One of the leading solar panel manufacturers, Trina Solar Limited (ADR) (NYSE:TSL), has announced that it plans to expand into Latin America’s solar market, particularly in Chile, Mexico and Brazil. The business is opening a new sales and business development office in Santiago, Chile, which will be used to serve customers across the Americas including the US and Canada. Mark Mendenhall, president of Trina Solar Americas, believes that the continent “has long been an emerging market for solar, and we think there are countries in the region that are now primed to rapidly grow the solar market." 

The announcement comes just days after Chile revealed that it has so far received 32applications for solar projects totaling 2.4GW.  Except a 360MW solar thermal power project, all other applications are for solar PV. Chile looks all set to become one of the leading markets for the solar industry in South America. 

The country will host an International Renewable Energy Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday in which the government will announce the solar energy strategy. The nation’s current installed solar capacity is just 1MW,but construction on a 2.5MW solar project is currently underway. The country, therefore, is not developed in this sector, but it plans a major overhaul in the next 10 years.  

Germany, on the other hand, continues to remain one of the leading markets for solar modules. A report released by the government earlier this week revealed that it installed 543MW of PV in July, primarily due to the new FiT policy that has introduced monthly tariff cuts, as opposed to yearly reductions in the previous policy. Although this is lower than last year’s 572MW, it is still impressive,because firstly, the nation is going through a financial crisis and secondly, on a year-to-date basis, it has installed 4.9GW of PV, against 2.3GW installed in the same period last year. 

Earlier this week, Trina Solar announced the completion of the first large-scale rooftop PV system in Switzerland with a capacity of 900kW,which uses 3,576 multicrystalline Honey solar panels. The company is looking to promote its Honey technology in South America as well. 

Like Trina Solar, China Sunergy Co Ltd (NASDAQ:CSUN), is also looking to expand, but in Europe and the US, by developing manufacturing facilities in the region. The firm is hoping that it will be able to bypass the increase in tariffs. The organization is currently focused on the US, since the country has already imposed duties on Chinese manufacturers, but it believes that if Europe does the same, then it might construct a new facility in Turkey. 

In the meantime, Germany-based power plant developer SAG Solarstrom, has announced that it will buy 26MW of modules from Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (ADR)(NYSE:STP) in the ongoing quarter for a project that is under construction. This comes just one day after Suntech, like its competitors, reduced its yearly guidance.