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First Solar analyst day post-mortem, Part II: Efficiencies will hit 12.5% by 2012, then surpass 16%

first_solarOne of the key tenets in First Solar’s cost-cutting and continuous improvement mantras is the ever-increasing conversion efficiency of its cadmium telluride thin-film panels.  "A tremendous amount of our ability to drive down cost has to do with improving the efficiency, one of the fundamental metrics that drives our technology," said company president Bruce Sohn during last week’s analysts meet. Given how progress has gone so far, 11% CdTe module efficiency should be right around the corner, with management exuding confidence that the magic number will pop to 12.5% within a few years. Beyond that, First says it will surpass the NREL "hero cell" efficiency of 16.5% with its production modules. But how?

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News

Enfinity wins 10MW project in China

03 July 2009 | Power Generation

PV-Tech’s report on Enfinity’s winning a 10MW PV plant development project has been confirmed. Dubbed the Dunhuang PV Project, a new initiative to construct a 10MWp solar power plant in the Dunhuang region of China will see the investment of 200 million yuan (€27 million). Enfinity, as project leaders, will oversee the installation of PV tracker panels on the site and will confirm the contract once it has established the Dunhuang joint venture company.

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DuPont, DOE join forces to develop moisture-barrier materials for flexible thin-film PV

03 July 2009 | Materials, Thin Film

dupont_flexpvDuPont and the U.S. Department of Energy will collaborate in a $9 million solar research program to develop ultrathin moisure-barrier material solutions for flexible thin-film photovoltaics. Some $3 million of the funding for the three-year effort comes from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, with DuPont contributing the remaining $6 million.

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Outlook update: LDK Solar sees growth in wafer shipments in 2Q, secures $146M in loans

ldk_solar_furnacesIn an updated second-quarter outlook, LDK Solar estimates its shipments of solar wafers will be in the 220-230MW range, up from its previous guidance of 200-220MW. The company also said it expects quarterly revenues to come in between $215 million and $225 million. LDK also secured two loans worth a combined total of RMB 1 billion (about $146 million).

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Newport’s Irvine PV lab gains ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation

02 July 2009 | Fab and Facilities

Newport CorporationPhotonic solutions company Newport Corp. has received ISO/IEC 17025 certification for its Photovoltaic Laboratory at Newport’s Technology and Applications Center (TAC-PV Lab), located in Irvine, California. The accreditation was awarded by the American Association of Laboratory Accreditation (A2LA).

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NV Energy seeks approval of One Nevada transmission line

02 July 2009 | Power Generation

NV EnergyNV Energy has announced that it will file with the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada (PUCN) its Integrated Resource Plan for the company's southern territory.

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SMA Solar opens CO2-neutral inverter factory; takes capacity to 4GW

02 July 2009 | Fab and Facilities

Solarvalue returns to the drawing board over UMG silicon viability

02 July 2009 | Materials

Yingli Green Energy PV module supplier on 10MW plant; announces overallotment option

02 July 2009 | Market Watch

Updated: Suntech plots three-phase 500MW project in Panzhihua, China worth US$1.2 billion

QuantaSol reaches high efficiency levels in move toward multijunction world record

02 July 2009 | Cell Processing

Blogs

First Solar analyst day post-mortem, Part I: 52 cents manufactured cost per watt seen by 2014

30 June 2009 | Chip Shots | Comments (4)

FSLRThe market watchers have already parsed, pared, and pontificated on First Solar’s newly modified business models, the nuts and bolts of what chairman/CEO Mike Ahearn calls the company’s "sustainable competitive cost advantage." But the updates on the manufacturing and technology sides of the business warrant some additional scrutiny. On the module side, company president Bruce Sohn outlined how the new five-year plan calls for 56-68% reductions in the cost per manufactured watt, driving down to a targeted range of 52 to 63 cents per watt by 2014. The largest portion of the cost cutting will be facilitated by conversion efficiency improvements (about 18-25% of the weight, with better throughputs, plant scaling, etc. also contributing). The impact of building factories in low-cost locations such as Malaysia has been much reduced in the current roadmap, dropping from accounting for 15-17% of the cost reduction improvements to 3-4% in the company’s new gameplan.

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Signs of the times: SunPower’s marketing campaign shows up at San Jose airport

23 June 2009 | Chip Shots

SunPowerThe solar industry has yet to have an "Intel Inside" marketing moment, but it's not for lack of trying--at least in some quarters. Remember the kinda-cool Sharp TV and newspaper ads that started running last fall? One of the latest efforts in increasing the public's photovoltaic awareness--and hopefully system sales--comes from SunPower, and its "Seize Today" campaign launched in early June. While waiting on my flight and strolling the San Jose International Airport earlier today, I came across two examples of the U.S. solar company's PVangelism on the terminal walls.

