As Israel grapples with the strategic advantages of solar, will PV get the respect it wants? April, 2008: For all its great insolation, Israel has less than 2 MW of installed PV capacity. Quietly, however, the country is moving toward a decent – albeit limited – PV rooftops program. And as Israel dusts off an ambitious target for large-scale solar plants in the Negev desert, the PV amount could even grow. But behind-the-scenes ministerial strife threatens to wipe out PV‘s role in favor of solar thermal. On top of this, a major Israeli scheme for promoting electric cars contains precious few details Flush with oil money, rich emirate plants huge financial seed for renewable energy – and PV March, 2008: Swimming in cash from its hydrocarbon industrial base, Abu Dhabi in the Gulf State of the United Arab Emirates has pledged $15 billion to become a magnet for a renewable energy economy as part of its Masdar Initiative. In addition to wind and hydrogen projects, as well as a research institute in a yet-to-be built carbon-neutral city, the leveraged money will be used to support a solar cluster including hundreds of megawatts of installed PV, an integrated crystalline-based value chain production     BP Solar builds 300 MW module plant in Spain April, 2008: British company BP Solar will begin construction in the middle of this year on a module factory with 300 MW of production capacity in Puertollano, in Castile-La Mancha. Cooperative builds 22 MW solar park in Galicia April, 2008: One of the biggest tracking system solar parks in Spain is slated for construction in the region of Galicia.     NanoGram finds VC for silicon thick-film PV April, 2008: NanoGram Corp., a San Francisco Bay Area developer of nano-scale materials and processes for optical, electronics and solar energy products, is planning to build a 3 to 5 MW pilot manufacturing line by early 2009 for PV modules based on its patent-pending method for large-area, thick-film deposition of multicrystalline silicon. Suniva collects $50 million in venture capital for crystalline cell production April, 2008: Just three months after its official formation, Atlanta, Georgia-headquartered Suniva Inc. has rallied $50 million in venture capital to manufacture low-cost, high-efficiency monocrystalline PV cells. Behind the effort to set up an initial 25 MW cell fabrication line by the third quarter are well-known names in PV manufacturing and research. Suniva‘s business team is already eying public markets to fuel the company‘s further expansion.     JA forecasts large capacity increase in fourthquarter results April, 2008: China‘s JA Solar Co. Ltd., traditionally a cell producer that tends toward making conservative forecasts, is now promoting a significant increase to its original 2008 capacity guidance. China Sunergy manager resigns as production guidance lowered April, 2008: Problems have continued to plague China Sunergy Co. Ltd. as yet another high-ranking manager has resigned, the fourth since the PV manufacturer went public in May 2007.     As Labor takes over reigns in Australia, campaign noises for solar could get louder April, 2008: To refer to Australia as »Down Under« is to describe the country‘s PV market of less than 10 MW per year. But with the changing of the guard in Australian politics as Labor ousted the Liberal coalition in late November, the newcomers‘ solar campaign promises appear to have given PV its best-ever hope of finally taking off – maybe. Has Australia's chance at a world-beating industry been beaten? November, 2006: Adelaide and Townsville have been named Australia's first two of four Solar Cities. But as grand as the name sounds, the scheme seems to be anything but – currently with just 3 MW promised by 2013.     German cell manufacturer Q-Cells is Number 1 cell producer worldwide February, 2008: Sharp Corporation has been toppled from it’s Number 1 spot in cell production and is now in a head-to-head race with Suntech Power Corp. Market survey on cell and module production 2006 March, 2007: That sound of escaping air you hear is the collective sigh of relief from the PV industry. As our latest comprehensive market survey on cell and module production and capacity reveals, 2006 was another bumper year, even at a time of feedstock scarcity. With production up 40 percent to 2.54 GW – amazingly, with almost none of the increase coming from Sharp – it's time to start fantasizing about how high the numbers could go, as manufacturers gear up for silicon's post-shortage era.     Siliken presents modules that glow at night April, 2008: At the Genera trade fair in Madrid in February, the Spanish company Siliken SA exhibited solar modules that glow in the dark. ATM‘s Kassandra scans ingots for defects and maps regions to be cut March, 2008: Kassandra is the name of ATMvision AG‘s new infrared-based ingot inspection system for the solar industry.     Germany will likely remain the world‘s largest PV market – the only question is whether it implodes April, 2008: For some time, supply has limited demand on the PV market – but what determines demand? The short answer: price. The long answer, at least for solar modules, is a 181 page report titled Detailing Demand – Where will all the Volume go? In this study, solar analyst Chris Porter describes where he thinks a phenomenal 23 GW of modules will be installed in 2010. Today‘s leading market Germany alone will contribute more than 6 GW to that total. Navigant report uses different »metric« for gauging PV market June, 2007: On April 25, Navigant Consulting Inc. (NCI) published its annual PV report. The study – Photovoltaic Manufacturer Shipments & Competitive Analysis 2006/2007 – presents a 2006 cell figure of just 1,982.4 MW, considerably lower than any other industry analysis.     Sharp Solar gets new boss June, 2007: Since April 1, Takashi Tomita is no longer head of Sharp Corp.'s international solar division. He is now in charge of the company's research and development department. The awards tour October, 2006: Just as at every international PV conference, many awards were bestowed upon deserving recipients in Dresden.