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Things are looking up for solar power in England, thanks to a bevy of solar incentives soon to take effect in the notoriously cloudy island nation. Sharp Corporation, a world leader in solar panel production that controls some 40 percent of the British market, predicts that panel sales will increase “tenfold” in the next two years, according to The Daily Mail. The main impetus for the sudden and dramatic increase, says Sharp, is a feed-in tariff (FIT) for renewable energy that goes into effect on April 1.

The Japanese electronics and solar giant expects the number of solar homes in England to increase from 28,000 to 250,000 by the end of 2011 because solar system owners will soon be able to make a profit from excess energy sold to the national electric grid. Moreover, by 2014, Sharp General Manager Andrew Lee predicts there will be more than 400,000 homes with solar power, creating 30,000 new green jobs in that period, and England’s Department of Energy and Climate Change finds it likely that 800,000 homes could be equipped new solar arrays over 25 years.

In addition to the FIT, the British government also announced a new series of loans that will enable homeowners to pay for solar power with preferential interest rates on loans from electricity providers. The loan program is set to kick on at the start of 2012.

In England, says the Daily Mail, it costs between £8,000 and £14,000 ($12,000-$24,000) to purchase and install an average home solar power system. Under the new loan scheme, it would take less than 10 years to repay the loan and homeowners would save an average of £150 per year while earning £900 per year through the feed-in tariff. That could equal a £36,000 profit over 25 years.

Sharp operates a manufacturing plant in Wrexham, England, but exports 98 percent of the panels manufactured there. Britain’s new FIT and loan scheme should keep a lot more of those panels out of shipping containers and on British rooftops, and maybe even inspire Sharp to expand the facility, creating more permanent green jobs in the meantime.

Photo Credit: Guardian

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Solar Power Inc., a Roseville, Calif.-based solar panel manufacturer and installer, won $24.7 million in stimulus funding to build a new manufacturing facility in Sacramento County. The award comes through the county’s Recovery Zone Facility Bonds, which in turn come from Recovery Act funds doled out to California and distributed among counties and cities throughout the state. Currently, Solar Power builds its panels in China and installs them here in the U.S.

The plant will top 10 megawatts of production and create 60 permanent jobs when it opens, which Solar Power says will come by the end of the year. That employee roster will increase to 100 in the future, said Executive Vice President Jeff Pontius to the Sacramento Business Journal. In addition, roughly 100 temporary jobs will be created during the construction process.

Solar Power is currently seeking out potential sites in Sacramento County for the manufacturing facility, which will also house the company’s new headquarters, and expects to announce said location within 30 days. Solar Power also plans to erect a $50-million, 10-megawatt utility-scale solar photovoltaic system in the county. That site has already been chosen but the company has not revealed its location. Solar Power Inc. employs 63 people at its current Roseville headquarters.

Sacramento County’s allotment of Recovery Zone funding, of which Solar Power Inc. received the full amount, was culled from a total $15 billion that the Obama administration allocated nationwide. Solar Power’s new plant is the latest in a slowly increasing number of manufacturing facilities being built in the States as part of federal incentives aimed at bringing permanent, high-quality green jobs to the U.S.

Photo Credit: world construction equipment

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Southern California Edison (SCE) this week launched a request for offers (RFO) from independent power producers for the utility’s solar photovoltaic program.

SG Biofuels said that it has launched its first JMax 100 cultivar, a proprietary cultivar of Jatropha optimized for growing conditions in Guatemala with yields 100 percent greater than existing varieties.

Victor Valley College and SolFocus announced that they are installing a 1-megawatt (MW) system of concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) systems for the college in Victorville, California. The solar facility will produce 2.5 million kilowatt hours per year, roughly 30 percent of the college’s electricity demand.

GE this week announced it is focusing its research and development efforts on thin-film solar photovoltaic (PV) technology in conjunction with PrimeStar Solar Inc., the startup firm in which GE is a majority investor.

As more utilities support the development of large-scale concentrating solar power (CSP) and photovoltaic (PV) plants in the around the U.S., some citizens have raised questions about the environmental sustainability of certain projects. However, a new poll released yesterday by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Gotham Research Group shows that an overwhelming number of Americans support utility-scale projects on public lands that have not been designated as preserves.

India and Turkey are both poised to become world players in the wind industry thanks to good wind resources, growing demand for electricity and emerging political frameworks to support the development of gigawatts of wind projects in the coming years.

Solar panel development brings solar energy to large companies by switching from windows to solar panels. Skyscrapers can now run on energy from to sun in order to protect earth’s nonrenewable resources.

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