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Exuberance and ignorance: Survey finds mixed bag of solar-power knowledge among Americans (revised)

17 June 2009 | Chip Shots

When it comes to their knowledge about solar power, many Americans are both exuberant in their desire to see solar more quickly become a larger part of the country's energy portfolio and ignorant of just how much sun-based electricity is being generated by their utilities. A slim majority would pay more on their monthly energy bills if their utility ramped up the percentage of its power provided by renewables, but a significant minority would not. Many think the U.S. leads the world in solar, and most believe that the optimal, most efficient way to deploy solar power is on private homes. Those are some of the findings in the "Summer Solstice" thought leadership survey of the U.S. public's "understanding and opinions about solar energy," designed and analyzed by Ketchum Global Research Network and carried out by Braun Research on behalf of Applied Materials.

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Soft pretzels and CIGS: Even more from the IEEE PVSC/PV America event

15 June 2009 | Chip Shots

PHILADELPHIA—No one was jonesing for CIGS at last week's IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference—copper-indium-gallium-(di)selenide thin film-related programming, that is. Several oral and poster sessions were dedicated to the technology (or, in some cases, its copper-indium-sulfide cousin), while CIGS-specific presentations on window and contact layers as well as characterization and analysis approaches were also prevalent in other sessions. For a PV food group with less than 1% market share of the installed system base, CIGS had a mighty presence at the annual event.

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NREL’s declaration of preincubation: More from the IEEE PVSC/PV America event

11 June 2009 | Chip Shots

Cheesesteaks and conversion efficiencies: Short takes from the IEEE PVSC/PV America event

09 June 2009 | Chip Shots

California dreamin’: Pair of projects portray part of panoply of photovoltaic potential

05 June 2009 | Chip Shots

Show me what you got: Georgia Power demo project provides side-by-side solar PV module comparisons

03 June 2009 | Chip Shots | Comments (1)

Exclusive: A conversation with First Solar’s Bruce Sohn, Part III—‘You gotta think big’

27 May 2009 | Chip Shots

Going Places

Dr. James Hwang joins Amtech’s Board of Directors

01 July 2009

Amtech furnaceAmtech Systems, Inc. has added to its Board of Directors with the appointment of Dr. James (Jeong Mo) Hwang, an industry veteran with more than 20 years of semiconductor and solar industry experience. Previous posts include senior engineering and management roles at such major players as Spansion, Texas Instruments and Simtek Corp.

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JA Solar’s COO announces retirement

30 June 2009

Dr. Elmer HsuAdding to a long list of executive reshuffles in the past few months, JA Solar has announced that its COO Dr. Elmer Hsu (pictured) is retiring from the company with immediate effect. The company is promoting Baofang Jin, JA Solar's co-founder and chairman of the board since the company's inception, to executive chairman, while CEO Samuel Yang will retain his title, working with Mr. Jin to ensure a smooth management transition.

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Semilab names Dr. Chris Moore as new President and CEO

30 June 2009

Dr. David MooreSemilab, one of the world's largest metrology companies, has named Dr. Chris Moore as President and CEO of Semilab USA. This decision gives Moore responsibility for strategic direction and operations of all Semilab divisions within the US.

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Product Briefings

New Product: Satcon’s ‘Solstice’ distributed EMS designed for large-scale PV power plants

01 July 2009 | Power Generation

Product Briefing Outline: Satcon Technology Corporation has introduced the ‘Satcon Solstice’, a utility grade DC architecture solution for highly efficient power conversion for large scale solar power plants. It delivers fine grained power harvesting and control with critical utility ready grid interconnection, and will boost total power production by 5-12 percent over designs using standard inverters.

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New Product: Stangl’s new wet line removes silicon-chunk surface contaminants

01 July 2009 | Materials

Stangl, Materia PceProduct Briefing Outline: Stangl Semiconductor Equipment AG is introducing a new wet chemical etching tool, the Materia PCE, for removing surface contaminants from chunks of polysilicon or upgraded metallurgical silicon (UMG) as a result of the crushing process.

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New Product: Bekaert’s one-piece AZO rotatable target delivers superior TCO layers

25 June 2009 | Thin Film

Product Briefing Outline: Bekaert Advanced Coatings, has introduced a one-piece AZO rotatable target for thin film photovoltaic (PV) applications. The new AZO rotatable target is the latest member of Bekaert’s extensive range of rotatable sputter targets with materials for the deposition of TCO layers and back contact used in photovoltaic cells. TCO layers are essential building blocks for all thin film PV (amorphous silicon (a-Si), cadmium telluride (CdTe) and CI(G)S) applications, where optical transmission and electrical conductivity are required simultaneously.

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