. At a meeting to showcase the technologies here on Saturday, P. Lakshminarayana, Director Technical of the company said they had applied for patents. They include ‘Twinti ...

China Merchants New Energy Group, a Hong Kong-based renewable-energy project developer, will form a joint venture with Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps Investment Co. to invest 3 billion yuan to develop solar farms. The venture will build about 300 MW of solar power plants in China’s western region of Xinjiang by 2015, China Merchants said in a statement posted on its website yesterday. The plan c ...