Sistema de energia solar na ilha de Santo Antão em Cabo Verde

Macauhub Portuguese
O sistema de produção e distribuição de energia solar em Monte Trigo, na ilha de Santo Antão, projecto que contou com o financiamento da União Europeia, vai ser inaugurado dia 13 de Agosto corrente, informou a agência noticiosa cabo-verdiana Inforpress. A inauguração desta central, que funciona em regime experimental desde Fevereiro passado, acontece no mesmo dia em que será lançada a primeira pedra para o projecto de interligação energética para o Tarrafal, zona vizinha de Monte Trigo, projecto igualmente financiado pela União Europeia.

Trade War Brews Between EU and China Over Solar Panels

Spiegel online
This week, a group of European solar panel firms asked the European Commission to levy punitive tariffs on their Chinese rivals, who they accuse of selling products at unfairly low prices. Chinese manufacturers are outraged, warning on Thursday that a trade war could be brewing.

BBC News
Chinese solar panel manufacturers have urged Beijing to respond to a threat of European anti-dumping restrictions.

Forbes

“Germany-based SolarWorld has once again demonstrated that it is willing to undermine the world’s solar industry in a desperate effort to avoid competition in the marketplace,” added the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy . “The entire global solar industry – manufacturers, suppliers, installers and consumers – has benefited from the sharp decline in the price of solar cells, and our industry’s future success is predicated on our ability to continually improve the economics of solar electricity generation.”

Trade War Continues: China Investigating Whether U.S. Dumped Solar-Grade Polysilicon

SolarIndustryMag.com
China has reportedly launched an investigation into whether exporters from the U.S. and South Korea illegally dumped solar-grade polysilicon, according to a report from Bloomberg, which cited China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC).
The probe was launched after four companies - GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd., LDK Solar Co., Daqo New Energy Corp. and China Silicon Corp. - filed complaints with the MOC, the Bloomberg report states.
These latest developments intensify the ongoing trade disputes between China and the U.S. following a ruling by the U.S. Department of Commerce that it would impose countervailing duties on Chinese solar cells and modules imported into the U.S.

Germany Considering Anti-Dumping Proceedings Against China

SolarIndustryMag.com
The German government is reportedly considering initiating solar module anti-dumping proceedings against China, according to a report from Reuters, which cited comments made by the German environment minister to German television station ZDF.
The news comes after many German solar companies have suffered from the effects of plummeting silicon and module prices, and following a preliminary determination from the U.S. Department of Commerce that China illegally dumped Chinese solar cells and modules into the U.S.

Amonix closes North Las Vegas solar plant after 14 months

ReviewJournal.com
The Amonix solar manufacturing plant in North Las Vegas, subsidized by more than $20 million in federal tax credits and grants, has closed its 214,000-square-foot facility about a year after it opened. (...) [T]he company began selling equipment, from automated tooling systems to robotic welding cells, in an online auction Wednesday. (...) [A] former material and supply manager at Amonix, said the plant has been idle since May 1, when he was laid off. At its peak, the plant had about 700 employees working three shifts a day to produce solar panels for a utility in Amarosa, Colo.

Centrotherm Joins the List of German Solar Insolvencies

SolarServer
centrotherm photovoltaics AG (Blaubeuren, Germany) on July 10th, 2012 has submitted an application to the relevant District Court of Ulm for the launching of insolvency protection proceedings (pursuant to the German Act Relating to the Further Simplification of the Reorganization of Companies [ESUG], and Section 270b of the German Insolvency Directive [InsO]), and for the opening of insolvency proceedings under its own administration in connection with this application.

GTM

German photovoltaic panel manufacturers are faced with reduced feed-in tariffs, increased competition from China, and a global oversupply of solar modules. Solar manufacturing tool and production line vendors vendors like centrotherm are faced with the same massive and persistent solar overcapacity.  GTM Research (...) estimates module supply to be in excess of global demand by nearly 100 percent this year, or roughly 59 gigawatts of total supply compared to 30 gigawatts of total demand. It's a dire situation for any equipment vendor. Centrotherm joins Germany's Q-Cells, Soltecture, Odersun, Inventux, Solar Millennium, Solarhybrid, and Sovello in the group of the country's extremely troubled or shuttered PV firms. Q-Cells was Germany's -- and once the globe's -- largest solar manufacturer. It is now on the brink of bankruptcy. As Shyam Mehta, GTM Senior Solar Analyst, has said, "'Consolidation' is a nice word that refers to a lot of ugly things.”

More affluent, older, rural residents installing more solar

SolarServer
The U.K.'s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has released a new report which finds that solar photovoltaic (PV) installations through the nation's feed-in tariff (FiT) are concentrated in more affluent households with higher energy consumption. "Identifying trends in the deployment of domestic solar PV under the Feed-in Tariff scheme" also finds that rural areas have a greater density of domestic PV installations, as do areas with more educated, older residents.