The global solar industry is likely to face a fresh sector trough if the recent European demand feast ahead of subsidy cuts turns into a famine next year.

Excess stocks of module-cells weighed on firms such as First Solar, Q-Cells, Suntech and Solon after a financial crisis-fueled sector bust in 2008, when prices slid 50 percent, and the same could happen again.

REC Silicon has experienced a power supply outage with a 100 percent power loss and consequently all of REC Silicon's manufacturing facilities in Moses Lake, Washington, have been shut down.

According to Grant County Public Utility District (Grant County PUD), the entity responsible for power supply to the Moses Lake plant, the four hours outage was due to an equipment failure in Grant County PUD's systems serving REC Silicon amongst others.

Upon the previous success of four SNEC events, Shanghai New Energy Industry Association (SNEIA) plans to hold SNEC 5th (2011) International Photovoltaic Power Generation Conference & Exhibition [SNEC (2011) PV POWER EXPO] from February 22 to 24, 2011 at Shanghai New International Expo Center (SNIEC), China. It is expected that 1,600 exhibitors and 100,000 visitors will gather in SNEC 2011!

• Revenue grew to $448.3 million, up 58.5% year-over-year including SunEdison
• Gross margin expanded by 482 basis points year-over-year to 17.2%
• Acquired CCZ solar ingot technology leader Solaicx

Gross profit in the quarter was $76.9 million or 17.2% of net sales, an increase of 29.7% from $59.3 million in the 2010 first quarter and 120.3% from $34.9 million in the 2009 second quarter.

• Net Sales $588 million
• PV module cost $0.76/watt
• EPS $1.84 per fully diluted share
• Increased 2010 EPS guidance to $7.00-$7.40 per diluted share

First Solar, Inc. (Nasdaq: FSLR) today announced its financial results for the second quarter ended June 26, 2010.

First Solar reported better-than-expected quarterly profits on Thursday, but trimmed its 2010 sales forecast because of weaker prices.

Its shares fell 4 percent in after hours trading.

The company, the biggest photovoltaic solar maker by market value, also raised it earnings forecast for the second time in three months and said it expected robust demand to continue into 2011.

Solar power took a big step toward becoming the alternative energy of choice with this week's news that energy from sunlight might be cheaper than nuclear power. The analysis, which comes from a Duke University report entitled Solar and Nuclear Costs: The Historic Crossover, claims that, "Electricity from new solar installations is now cheaper than electricity from proposed new nuclear plants" in North Carolina.

The U.S. version of the Mitsubishi i-Miev electric car won't be here until next year, but we got to spend a week with the Japanese version to test out the power train and find out what life will be like with an electric car.

There are some obvious ways to make the U.S. more competitive with China in clean energy. Why won't the Senate debate them?

Pardee Homes' Solar-Powered, Energy Efficient New Homes Expected to Save Homeowners Almost 40 Percent on Electric Bills

SunPower Corp. (Nasdaq: SPWRA, SPWRB) today announced it is working with Pardee Homes to build nine solar-powered new home communities in Southern California.