Please note that due to Intersolar North America increasing size again for 2011, floor space will be available in Moscone North (across the street). Logistics for the additional space are being finalized and will be published soon. 

Stay tuned for further details or contact us with any questions!

Intersolar North America continued its long-standing international focus with trade visitors representing 66 countries and exhibiting companies from 26 countries, reflecting the global perspectives of the solar industry.

While many attended the exhibition, the Intersolar North America conference and accompanying programs were a key attraction for more than 2,500 attendees. The conference portion featured 250 plus speakers, up from 170 in 2009, who presented at over 30 conference tracks.

Throughout Intersolar North America, companies and individual solar professionals were recognized for their innovative achievements at events including the Solar For All Design Contest awards ceremony, Intersolar AWARD Hall of Fame and the NorCal City/County Awards ceremony.

Read Complete Press Release

Detailed information can be found in our Programs Guide on pages 68-70.

View Online Innovation Exchange Program

Watch Intersolar TV

On Monday, July 12, 2010, Ashoka and Canopus Foundation, founders of the Solar for All Initiative, announced the winners of the Solar for All Design Contest. For the past six months, Solar for All has been running a Contest to find the best innovations in delivering affordable solar photovoltaic power to low income communities without access to electricity, combining both affordable technical solutions with a developed market approach.

From a diverse and impressive field of 58 companies and organizations from 29 countries, Greenlight Planet has been awarded the First Prize of the Solar for All Design Contest, an investment of $250,000 from the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation. The runner up, Kaïto Energie AG, receives €10,000 from Good Energies. Promethean Power Provider received the ERM Award. 

The Contest has brought forward a wide range of applications that would be suitable for consideration for potential investment from the Solar for All Investment Fund to be launched in 2011.

Solar for All is a global initiative to make significant advances in the goal of making solar energy affordable to the 1.6 billion people on this planet without access to electricity. The initiative was founded by Canopus Foundation and Ashoka, and is by now supported by a consortium of more than 50 of the world’s leading organizations working in the field of energy access for the poor. 

Read Complete Press Release

For further information visit: www.sfa-pv.org  

The speakers include:
Sue Kateley, Executive Director of CalSEIA
J.R. DeShazo, UCLA Professor and Los Angeles Business Council 

The first 15 minutes of the webinar will highlight the new solar thermal incentives package recently approved by California state legislature. There will be detailed information on how these new incentives can and will impact the California solar thermal market. 

The webinar will also focus on the current discussions for bringing a cost-efficient and practical FiT to California. Cost structure, necessary rate changes and legislative procedures to implement the FiT will also be discussed. A representative from Los Angeles Business Council (LABC), where a FiT tariff is being considered, will offer insight and examples of how a FiT can benefit Californian municipalities and how it could be scaled. Research will be presented from CALSEIA and LABC.

Click Here for More Information or 
Register Now - It's FREE!

The world's largest exhibition for the solar industry, Intersolar Europe, ended with new record numbers on Friday. Markus Elsässer, Managing Director of Solar Promotion GmbH, Pforzheim, one of the two organizers of Intersolar Europe, is more than satisfied: “The overwhelming success of Intersolar Europe 2010 can be summed up with one word:  a world champion! The number of visitors exceeded our wildest expectations. According to the preliminary results we were able to welcome around 72,000 visitors – an increase of around 23 percent of the previous year. Intersolar Europethus sends a strong signal from Munich to the solar industry around the world.”

It is not just the number of visitors that has risen - the number of exhibitors at Intersolar Europe has also gone up considerably: This year, 1,880 companies presented their innovations in Munich – 33% more than last year. The growth was also expressed in an expansion of the exhibition area:the exhibiting companies occupied 29% more exhibition space than in 2009: 134,000 m².

Klaus W. Seilnacht, Managing Director of Freiburg Wirtschaft Touristik und Messe GmbH, the other organizer of the exhibition, is also more than satisfied with the success of Intersolar Europe this year: "Not only did we have more exhibitors, visitors and press than in the previous years; the exhibition has also become even more international. 53% of the exhibitors came from outside Germany. Visitors from 150 different countries traveled to Munich for the exhibition. This has clearly proven the position of Intersolar Europe as the international meeting point of the industry and consolidated the exhibition's function as the leading show of the solar industry.”

Intersolar Europe is the world's largest exhibition for the solar industry and the most influential forum for innovative technologies and services in the fields of photovoltaics and solar thermal technology. It therefore serves as a gauge of innovative power within the solar industry. In awarding the prize, organizers Solar Promotion GmbH and Freiburg Wirtschaft Touristik und Messe GmbH & Co. KG (FWTM), in cooperation with the German Solar Industry Association (BSW-Solar), wish to create an incentive for companies to play an active role in shaping the future of sustainable energy supply.

New “PV Production Technology” award category and greater participant numbers

New for this year was the addition of the “PV Production Technology” award category. And also for the first time this year, exhibitors of Intersolar North America were eligible to participate in addition to exhibitors at Intersolar Europe in Munich. As a result, participant numbers have increased to a total of 2,300 and reflect the internationalization and growing level of interconnection within the industry.

The winners of the Intersolar AWARD were selected by three independent jurys comprised of experts from research, science, industry and the trade media. Three winners were chosen in each category. Products and solutions were eligible for submission which were to be exhibited for the first time at either Intersolar Europe or Intersolar North America in 2010, or which represent a significant refinement of a product compared to previous exhibition appearances. Submissions must have undergone trials or already be in industrial use.

