Following the successful closing of the first solar fund launched by DCM in 2007, Centrosolar Group AG has once again become project partner for the DCM Solarfonds 3. The special feature of this solar fund is that investors are investing not in a single solar park, but in a number of solar facilities at various locations.
30 September, 2009
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE have developed new methods and cell concepts for the manufacture of n-type silicon solar photovoltaic (PV) cells. As a result, higher efficiencies and power production levels are also possible for commercial solar cells.
30 September, 2009
The fall in orders for wind energy in 2009 will affect revenues in 2010, analyst Frost & Sullivan predicts.
30 September, 2009
In his keynote speech to the GridWeek 2009 Conference on 21 September, US Energy Secretary Steven Chu detailed his vision for implementing the smart grid and modernising the USA’s electrical system.
30 September, 2009
The NASDAQ OMX Group and Clean Edge have introduced the NASDAQ OMX Clean Edge Smart Grid Infrastructure IndexSM (NASDAQ:QGRD), a new benchmark for the smart grid and electric infrastructure sector.
30 September, 2009
REpower Systems has erected the first of a total of 6 REpower 5M, 5 MW wind turbines for the alpha ventus offshore wind farm test field.
30 September, 2009
Cambridge Consultants has launched the Universal Metering Interface (UMI™), a new standard for metering systems. This low-power, low-cost, open communications standard is expected to speed up the rollout of smart meters, and help Europe meet its 2020 climate change targets.
29 September, 2009
Renewable energy consultancy, Natural Power, and the Danish national laboratory for sustainable energy, Risø DTU, have installed ZephIR in the rotating spinner of a Vestas NM80 wind turbine located at Tjæreborg Enge in western Denmark.
29 September, 2009
A £5 million project to develop and demonstrate a monitoring system that could reduce the cost of generating electricity from offshore wind farms in the UK, has been launched by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI).
29 September, 2009
Applied Materials has signed a five-year contract with ENN Solar Energy Co. to support ENN’s solar photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturing facility in Langfang, China, which features an Applied SunFab™ Thin Film Line.
29 September, 2009
GE has signed an agreement to help build an advanced smart grid infrastructure in Korea, together with Korea’s NURI Telecom.
29 September, 2009
The European commission awarded the Becquerel Prize to Dr Andreas Bett, Head of Materials – Solar Cells and Technology department and one of the deputy institute directors at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy ISE, for his work on solar photovoltaic (PV) concentrator technology at EU PVSEC in Hamburg last week.
29 September, 2009
The US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab has joined forces with researchers from Idaho National Lab (INL) and Argonne National Lab, to take the lead in developing and testing a new method for predicting the real-world fuel and electricity consumption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). After examining data on the only PHEV currently available in non-trivial numbers, the method shows promise for reasonably predicting the PHEV’s average fuel and electricity use.
28 September, 2009
Proton Power Systems in the UK has signed a partnership and exclusivity agreement with US-based defense systems company L-3 Communications Combat Propulsion Systems (L-3 CPS). Under the agreement, L-3 CPS will market and sell Proton Power’s fuel cell power systems for use in propulsion systems, marine, and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) applications to the North American military and civilian applications markets.
28 September, 2009
American Superconductor Corporation (AMSC) has formed two new divisions: AMSC Korea and AMSC India to serve the rapidly growing wind energy and power grid markets in these Asian countries.
25 September, 2009
Suntech Power Holdings Co, a manufacturer of crystalline silicon solar photovoltaic (PV) modules, has reached a 16.53% multi-crystalline silicon PV module conversion efficiency.
25 September, 2009
With the rapid decline of available credit and investor confidence, 2009 has not been the best year for the global wind power industry. However, the sector is presumed to pick up due to concerns for energy security and global warming and the growing demand for electricity in developing countries, according to Frost & Sullivan.
