Solarpraxis AG, based in Berlin, Germany, a leading organizer of conferences in the renewable energy sectors, hosted its third annual conference series focusing on solar power plants November 30 and December 1 in Phoenix, Arizona. The conference offered sessions centered on a wide array of topics associated with the solar power plant sector including: market analysis, transmission, smart power grid, financing, plant operation, construction, performance, and public policy. In addition, a new session was added this year dealing with concentrated photovoltaics, which are an emerging technology option for utility-scale projects, especially in southwestern US states.
Suntech Power Holdings, one the top tier global solar panel manufacturers, offered a complimentary tour of its photovoltaic (PV) solar panel assembly plant in Goodyear, Arizona on Tuesday, November 29. It is the company’s only manufacturing presence in the US and employs 110 people. Overall, the highly automated facility is only a small percentage of its overall manufacturing capacity and competency. The building has plenty of space to add an additional production line, but the plans are on hold due to the US-China solar trade dispute, which could directly affects their Chinese and US operations, if the anticipated import tariffs are implemented.
The conference featured a keynote speech from Mayor Phil Gordon, City of Phoenix, and Barry Broome, President and CEO of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council. Barry highlighted his organization’s important role in the promotion of solar energy industrial development in Arizona. He contrasted the typical stern and unified lobbyist support for fossil fuels with the solar industry and the latter’s difficulty in forming a unified message and agenda to help make this clean form of energy more pervasive across the country. Moreover, he emphasized the importance of rebuilding the state economy, highly reliant on housing construction, consumer spending and tourism, with manufacturing and especially in regards to solar energy, amid its ideal geographic location for this type of power generation. However, Arizona is far behind many other states in residential solar sales but that is partially due to the foreclosure epidemic, as Arizona was one of the hardest hit of all US states.
Additional notable speakers at the Solarpraxis PV Power Plant conference included Arizona Public Service, Arizona State University, Power-One, NV Energy, Schneider Electric, SMA, Morgan Stanley, Siemens, SunEdison, First Solar, and the Department of Energy (DOE).
Several ensuing articles will be published at this site in the coming weeks concerning an overview of PV solar technical and business updates presented at this conference.
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