Europe

SunPower has signed loan agreements worth €195.2 million to finance the final two phases of the Montalto di Castro solar park in Lazio, Italy. The solar bonds are expected to be funded by the end of December and will help add 44MW to the facility, which will have a final capacity of 72MW.

Rhodia is planning to install 12,000m² of PV panels at the Rhodia Belle-Etoile site in Rhône, France. Solairedirect, the solar module manufacturer, and OFI Asset Management will partner Rhodia on the project, which will boast a peak capacity of 2MW and produce two million kilowatt hours of electricity per annum.

Phoenix Solar is constructing two PV plants in Italy, with a combined capacity of 8.9MWp. Building work on the 6.1MWp Taranto and 2.8MWp Alessandria plants began in October, with a completion date scheduled for the end of December.

The German government is looking to temper growth in solar panel installation in an attempt to protect consumers from rising costs. Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union fear that the escalating costs of solar power may lead to a fall in demand and undermine the acceptance of alternative energy.

Solyndra has announced a multi-year sales agreement with Sika Services AG.

Statkraft is to sell its solar project company RA 2 to Innotech Solar's company, ITS Power. RA 2 owns the 3.3MWp solar project 'Borgo', which is under development in the municipality of Latina, 70km south of Rome, Italy. Borgo has now gained grid connection from Italian power company, ENEL. Innotech Solar anticipates the project to be fully operational by 2011.

FHR Anlagenbau, the wholly-owned subsidiary of centrotherm photovoltaics, is to supply several CIGS roll-to-roll coating systems to Leipzig-based Solarion. The systems, which are to be shipped throughout 2011, will form the central component of a 20MW annual capacity CIGS thin-film solar cell production system. Solarion is further planning to expand production to 180MW at the Leipzig site together with strategic investor Walsin Lihwa Corporation of Taiwan.

After a fair amount of digging and the much needed help of our German correspondent we can now confirm that the reports of a 16-17% cut in feed-in tariff rate for Germany were true, and the cuts are to go ahead from April 1, 2010. Click here to see the analyst's thoughts on these cuts.