GREENVILLE, NC—Vietnamese solar manufacturer Boviet Solar will invest $294 million to build its first North American assembly plant here.

DEARBORN, MI—Ford Motor Co.’s assembly plants in South Africa and Thailand get a significant portion of their electricity from solar panels mounted to canopies in parking lots.

LAKE FOREST, CA—Staar Surgical, a manufacturer of implantable lenses used in ophthalmic surgery, has inaugurated a 1.1 megawatt solar energy microgrid at its production facility here. The system was installed to reduce energy costs, improve sustainability, and safeguard production in the event of grid outages caused by extreme weather events.

TEMPE, AZ—First Solar Inc. is investing up to $1.1 billion to construct its fifth manufacturing facility in the USA, further expanding America’s capacity to produce its own photovoltaic (PV) solar modules.

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is partnering with the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to provide $10 billion in funding through the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Credit (48C). The notice released June 5 allocates up to $4 billion to accelerate domestic clean energy manufacturing and ensure no community is left behind in the transition to clean energy technologies.   

TOKYO—YKK Group has announced that 31 of its locations worldwide now get 100 percent of their electricity consumption from renewable energy sources.

The heart and brain of every photovoltaic (PV) system is the inverter, which converts direct current generated by solar panels into alternating current that can be used in a home or business.

FLORENCE, AL—First Solar Inc. has selected Alabama as the site of a more than $1 billion factory that will assemble solar modules.

ATLANTA—Porsche Cars North America Inc. (PCNA) has signed a contract with Cherry Street Energy LLC, the largest non-utility provider of solar energy in Georgia, to build and operate a solar power microgrid at the company’s headquarters and customer experience center here.