The Finnish giant is hoping its new flagship N8 smartphone will help it fight back, but PV World remains unconvinced and listed the reasons why Symbian sucks.

Rising competition from Chinese solar companies and high entry costs are likely to limit the number of start-up companies going into the PV manufacturing market, a managing director at private equity firm CMEA Capital said.

MIT chemical engineers have devised a way to use carbon nanotubes (hollow tubes of carbon atoms) to form antennas that capture and focus light energy, resulting in more powerful and smaller solar arrays.

French nuclear giant Areva, hinted last week during a meeting in Forbes offices that Areva is developing a hybrid solar power plant concept that combines a solar thermal system with solar photovoltaic (PV) panels.

The Goldman Sachs Global Clean Energy team bases its installation forecast on supply forecast of 20GW and 28GW in 2010 and 2011 respectively.

The race is now on between Italy, Czech Republic, United States, and potentially even Japan, to become just the third country member of the elite club to install 1GW of PV in a single year.

When compared to carbon-intensive electricity sources such as coal, which supplies 45 percent of U.S. electricity, a significant role for PV technology in the energy mix may have a difficult road ahead.

SunEdison, a division of MEMC Electronic Materials,has purchased two ground-mount solar PV development projects in Ontario from TransAlta, Canada's largest publicly traded generator and marketer of electricity and renewable power.

A homeowner could earn up to 900 pounds (US$1,433) each year for a typical 2.5 kilowatt solar PV system and save an additional 140 pounds on their annual electricity bill, according to an announcement by the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Intel will build PV installations targeted at eight US locations in four states, generating around 2.5 MW, and has increased its renewable energy credit purchases by 10%, powering more than 51% of its estimated US electricity use.

Micron Technology has formed a 50:50 joint venture with Australia-based integrated energy company Origin Energy focused on the development of PV (photovoltaic) technology.

First Solar has forecast 2010 profits of US$6.05-6.85 per share on revenues of US$2.7-2.9 billion. The Company said it plans to invest US$365 million of capital to add two production plants, consisting of four manufacturing lines each, to meet a demand pool.

First Solar has manufactured and shipped more than 1-gigawatt (GW) of its photovoltaic (PV) solar modules in 2009, becoming the first PV company to attain this production volume in a single year, according to the company.

DuPont Apollo has announced the opening of its silicon based thin-film photovoltaic module manufacturing facility. The 538,000-square-feet facility will have an annual capacity of up to 50 megawatts with a thin-film-on-glass PV module production line. Full-scale commercial production is slated for the first quarter of 2010.

Price pressure, caused by overcapacities in the worldwide solar panel business are exerting pressure on the solar panel value chain.

Applied Materials has acquired substantially all the assets, including the intellectual property, of Advent Solar for an undisclosed cash amount. Advent Solar is a developer of advanced technology for crystalline silicon (c-Si) PVs.

"We continue to make progress in every aspect of the SunFab lines and are well on our way to delivering 10% efficient SunFab panels and US$1 per watt production costs in 2010," said company CTO Mark Pinto. He also laid out plans for SunFab panels with 12% conversion efficiency and module costs below US$0.70/watt by 2012.

LDK Solar has formed an agreement with Yancheng City in China's Jiangsu Province to develop several photovoltaic power projects, including ground-power stations and roof and building integration systems.

Nano Solar Technology has ordered Oerlikon Solar's 120MW end-to-end Micromorph production line for making thin film solar modules.

GT Solar International's fiscal first-quarter profits jumped 51% on surging margins and higher revenues. The company said it was "on track" to meet its fiscal-year targets. But revenues grew at its slowest pace in roughly a year and sales came in far short analysts' expectations.

VLSI Research has revealed its Top-10 PV manufacturing equipment supply companies for 2008, with Applied Materials leading the pile.

The Milan trade fair has said it is commissioning the world's biggest rooftop photovoltaic power installation covering some 270,000 square meters.

Concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) solar power--which marries traditional solar photovoltaic technology to large-scale concentrated solar power plants--could ramp up utility-scale solar production especially in niche markets.

Germany-based concentrated photovoltaics (CPV) pioneer Concentrix Solar says that its plant in southern Spain is now consistently delivering the record power efficiency first achieved a year ago.

Although some have predicted exploding growth for thin-film photovoltaic technologies, the sector's expansion is likely to be tempered by dropping polysilicon prices, according to a new report from IC Insights.

Solar power stations that concentrate sunlight could generate up to one-quarter of the world's electricity needs by 2050. The technology, best suited to the desert regions of the world, could also create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and save millions of tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere.

The SEMI PV Group has recommended that China should accelerate its adoption of PV-generated electricity to reach the global average by 2014.

Wind-farm developer Renewable Energy Holdings on May 29 said it has signed a non-binding deal of intent to buy PVStrom Energy Systems GmbH & Co KG's photovoltaic development assets in Sicily, Italy for an undisclosed amount.

As photovoltaic energy nears grid parity in select regions of the world and the industry's cell manufacturers work to lower costs further, the PV industry is becoming a serious on-grid alternative. This growth is reflected in a materials market for PV module manufacture that is expected to skyrocket in coming years, according to a new report from Linx Consulting.

Japan slipped from the number two position in the world as of the end of 2008 in grid-connected existing solar photovoltaic capacity, replaced by Spain, according to a recent study by an international body.

The global solar PV (photovoltaic) market grew to at least 5.5 GW of electrical power converted using PV methods in 2008 compared to 2.4 GW in 2007, the EPIA (European Photovoltaic Industry Association) said in a recent report.

Environmental campaigners say they are astonished at the government's decision to suspend a scheme which gave grants to schools, hospitals and other public buildings to switch to renewable energy. Renewable energy experts say it has all been disastrous and could leave the UK at a competitive disadvantage in the future.