25 September, 2009
Oerlikon Solar, a supplier of thin-film silicon photovoltaic (PV) process and production equipment and end-to-end manufacturing lines, has been named winner of the 2009 Solar Industry Award, presented at the EU PVSEC 2009 Conference in Hamburg.
25 September, 2009
UK-based UPS Systems has completed the fuel cell installation for the Environmental Energy Technology Centre (EETC) in Rotherham, Yorkshire as this carbon-free building moves another step closer towards opening in early 2010. The facility is intended to showcase and encourage the development and commercialization of environmental energy technologies.
25 September, 2009
The Nanotechnology Knowledge Transfer Network (NanoKTN) is inviting contributions to a Position Paper on energy storage prototyping.
25 September, 2009
At a White House meeting to discuss the American Recovery Act, US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Energy Secretary Steven Chu hosted a group of renewable energy developers and manufacturers, announcing US$550 million in new awards to these companies bringing the total amount to more than US$1bn awarded to date to companies investing in domestic renewable energy.
25 September, 2009
Siemens has released a 3.6 MW wind turbine featuring a 120 m rotor diameter. The SWT-3.6-120 wind turbine is based on the SWT-3.6-107 offshore wind turbine. Siemens says it will generate roughly 10% more electricity at a typical offshore site compared to the SWT-3.6-107.
24 September, 2009
North Delhi Power Limited (NDPL) is building a smart grid in India with GE Energy’s PowerOn Outage Management System.
24 September, 2009
Dr Eddie O’Connor won the individual Leadership award for major contributions to the renewable sector and offshore energy at the annual Ernst & Young Global Renewable Energy Awards in London. These contributions are notably his founding of Mainstream Renewable Power, its subsequent success and his advocation of the European Offshore Supergrid concept.
24 September, 2009
GE has acquired ScanWind, a developer of both advanced drive train and control wind turbine technologies aimed at offshore deployment.
24 September, 2009
Suntech Power Holdings Co, a manufacturer of crystalline silicon solar photovoltaic (PV) modules, is introducing a 60 cell multi-crystalline solar PV module called Wd.
23 September, 2009
Bosch Solar Energy AG, formerly ersol Solar Energy AG, is presenting three prototypes of new crystalline and thin-film solar photovoltaic (PV) modules at the European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EU PVSEC) in Hamburg, Germany.
23 September, 2009
Oerlikon Solar's Chinese customer Tianwei SolarFilms has signed a deal providing 70 MW thin-film silicon solar photovoltaic (PV) solar panels to Thailand Green Energy Co.
23 September, 2009
SCHOTT Solar AG is extending the guarantee conditions for its solar power modules offering a 25-year performance guarantee on glass-foil solar modules and a 30-year guarantee on double glass solar modules.
23 September, 2009
Q-Cells SE has designed a solar photovoltaic (PV) module with an efficiency of 15.9% using the next generation of polycrystalline cells.
23 September, 2009
US-based IdaTech has reported a delay in the product acceptance testing of the natural gas fueled backup power system it is developing for the ACME Group in India. These units – featuring PEM fuel cell stacks supplied by Canadian-based Ballard – are intended for backup power for telecoms base stations.
23 September, 2009
UK-based solid oxide fuel cell developer Ceres Power has entered into a long-term supply agreement with Daalderop BV in the Netherlands, for the volume boiler assembly of Ceres’ residential combined heat and power (CHP) program with British Gas. Ceres Power will mass manufacture fuel cells in-house – at its new facility in Horsham, UK – and assemble fuel cell stacks and fuel cell modules in volume. The boiler assembly will be volume-manufactured by Daalderop, in accordance with Ceres Power’s complete fuel cell CHP product design.
23 September, 2009
US-based Protonex Technology has received a $2.0 million contract award from the US Army to build, test and deliver solid oxide fuel cell power systems. This program will focus on advancing the robustness of the Protonex SOFC systems operating on high-performance liquid fuels.
