All About Solar | Green Energy News

August 20 2006 – Vol.11 No.22

ALL ABOUT SOLAR.

This week’s news.

Conergy of Hamburg, Germany claims to be the largest solar electric company in Europe as well as a leading supplier of renewables such as small wind and solar thermal technologies. The company of 1300 employees, branches on five continents and expected revenues of more than a billion in 2006, has installed more than 30,000 photovoltaic solar systems; an estimated one out of every ten systems installed worldwide, it says.

Nanosolar of Palo Alto, California has only 50 employees, but it’s in the process of building a solar manufacturing annual capacity of 430 megawatts and has $100 million in funding available to do it.

When full scale production begins the company will be manufacturing thin-film solar cells made in a fast-rolling printing process that uses proprietary nanoparticle inks. The company has developed the lion’s share of production processes to make the cells. Nanosolar says its cells will be the world’s most cost efficient and will have the same solar-to-electric efficiency of silicon solar.

It seems like Nanosolar and Conergy would work well together.

Well, they’re planning to.

The companies have announced that they have signed a long term agreement to develop large-scale solar systems including tightly integrated panel and equipment design innovations.

The best of both companies, Conergy’s experience in the integration of solar systems and Nanosolar’s cutting edge solar cells and upcoming production capacity, should complement each other. Visit Conergy at http://www.conergy.com/ , Nanosolar at http://www.nanosolar.com/

Since its launch on March 1st in Colorado, Xcel Energy’s Solar * Rewards program has passed the million dollar mark in payouts. The program offers rebates and upfront payments for Renewable Energy Credits (REC) or Green Tags. As of the end of July the company had received more than 300 applications and has made 90 payments totaling $1.2 million.

With Solar * Rewards, customers on the Xcel Energy grid can receive $2 per watt for installed and operating solar systems with generating capacity up to 10 kilowatts. The company will also purchase RECs for $2.50 per watt. While Xcel customers in Colorado can combine the two financial incentives (to receive $4.50 per watt), solar system owners in the state who are not Xcel customers can also benefit from the program by receiving a one-time $2.50 per watt payment for RECs.

Xcel customers can apply for rebates and RECs on the web at http://www.xcelenergy.com/solar