Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Canadian Solar to invest 220.28 million yuan in R&D

SUZHOU, Jan 14, 2009 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Canadian Solar Inc. (CSIQ.Nsadaq) plans to invest 220.28 million yuan in research and development, the company said recently. The company inaugurated its solar cell engineering technology research center on January 9 in Jiangsu with the aim to build it into one of the world's leading solar cell testing centers.

The R&D center will focus on the research, development and production of high-efficient solar cells and low-cost silicon solar cells made from refined metallurgical silicon.

By now, the company has set up a research team composed of four Ph.D holders and seven master's degree holders, headed by the president.

Meanwhile, it has entered into cooperation with many domestic and international institutions including Dupont China, the Solar Energy Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Energy Research Center of the Netherlands and University of Toronto.

inese Academy of Sciences launches Action Plan for Solar Energy

January 14, 2009

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) announced the official launching of the Action Plan for Solar Energy on January 12.

The plan is divided into three phases: distributed utilization of solar energy by 2015, substitution utilization by 2025 and extensive utilization by 2035, aiming to make solar energy one of China's important energy sources around 2050.

Reporters learned that CAS will devote all its efforts and collaborate with China's relevant scientific and technological resources to establish a number of public platforms for solar energy technologies as well as research centers.

The focus will be on the key scientific issues concerning the transformation and utilization of solar energy such as photovoltaic, photothermal, photochemical and photobiological techniques.

CAS will strive to make breakthroughs in the areas of theory, methodology, materials and techniques. At the same time, through the integration of production, study and research, the plan will promote the research and development of core techniques, application models and transfer transformations, and eventually the formation of a scientific and innovative value chain for the utilization of solar energy from basic research and application to marketing.

All these will be done in an effort to turn solar energy into a new source of energy that can soon be utilized on a large scale.

By People's Daily Online