22 September, 2009
A collaborative agreement has been signed between the Hydrogen Village in Ontario, Canada and the University of Birmingham Fuel Cell Group in the UK. The collaboration will see the exchange of researchers and academics, and will facilitate commercial relationships with the Province of Ontario and West Midlands companies.
21 September, 2009
The Renewable Energy Focus team is at the European Photovoltaic Exhibition and Conference (EU PVSEC) in Hamburg this week.
21 September, 2009
Solar could see an annual growth of 25-30% per year, according to Winfried Hoffmann, President of the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA), at the opening of the European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (EU PVSEC) in Germany.
21 September, 2009
Gamesa is supplying 26 of its G87, 2 MW wind turbines to ENEL Unión Fenosa Renovables (EUFER) for two windfarms in Spain.
18 September, 2009
First Solar has announced a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Chinese government to build a 2 GW solar power plant in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, China.
18 September, 2009
BP is selling off its wind power interests in India for 4.622 billion Rupees (~US$95 million), but says it will continue to focus on wind in the USA.
17 September, 2009
UK Energy and Climate Secretary Ed Miliband, has said the world’s biggest wind turbine blades will be made in the UK as he announced grants for three offshore wind energy companies.
17 September, 2009
The Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) will receive more than US$6.8 million over three years to advance the production of renewable power from marine and hydrokinetic projects.
15 September, 2009
Vestas’ V112, 3 MW offshore wind turbine model is said to be optimised for the conditions at sea and “can generate more power than any other turbine in the 3 MW class.”
15 September, 2009
Bruce Munro’s new installation, simply called Water-Towers, is being given a ‘first outing’ in prototype form at Europe’s largest fuel cell event. The Eleventh Grove Fuel Cell Symposium takes place 22–24 September at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in central London.
14 September, 2009
AltaRock Energy has ceased drilling at its demonstration project due to “a number of physical difficulties.”
13 September, 2009
SMA has announced the acquisition of micro-inverter technology from Dutch firm OKE.
12 September, 2009
The organisers of the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy is seeking entries from "inspirational and innovative" local sustainable energy programmes from Asia, Africa and Latin America.
12 September, 2009
Intersolar is expanding into India. It will be organised in association with SOLARCON® India, in Hyderabad, 9-11 November 2009.
11 September, 2009
Mitsubishi and Peugeot Citroën have signed an agreement in Paris to jointly develop an electric car for the European market.
11 September, 2009
Organisers of the prominent global renewable energy awards report that nominations are reflecting the structural changes to clean energy markets…
10 September, 2009
Masdar Institute of Science and technology has welcomed its first intake of 92 graduate students, representing 22 different nations.
10 September, 2009
Renewable Energy Focus, in association with PerkinElmer, is organising a free, 1 hour webinar (exact date tba), examining how analysis/testing solutions and equipment can ensure quality and detect areas of improvement needed for solar cell development.
09 September, 2009
Scotland’s Hydro Group, a solutions provider of optical and electrical products in the subsea technology industry, is exhibiting it Hydro Bond Renewable Connector (HRC) for connecting wave or tidal power to seabed cables at the BWEA31 conference and exhibition in Liverpool in October.
09 September, 2009
The US Department of Energy (DoE) is making up to US$21 million available for the selection of five projects that will develop supply systems to handle and deliver high tonnage biomass feedstocks for cellulosic biofuels production.
09 September, 2009
The world's leading fuel cell vehicle manufacturers – Daimler, Ford, General Motors/Opel, Honda, Hyundai-Kia, the Renault-Nissan alliance and Toyota – have issued an unprecendented joint statement, with a Letter of Understanding (LoU) that commits them to the market introduction of fuel cell vehicles from 2015. This is just the blink of an eye in automotive development terms, and thus the signing marks a major step towards the serial production of such zero-emission vehicles.
09 September, 2009
E.ON Climate and Renewables (EC&R) North America has confirmed the completion of its Panther Creek wind farm, one of the 10 largest in the USA.