Winners in the “Photovoltaics” category

The photovoltaics jury presented three companies with the Intersolar AWARD. In his speech, Dr.-Ing. Michael Powalla from the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Wuerttemberg lauded the three prize winners.

Zurich based company ABB Schweiz AGspecializes in reducing common losses in the production of solar power. It has developed an intelligent product for photovoltaic applications, the “S800” high performance process system. The system ensures that unaffected strings continue to function normally and deliver yield in the event of a partial failure in the photovoltaic installation. Thanks to its low energy consumption levels, the strings can be controlled without great losses, and a remote switching unit (RSU) provides additional security (e.g. in the event of fire). The product’s longevity and its lack of harmful components ensure that greater benefits for the environment are achieved.

Owing to the cost reduction potential offered by larger scale products, solar modules are becoming ever bigger and therefore proportionately heavier, which makes manual installation virtually impossible. Gehrlicher Solar AG based in Neustadt and Dornach, Germany, has developed an innovative transportation and mounting system for large-scale photovoltaic modules. In this complete system, the entire process from manufacture to installation is linked together. The system guarantees the smooth transportation of up to 18 large modules, and a unique rail system (backrail solution) facilitates installation. The concept minimizes assembly time, and therefore costs as well.

SMA Solar Technology AG of Niestetal, Germany, has been singled out for a central inverter which meets all modern demands and combines the latest technical components in one practical unit. Its “Sunny Central 800CP” is the world’s first weatherproof single device with a nominal power output of 800 kVA. The high power output is enabled by an intelligent power management and ventilation concept. Furthermore, the system features an integrated monitoring unit (string monitoring) with self-learning error management. Installation is greatly simplified and transport costs reduced thanks to the inverter’s compact design.

Winners in the “Solar Thermal Technology” category

Dr. Volker Wittwer, advisor at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, paid tribute to winners in the “Solar Thermal Technology” category in a speech.

Storage technologies are the key to exploiting solar heat, particularly if a large proportion of heating requirements are to be covered using solar thermal technology. Through its “FLEXSAVE” heat buffer storage tank, FSAVE Solartechnik GmbH, based in Kassel, Germany, offers the opportunity to cover the heating needs of existing buildings using solar thermal technology. The modular, cubic design means that it can be installed and accommodated in existing residential buildings with the greatest of ease and facilitates a better use of space. Thanks to its 2,200 liter storage volume, the unpressurized storage tank is suitable both for buffering solar heat and for use with solid fuel boilers. The use of new materials keeps manufacturing costs to a minimum.

Across the world, the demand for cooling is on the rise, pushing global power consumption sky high. Solar powered cooling systems (adsorption refrigerators) represent an energy-saving alternative to power-hungry compressor technology. For this reason, an Intersolar AWARD was also presented to Berlin company InvenSor GmbH. Compared to conventional thermal refrigerators, the “InvenSor Adsorption Refrigerator (LTC)” can be operated with markedly lower temperatures. InvenSor uses zeolites in place of more commonly used silica gel to increase efficiency. In conjunction with broad flat plate collectors, power consumption can be reduced by over 70%. Pure water serves as an environmentally friendly refrigerant, and its use means that the environmental impact is low. Low power consumption and relatively low noise emissions also characterize the compact device.

A positive example for linking-up expertise was demonstrated by the joint submission from the Institute for Building Construction and Design of theUniversity of Stuttgart (structural design),Ritter Energie- und Umwelttechnik GmbH & Co. KG (collector development), Hydro Building Systems GmbH (WICONA) (facade development) and Frener & Reifer Metallbau GmbH (facade construction), which details their new approach to facade integration for vacuum tubes. Joint development work between these collaborators resulted in the award-winning “CPC Office/System WICONA” facade collector, which meets future requirements for sustainable modern office buildings with glass facades. Architectural aspects such as transparency of the modules, room lighting, heat protection and solar protection are combined with the high efficiency of the collector in this product. Solar heat is made available for heating and cooling purposes at temperatures of up to 100°C.

Winners in the “PV Production Technology” category

The winners were praised for their ideas in a speech by Dr. Ingo Schwirtlich, Vice President of Technology at SCHOTT Solar GmbH.

Festo AG & Co. KG of Esslingen, Germany, received an award for its extremely fast handling system, the “High Speed H-Portal”. The combination of a flat construction and low moving mass provides dynamics in the smallest possible space, thereby saving both energy and resources. At the heart of the device is a module (lifting and rotating module) which works particularly efficiently. This interaction manages to increase the efficacy of production.

Swiss company GEMO-TEC Ltd. has been presented with the Intersolar AWARD for its innovative module production concept, “NICE Process”. The process represents an alternative to module encapsulation, operates with an airtight and moisture proof sealing technology and is entirely solder-free, making it environmentally friendly. By reducing production steps, it also enables clear reductions in manufacturing costs to be made.

Gebr. Schmid GmbH + Co., based in Freudenstadt, Germany, has also been singled out for its innovative, contact-free “LTP 1500/Laser Transfer Printing” metallization process, the performance characteristics of which are comparable to standard screen printing procedures. The modular system concept enables easy integration into existing production lines and the technology used dispenses with solvent-based pastes and removes one of the drying stages.

NorCal Solar's City and County Solar Awards recognize Bay Area cities and counties for leadership efforts in promoting and adopting solar energy within their borders.