Your daily dose of Photovoltaic Technology Developments and Solar News

Tokyo Electron (TEL) has established a new business, Tokyo Electron PV Limited, with Sharp Corporation to develop and commercialize high throughput plasma CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) systems for the thin film silicon photovoltaics market based on TEL’s experience in the large flat panel display industry.

According to TEL, it had undertaken a detailed field review of the PV industry before deciding to enter the market. Read more >>

Without the current handicap of polysilicon shortages, thin film CdTe PV manufacturer First Solar has revealed that it expects annual capacity to reach approximately 1 gigawatt by the end of 2009 with the expected full ramp of all four plants in Malaysia going to plan. Currently, First Solar has completed, slightly ahead of schedule, Plant 1 in Malaysia with equipment installation and line qualification ongoing. Plant 1 is expected to ramp production in the second quarter of 2008. Read more >>

SunPower Corporation has signed a multi-year polysilicon supply agreement with Jupiter Corp. that starts in 2010, continues through 2016 and equates to more than 3 gigawatts of solar cell production. Read more >>

Applied Materials executives gave a strong hint that the era of a ‘Giga’ watt thin film solar production plant using its SunFab manufacturing line technology was close at hand during its first quarter conference call with financial analysts yesterday. 
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Ascent Solar Technologies has purchased a manufacturing facility in Thornton, Colorado that will house several 25MW thin-film flexible solar module lines. The first 25MW production line is planned for completion by year-end 2009 and will be ramped to 100MW by 2011, the company said.
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Emcore said in its most recent quarterly financial conference call that its backlog in orders for its concentrated PV technology stood at $142 million. This did not include the provisional deal recently announced to supply 700MW of solar power systems for a proposed South West US energy utility project or a $300 million order placed by a Korea-based energy company. Read more >>

Moser Baer India Limited, via its wholly-owned subsidiary PV Technologies India Limited, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) worth more than $1.5 billion with an unidentified equipment supplier for thin-film PV equipment. Read more >>

LDK Solar has reiterated that its Trichlorosilane (TCS) plant at its Xinyu, Jiangxi site remains on construction schedule as the Basic Engineering Phase (BEP) has been completed, which includes the detailed drawings for the actual construction phase of the project. Read more >>

ersol Thin Film GmbH and SCHOTT Solar are pooling R&D resources to fast-track the eventual introduction of micromorphous thin-film modules that uses a double-layer structure consisting of an amorphous and a microcrystalline silicon film. The tandem cell design is claimed to increase module efficiency by 50 percent in comparison to amorphous thin film technology. Read more >>

Suniva, Inc. has secured $50 million in a Series B round of funding that will be used for the construction of a crystalline silicon solar cell plant in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Suniva has an exclusive license to the patents and processes developed at UCEP over 15 years at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s University Center of Excellence in Photovoltaics (UCEP) by Dr. Ajeet Rohatgi (pictured). Read more >>