08 September, 2009
Spectrolab Inc. has achieved a 41.6 % efficiency record for a terrestrial concentrator solar cell.
08 September, 2009
Risk management company Det Norske Veritas (DNV) is launching class notation for offshore wind turbine installation units based on DNV’s Offshore Service Specification DNV OSS-101 for drilling and production vessels used in the oil and gas industry.
08 September, 2009
Swedish forestry and timber product company Södra and Norwegian energy company Statkraft have signed a SEK 10 billion (~€1bn) agreement of intent on renewable energy.
08 September, 2009
Geothermal energy company Petratherm will start work on pinpointing a deep well for geothermal energy on Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
08 September, 2009
Oerlikon Solar and Tianwei have completed one of mainland China’s largest thin-film solar panel factories, which in the first phase could produce 500,000 thin-film solar modules totalling 46 MW per year.
07 September, 2009
Researchers in the USA have found that the high sugar content of watermelons can be distilled into ethanol biofuel.
07 September, 2009
China has instituted a new system of differentiated wind energy tariffs based on four wind energy zones. The move is the first in Asia since South Korea implemented a feed-in tariff programme in 2005. China now joins a growing list of developing countries with feed-in tariffs, including South Africa and Mongolia.
07 September, 2009
Researchers at UNSW claim to have set a new solar PV cell efficiency record of 43%.
07 September, 2009
Lectra and AB-Inventech have signed a cooperation agreement to promote automated production solutions for the wind energy and aerospace markets.
05 September, 2009
The US$2.2 million Zayed Future Energy Prize awarded every year for innovation, long-term vision and leadership in renewable energy and technologies is open for nominations until 16 October 2009.
04 September, 2009
Vestas has received an order for a total of 24m V90 2.0 MW wind turbines and 16 units of the V90 1.8 MW wind turbine for three projects in Spain.
04 September, 2009
Oxford City Council – and former Renewable Energy Focus editor Paul Spencer - have revealed plans for a £3m wind turbine development on council land in the UK city, purportedly the first on council land anywhere in the UK.
04 September, 2009
Germanischer Lloyd (GL) has approved AGY's S-1 Glass™ glass rovings for use in wind turbine blade applications.
04 September, 2009
What were the top 5 stories at www.renewableenergyfocus.com during August?
03 September, 2009
SolarWorld is supplying 5000 of its 220/230 W solar photovoltaic (PV) modules for a 1.2 MW solar power plant at an Air Force base in Aurora, Colorado, USA.
03 September, 2009
At the forthcoming Eleventh Grove Fuel Cell Symposium, the prestigious Grove Medal will be awarded to the Honda Motor Company, in recognition of its achievements in producing the FCX Clarity hydrogen fuel cell car.
03 September, 2009
David MacKay, Professor in the Department of Physics at Cambridge University and author of the influential book ‘Sustainable Energy - without the hot air' has been appointed Chief Scientific Advisor to the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change.
03 September, 2009
UK Secretary of Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, has proposed to address the way power plants are connected to the UK’s power grid in the hope of getting new generation, including renewable energy, connected faster.
02 September, 2009
US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and Energy Secretary Steven Chu have announced US$502 million in the first round of awards from an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act programme providing cash assistance to clean and renewable energy production companies in place of earned tax credits.
02 September, 2009
Solar photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturer ersol Solar Energy is changing its name and branding to Bosch Solar Energy following Bosch’s acquisition of ersol Solar Energy last year.
02 September, 2009
Hydro Group plc will be presenting its new product for speeding up subsea connections within marine environments - the Hydro bond Renewable Connector (HRC) - at the BWEA31 renewable energy conference in Liverpool, taking place on 20-22 October.
01 September, 2009
What is said to be the world’s second largest thin-film solar photovoltaic (PV) farm, Lieberose, is under construction near Cottbus in Brandenburg, Germany.
01 September, 2009