Your daily dose of Photovoltaic Technology Developments and Solar News

Suniva has signed a long-term monocrystalline silicon wafer purchase order with REC to meet its initial PV production plans of 32MW capacity, and to reach 130MW over the next two years. The contract, Suniva said, ensures access to more than $300 million worth of monocrystalline silicon wafers through 2013. Read more >>

The Valspar Corporation has launched Flurospar, its range of enhanced solar reflective paint for aluminum extrusion and wall panels. The coating, which is designed to lower room temperatures of solar facilities, decreases the amount of energy required to cool components, thus cutting costs for facility operators. Read more >>

Hot on the heels of Intel Corp’s spin-off of SpectraWatt, the start-up has secured a multicrystalline wafer supply deal with PV Crystalox Solar for 125MW starting in 2009, through 2013. Read more >>

BioSolar has said that Connecticut-based Rowland Technologies, a manufacturer of plastic film and sheet has been selected to be BioSolar’s production partner for its bio-based materials from renewable plant sources. Read more >>

Silicon Valley start-up CaliSolar, which has an exclusive patent and several pending on the purification of Upgraded Metallurgical Silicon (UMG Si), has signed a purchase agreement with Timminco's wholly-owned subsidiary, Becancour Silicon, Inc., for 1,700 metric tons (MT) through December 2012, with initial shipments starting in the third quarter of 2008. CaliSolar will use unblended UMG to produce multicrystalline ingots and solar cells. "CaliSolar, using BSI's UMG Si, has made a major breakthrough in photovoltaic (PV) technology," said Dr. Eicke Weber, a CaliSolar founder and Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Freiburg, Germany. Read more >>

Voltaix, LLC, a specialty high purity gas supplier has been selected by XsunX to supply manufacturing quantities of its germane gas, used in XsunX’s tandem solar cells. XsunX is currently refurbishing an existing 90,000 sq. ft. building in Oregon to start volume production of its thin-film solar modules. "The use of germane allows XsunX to improve the efficiencies of our tandem solar cell design and we are very pleased to be working with Voltaix, a recognized leader in the production of germane gases," stated Mr. Tom Djokovich, CEO for XsunX. Read more >>

LDK Solar has signed a five-year solar wafer supply agreement with China-based Jiangxi Solar PV Corporation (JSPV), a venture created by Solar PV Corp. The agreement will see LDK provide approximately 70MW of multicrystalline solar wafers to JSPV from 2009 to 2013, with JSPV paying an upfront advance payment of a portion of the overall agreement cost to LDK Solar. Read more >>

Polysilicon and multicrystalline wafer manufacturing start-up, Prime Solar, headquartered in Perth, Australia has selected CDI Corp to undertake detailed engineering design work for the construction of a polysilicon manufacturing facility near Leipzig, Germany. The contract was signed with CDI Engineering Solutions, a division of CDI Corp. Read more >>

An Italian start-up, Estelux, has given a contract to Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., to oversee the construction of it first polysilicon production facility to be built on an existing petrochemical site in Ferrara, Italy. SOLON Group was said to be an owner of shares in Estelux. The plant is expected to cost approximately €360 million and produce 4,000 tins of polysilion per year with full capacity expected to be reached in 2010. Read more >>

With plans to boost its sales into the photovoltaic market to over $1 billion in sales in the next five years from approximately $300 million currently, DuPont has said that it will more than double its production capacity of thick-film metallization pastes at its Electronic Materials DuPont Dongguan Ltd. (EMDD) facility in China. Read more >>