PPG Industries has activated a new 4,800-watt solar system, currently equipped with two 10-module arrays its Glass Business and Discovery Center. Credit: PPG.

Here’s what we are hearing (some from news releases):

JEOL opens new office in Brazil

A leading supplier of electron microscopes and scientific instrumentation, JEOL USA (Peabody, Mass.) and its parent company JEOL Ltd. (Akishima, Japan) have opened an office in Sao Paulo, Brazil to support its growing installed base there, and have relocated the personnel to a new facility this month. JEOL has enjoyed a 40-year history in Brazil, with the past 30 being through its agent, Fugiwara Enterprises. As the number of JEOL customers has continued to grow in the region, the company decided to provide direct support through JEOL service engineers, administrative and sales personnel.

Saint-Gobain Solar invests in new plant, the company’s first in US

Saint-Gobain announced that construction work on Saint-Gobain Solar’s mirror line for solar thermal power stations has begun. Located in Goodyear, Ariz., (near Phoenix), the plant will be Saint-Gobain Solar’s first manufacturing facility in North America. The facility will supply primarily the domestic market and will eventually produce millions of square feet of solar mirrors for thermal power station technologies (concentration towers, linear Fresnel lenses, etc.). The new solar mirror line is planned to come on stream in the last quarter of this year and will produce 50 new jobs for the area. This investment complements Saint-Gobain’s current solar mirror production base, which includes a parabolic mirrors plant in Portugal and a flat mirrors facility in Germany.

PPG activates solar array at Harmar, Pa., glass research facility for product testing by company and customers

PPG Industries has activated a new 4,800-watt solar system at its Glass Business and Discovery Center in Harmar, Pa., about 15 miles from the company’s headquarters in Pittsburgh. The system enables PPG to demonstrate for customers the value of its prototype and existing solar glass products, such as the Solarphire glass product line, and to help researchers and product developers gather real-world data on the performance of these products.

Riedhammer will supply two new foam glass production lines to Norwegian company Norsk

Riedhammer will deliver a foam glass production plant consisting of two fast-firing tunnel kilns with belt conveyance, as well as the associated mixing and dosing technology for the production of foam glass gravel. The new project will be realized with the Norwegian company Norsk Glassgjenvinning. The production start of the plants is planned for the first quarter of 2012.

First European “fast drying” plant of this type to be built in Poland with Sacmi-supplied technology

One of Europe’s biggest roof tile manufacturers, the Etex-Creaton group, has begun building a plant in Poland for the production of 30 million roof tiles a yea. This new plant’s entire drying department, which will be handling both tiles and trims, has been designed by Sacmi. The plant’s strongpoint is on-roller fast drying technology, which now makes its first appearance in Europe after several successful installations on other continents. During drying – completed in the record time of 220 minutes – the roof tiles are supported by special metallic frames that contain nine pieces.

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