Your daily dose of Photovoltaic Technology Developments and Solar News

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 >>

Hemlock Semiconductor, the joint venture of Dow Corning, Shin-Etsu Handotai and Mitsubishi Materials, has said that it has started polysilicon production at its $1.5 billion expansion project in Hemlock, Michigan, USA. Hemlock reiterated that the expansion would add approximately 9,000 metric tons of polysilicon annually, Read more >>

Canadian Solar, Inc. (CSI) and Becancour Silicon, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Timminco, Ltd., have confirmed that they have reached the supply and quality targets as set out in their original contract of April 4th, 2007. As a result of this, Canadian Solar plans to formally launch its e-Module product at the Intersolar Trade Show in Munich on June 12-14th, 2008. Read more >>

Sailing New Energy Resources Co., Ltd. has signed a supply agreement with Yingli Green Energy for the provision of polysilicon from the fourth quarter of 2008 until the end of 2010. Sailing, a Chongqing, China-based polysilicon supplier, will supply polysilicon during the period that will facilitate Yingli Green Energy’s production of between 160MW and 200MW of PV modules. Read more >>

Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. has acquired a minority stake in Shunda Holdings, a China-based solar wafer manufacturer. The transaction saw Suntech hand over $98.9 million to Actis, a private equity investor for emerging markets, and to Waichun Investment Fund. Read more >>

Baoding Yingli Group Co. Ltd. has announced its intention to enter the realm of polysilicon manufacturing. Yingli Group expects to establish a green field project, primarily using Siemens methodology, to manufacture 3,000 metric tons of polysilicon annually in Baoding, China. Read more >>

Canadian Solar has said that it has converted a solar cell production line to use 100 percent upgraded metallurgical grade (UMG) silicon for an expected output of 30-40MW of its low-cost PV ‘e-Modules’ in 2008, primarily for the European and U.S. markets. The UMG line became operational in April with approximately 1MW so far produced. Read more >>