First Solar

First Solar finds love in India

It’s been nearly two years since First Solar announced its first deal in India. The company has made good progress in this emerging market, and it announced another, 50MW deal Monday. What it really wants to do, though, is to develop projects in India.

GE suspends solar factory buildout in Colorado

GE was set to become a major solar manufacturer when it announced a 400 MW factory in Colorado last year. Over a year later, though, it’s putting that plan on hold for 18 months or more while it works on coming up with more competitive technology.

Solar shakeout continues: Q-Cells to file for bankruptcy

Q-Cells was once the largest solar cell maker in the world. Now the company says on Monday it’s filing for bankruptcy, which makes it the latest example of an industry turmoil that has forced many other manufactures out of the business as well.

Solar incentives to fall amid uncertain global economy

Another dark cloud is waiting for solar companies: the decline of government incentives that in the past have pumped the growth of the solar market worldwide. The United Kingdom, for example, plans to halve its subsidies for solar panels in 2012.

U.S. solar fights back against cheap Chinese panels

Solyndra bankruptcy has helped to fuel resentment toward China for its generous subsidies of Chinese solar companies. That resentment has morphed into petitions filed Wednesday that ask the U.S. government to investigate Chinese companies for allegedly flooding the U.S. market with goods below costs.

Solar industry sounds battle cry

This week’s gathering of the solar industry in Dallas at a conference will become a temporary central command for solar energy advocates who see an urgent need to fight back against negative public sentiment about solar that resulted from Solyndra’s federal loan and bankruptcy.

Another major source of solar loans: The U.S. Ex-Im Bank

While an uproar has arisen over the loan guarantees for solar from the U.S. Department of Energy (namely the one for Solyndra), another federal agency has also been making hundreds of millions of dollars worth of loans and loan guarantees to support the U.S. solar industry.

First Solar wins the fed’s largest solar support: almost $4B

First Solar has become the biggest solar beneficiary of a federal renewable energy loan guarantee program. On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Energy announced three loan guarantee offerings totaling roughly $3.73 billion for First Solar’s three photovoltaic power plants in California.

DOE offers $359M loan guarantee to Sempra for solar farm

Sempra Generation will join the pantheon of solar power plant developers who’ve gotten government aid. The U.S. Department of Energy on Wednesday announced an offer for a $359.1 million loan guarantee to Sempra to build a 150 MW project in Arizona.

Ted Turner Officially Turns On New Mexico Solar Plant

CNN founder, and “Mouth of the South,” Ted Turner has officially turned on his jointly-owned, 30-MW, solar farm in New Mexico. Turner and co-owner power company Southern Company Monday said morning that the so-called Cimarron Solar Facility “has begun commercial operation.”

Abound Solar Snags Ample Funding for 775 MW of Factories

Abound Solar is ending the year with glad tidings and good cheer — that is, $110 million in equity and a $400 million federal loan guarantee, almost all of which will fund an ambitious plan to build 775 megawatts of new manufacturing capacity.

First Solar Aims for Indian Solar Market

As promised, First Solar will see its solar panels installed in India next year. The company announced Thursday a deal to ship 15 megawatts of its cadmium-telluride panels to ACME Tele Power by March.

Tango Hits 1M Downloads, But Here Comes Yahoo

Mobile video chat application Tango is touting 1 million downloads in its first 10 days. But the app, which lets users video chat with each other across both iOS and Android mobile devices, faces some competition from a new Yahoo Messenger app that allows video calling.

First Solar Earnings: A Mixed Bag

Mimicking the overall solar industry this year, thin film solar darling First Solar (s FSLR), delivered a solidly mixed bag for its quarterly earnings today, announcing revenues that topped expectations, raised earnings guidance for the year, a drop in profits and lowered revenue guidance for the year.

Developer Ditches PG&E Solar Project

Here’s the big risk for utilities trying to meet California’s renewable portfolio standard, which calls for utilities to deliver 20 percent of their electricity from clean power by the end of 2010 and 33 percent by 2020: The clean power projects sometimes fall through.

eIQ Energy Raises $4M, Connects First Solar Project

Solar panels tend to be like Christmas tree lights: if one panel stops working, the whole string is affected. But startup eIQ Energy has a system that connecta solar panels in parallel instead of in a series, and the innovation is starting to gain some traction.

DTV D-Day is Here!

After a bump in the road that lasted four whole months, the national switch to digital TV transmission is upon us. We…

Thanks to TheAppleBlog Sponsors!

We’d like to say thanks to this month’s sponsor of TheAppleBlog: WunderRadio: WunderRadio Plays thousands of streaming internet radio stations and other…

Thanks to our GigaNET Sponsors

We’d like to say thanks to this month’s GigaNET sponsors: Brightcove: “The 2008 SEO Video Playbook” (free download) Accenture: “The Innovation Dilemma:…

Its a Broadband life

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (subscription required) has an article about how broadband is quickly getting embedded into our lives, and changing how we…