On February 1st, 2012, Siemens Energy (Erlangen, Germany) announced that it has appointed Shmuel Fledel as chief executive officer (CEO) of the solar thermal energy business unit in its solar & hydro division. Fledel’s appointment became effective on February 1st, 2012. Read more...

2011 is being looked back on in the global solar industry for many negative qualities. Primarily, a collapse in profitability in solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing led to companies restructuring, layoffs, plant closures, and even a number of bankruptcies. Late in the year a vicious trade dispute sharply divided the U.S. PV industry, which also saw significant negative press, most notably the fabricated scandal of the Solyndra DOE loan guarantee. However, all of this obscures the fact that global PV, concentrating solar power (CSP) and concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) industries continued to grow in 2011, at some times and in serveral regions dramatically. Read more...

Gerhard Rabensteiner was one of the founding members of ESTIF and since the establishment of this federation in 2002 he acted as Vice-President. He looks back on many years of experience in the field of solar thermal energy as the Managing Director of the Austrian company GREENoneTEC that is now part of KIOTO Clear Energy AG. This holding company was co-founded by the Austrian in 2006. In his interview with Solarserver, the new ESTIF President spoke about the perspectives of the branch, policies for renewable energies and his plans for the future Read more...