China eyes 3 GW rooftop solar capacity by 2015

Reuters
China is targeting 3 gigawatts (GW) of roof-mounted solar power generating capacity by 2015 and 25 GW by 2020, the China Securities Journal reported on Monday, citing a government renewable energy development plan that is likely to be unveiled soon. If the goals are confirmed, they suggest a third of China's solar power capacity would be roof-mounted by 2015 and a half by 2020, making rooftop solar panel installations a key direction in solar power expansion.

Solar Trust Switches 500MW Power Plant to PV

Greentech Media
Solar Trust said today that it will convert a 500 megawatt solar thermal power plant it had been planning in Blythe, California into a 500 megawatt plant made from photovoltaic panels.
The shift comes because of "improved market conditions" for building power plants with PV modules. Solar modules from some vendors now cost as little as $1.30 a watt, according to GTM Research. The switch will mean the company has to walk away from a $2.1 billion federal loan guarantee.
Switching to PV will also let Solar Trust build the plant in 250 megawatt increments, making financing and planning easier.

Moçambique aposta em energias renováveis

Deutsche Welle
Até 2014, Moçambique vai electrificar os seus distritos - também com energias renováveis. Neste momento, mais de dois milhões de moçambicanos beneficiam de energia eléctrica gerada a partir de fontes novas e renováveis.
Trata-se das energias solar, eólica, hídrica de pequena e média dimensões e biomassa, através do bagaço da cana-de-açúcar e da jatropha - todas energias produzidas no país à luz da estratégia nacional de energias renováveis aprovada recentemente pelo governo.
De todas as formas de energias renováveis que o país possui, a solar é a mais usada, principalmente para responder às necessidades das populações rurais, com painéis solares.
Moçambique tem ainda centrais mini-hídricas, com capacidade de gerar energia até 15 megawatts e que podem contribuir para iluminar pequenas comunidades. Possui ainda barragens de média dimensão, como a de Massingir, na provincia sulista de Gaza.

China to double solar capacity by year end: report

Reuters
China will double its solar capacity to around 2GW by the end of the year as the world's largest solar-panel maker ramps up domestic installation, a local paper said on Saturday citing a government-linked think tank.
To encourage the construction of more solar power plants, the [National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)] has set unified benchmark grid feed-in power tariffs for solar projects for the first time ever earlier this month.
The rates, set at 1 yuan for each kWh, were higher than many of those that were proposed and accepted by state-owned solar-power developers in China's previous official tenders, which ranged from 0.73 to 0.99 yuan for each kWh last year.
The solar feed-in tariff (...) could drop below 0.80 yuan (12.5 cents) for each kilowatt-hour (kWh) by 2015, which would be on par with conventional coal-fired power tariffs by that time, according to s report by the Energy Research Institute.
The report also said China was expected to produce 90,000 tonnes of polysilicon this year, representing 80 percent of its domestic demand.

Europe Lodges WTO Complaint Against Canada Over Renewable Energy

Bloomberg
The European Union lodged a complaint at the World Trade Organization against Canada over subsidies the province of Ontario gives to renewable-energy producers that use domestic technology.
Under Ontario’s feed-in tariff program, created by the province’s Green Energy Act, above-market rates are paid to producers of renewable energy provided it is generated with a certain percentage of Canadian-made equipment. The act aims to help Ontario meet its goal of shutting all its coal-power generators by 2014.
A provision of the program that began in October 2009 requires projects to use goods and labor from Ontario for as much as 60 percent of supply costs, depending on the type of renewable-energy source.
“This is in clear breach of the WTO rules that prohibit linking subsidies to the use of domestic products,” the European Commission said today in an e-mailed statement from Brussels. The Ontario Power Authority “has set conditions that favor domestic products and services.”

NASA's Juno Spaceship to Jupiter Will Make the Most Distant Use of Solar Power Ever

Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World
NASA is prepared to launch a mission to Jupiter this week that will probe deep into the planet’s clouds to reveal what it is made of. The Juno spacecraft will also make history by being the most distant space probe to use solar panels as its primary source of electricity. The decision charts a new course for deep space missions that traditionally used a radioactive battery, and it stands to prove the viability of solar technology even when the sun is 5 times further away than it is from our home planet.(...)[June has] high-tech gallium arsinide solar cells rather than a traditional radioisotope thermoelectric generator that uses decaying Plutonium 238 to create electricity. Three wings of solar panels sprout from the craft, covering 60 square meters. They will produce 15 kW of power at 1 AU (Astronomic Unit) – the measurement of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. The probe will take 5 years to get to the gas giant, which is 5 AUs from the Sun. At this distance, the solar cells will leave the spacecraft with 420 watts of electricity to run on.