Trina Solar, the world's No.2 solar panel maker by market value, aims to take a 10% or more share of the global market as it beefs up production with capital spending of up to $US400 million next year.

China aims to bring online at least 1 gigawatt of solar power capacity annually from 2013 under its "Golden Sun" pilot program, aided by increases in subsidies to boost the domestic solar industry, the Ministry of Finance said

Germany's environmental minister said he can't guarantee feed-in tariffs will continue, but scrapping them would play poorly at the polls.

Sharp will spend 15 billion yen to add a new assembly line for mass-producing highly efficient solar cells at its Sakai plant this fiscal year. The line will be able to churn out the equivalent of 200,000kw a year, driving up Sharp's total annual solar cell output capacity more than 20% to 1.07 million kilowatts.

Solar panel producer Suntech Power Holdings Co. said Wednesday it is buying 375 megawatts of wafer manufacturing capacity in China for $127 million.

The new cells are specially designed to meet tough French regulations on the aesthetics of solar installations.

Trina Solar said it is interested in teaming with or investing in developers in Europe, where solar-panel makers have extra capacity.

Solyndra said it has scuttled its factory expansion in Fremont, a move that will stop the company's plans to hire 1,000 workers.

The first solar energy project on federal land has broken ground in California's Mojave Desert.

Applied Materials announced that Hareon Solar has selected its SmartFactory manufacturing automation software to improve productivity across Hareon's solar photovoltaic (PV) cell manufacturing operations in China.

Solar energy and wind power will be strategic industries leading Korea's economy, with the government deciding to invest 40 trillion won in the renewable energy field by 2015 in partnership with the private sector so they can take the place in the nation's economy semiconductors and shipbuilding had in the past.

"I love the Generation Y term 'frenemy,' because today we're partners, tomorrow we're competitors," Sharp Solar senior vice president Eric Hafter said of his rival solar makers.

Microinverter maker Enphase Energy announced today that its microinverter technology will power 4.5MW of solar projects developed and operated by Main Street Power and financed by Morgan Stanley.

South Korea's Hyundai Heavy Industries and France's Saint-Gobain will jointly build the largest thin-film solar cell plant in South Korea.

LDK said it expects third-quarter revenue of $610 million to $640 million, up from a previous forecast of revenue of $570 million to $600 million. LDK revised higher its wafer shipments outlook to 550MW to 570MW from its prior outlook of 520MW to 550MW.

Suntech Power Holdings has struck deals with four companies: Azuray, Enphase, National Semiconductor and Tigo to enable "smart panel" solutions.

The Chinese maker of polysilicon used in solar panels expects to offer 8 million American Depository shares at between $10.50 and $12.50 each. It has given underwriters the right to buy about 1.2 million additional shares if demand exceeds initial supply.

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.

Retail juggernaut Wal-Mart is using panels from First Solar and MiaSole in what is expected to be one of the largest business installations of thin-film solar technology.

Peter Lehner, a blogger for Natural Resource Defense Council, recently visited China and Trina Solar. An interesting article on his visit.

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.

The cells make use of proteins from the machinery of plants, turning sunlight into electric charges that can do work. The self-repairing mechanism, reported in Nature Chemistry, could lead to much longer-lasting solar cells

LDK Solar said it has filed a lawsuit against solar module maker Canadian Solar demanding compensation from contract termination.