Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. (YGE), a Chinese solar-module maker, has a “framework agreement” for USD324 million of China Development Bank funding for a so-called trade platform in Hong Kong used to import raw materials, according to Bloomberg.
Thin-film solar panels may perform better in hot climates than rival crystalline products, based on half a year of data from the first Indian projects, an executive at the nation’s largest contractor on the developments said.
The US Export-Import Bank (Ex-Im) has approved an USD80.32 million loan to India’s Reliance Power for the purchase of concentrated solar power (CSP) technology.
The Philippines Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) has said a Dutch-Filipino solar power company wants to rent non-agricultural lands in rural areas to establish solar farms under the country’s Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
Tibet’s second-largest city, Xigaze, is building a large solar photovoltaic power generation base which is expected to help alleviate winter power shortages that plague the mountain city.
France’s Areva yesterday announced it has secured a contract to build Asia’s largest concentrated solar power (CSP) installation on behalf of India’s Reliance Power.
Under terms of the contract, the French power company will build two 125-MW CSP plants in Rajastan, India with the first phase already under construction and set for operation in May 2013.
Global clean energy finance and investment grew to USD263 billion in 2011, a 6.5 percent increase over the previous year, according to new research released by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Investment in G-20 countries accounted for more than 95 percent of the global total with the United States reclaiming the top spot from China, which had led the global clean energy race since 2009. Within the Asia-Pacific the relatively flat investment in China was mitigated by sharp gains in India, Japan, and Indonesia, which were among the fastest growing destinations for clean energy private investments last year.
Japan’s Kyocera released this artist’s rendering of the 70-MW "Kagoshima Nanatsujima Mega-Solar Power Plant” in Kagoshima Bay which will be the country’s largest solar facility when complete. Expected to start construction in July this year the plant will deploy 290,000 Kyocera solar modules over 1.27 million square meters (about 314 acres) of land, which is about the size of 27 baseball stadiums. The project is expected to generate about 79,000 MWh annually - enough to power 22,000 households. In addition to Kyocera, the ¥25 billion (USD309 million) project is also supported by IHI Corporation and Mizuho Corporate Bank.
Japanese conglomerates Kyocera Corporation, IHI Corporation and Mizuho Corporate Bank today announced that they will join forces to construct a 70-MW solar power plant in southern Japan and to further explore a business model for utility-scale solar power generation, according to the Kyodo News.
The national wind-solar demonstration project in China’s Zhangbei county, Zhangjiakou city, Hebei province, marked 100 consecutive days of safe operation last week with cumulative output of power over 100 million KWh.
Domestic PV demand in China grew to 2.75-GW in 2011, according to the latest research in the Solarbuzz Marketbuzz report, making it the third largest PV market globally in 2011, with Germany (7.5-GW) and Italy (6.8-GW) taking the top spots. With significant uncertainty over policy and demand in these countries, however, NPD Solarbuzz analyst Ray Lian believes China could become the world’s largest PV market in 2012.
Writing in his blog, Lian said: “Latest forecasts from Solarbuzz suggest that the PV market in China will almost double in 2012, to around 5-GW, with an upside potential to exceed 6-GW.
According to a report from The Japan Times SB Energy, the recently formed renewable energy subsidiary of Softbank Corp, has proposed developing a solar photovoltaic power plant on 480 hectares near Tomakomai, Hokkaido, with as much as 340-MW of peak generating capacity.
Taiwan opened its first solar and wind power promotion office in Taipei City last week, underscoring a commitment by the ROC government to promoting green energy island-wide.
Flamboyant Philippine Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago has proposed a new “Solar Roofs Act” to provide competitive grants and incentives that would prompt local governments around the nation to advance the solar mission in their regions, according to a report in the Philippine daily Inquirer.
A significant milestone in the country’s National Solar Mission has been reached the largest solar plant to date has come into production in India’s western state of Rajasthan.
March saw a flurry of news whipping around China's solar sector, with most of the focus on the news of the United States Commerce Department's decision to impose duties on Chinese solar panel imports.
But a report from Digitimes says Chinese customs' figures show that the country's polysilicon imports in February were up 62.6 percent on January and an incredible 129.6 percent over a year. While these figures reflect only one aspect of the wide-ranging, multi-product solar industry, they indicate a degree of disarray and which is also reflected in the financial results of China's manufacturers.
From mosques, to homes and streets, Pakistanis are increasingly seeing the light and realizing that year-round sun may be a cheap if partial answer to an enormous energy crisis, according to AFP.
Bloomberg reported yesterday that solar stocks led a decline in Chinese shares traded in New York on speculation that Italy will follow Germany in cutting subsidies to the industry, dimming the outlook for global installations.
Renesola has appointed Xiaoliang Liang as president of its China division, a newly-created position in which he will head the sales and the systems development business.
Liang has a varied business development and engineering background. From 2006 to 2010 he served a business director for Gamesa, where he led the team’s efforts in developing more than 2GW wind farms in northern and eastern China.
The development of wind and solar projects in Japan will generate highly attractive returns under the feed-in-tariffs recently proposed by the Japanese government, according to clean energy market research provider Bloomberg New Energy Finance. This is despite much higher costs for solar in Japan than elsewhere in the world.
Since the Fukushima nuclear crisis Japan has been grappling with the need to diversify its energy mix. One of the policy measures adopted by the government, a renewable feed-in tariff (FiT) programme, starts July 2012
This report by the World Bank spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes.
Companies in Asia reveal expectations that regulations that could lead to rising costs for reporting and reducing GHG emissions will also be the main sources of climate-related business opportunities.
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