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Suntech Power’s new solar panel manufacturing facility in Goodyear, Arizona will now run for twice as long every day as it attempts to ramp up its annual production capacity to 50MW.
Sharp UK is to double annual capacity at its manufacturing plant in Wrexham, U.K., creating 300 jobs in the process. The expansion will increase capacity to 500MW and has been described as “excellent” by Chris Huhne, the U.K.’s energy and climate change secretary.
Aide Solar will be bringing 2GW of module capacity into one single facility once it completes the new 947,228 square foot addition to its production facility in Xuzhou, China. The second phase of expansion broke ground at the company’s existing 1 million square foot poly- and monocrystalline solar cell and PV module production factory, with construction expected to be completed and production started in the fourth quarter of 2011.
After examining its results for the past fiscal year, Schott Solar has decided to augment its global PV module production capacity to reach 800MW during 2011. To help facilitate its wafer capacity expansion, Schott has formed a joint venture with China-based Hareon Solar Technology. The first phase of the JV will add 300MW of Schott’s module manufacturing capacity to its existing 500MW capacity in place at its New Mexico and Czech Republic facilities.
Steed Technology recently completed the full acquisition of outstanding stock for Applied Technology Specialists (ATSI). Steed has confirmed that manufacturing of all products will remain in Northern California, while research and development will continue in Oklahoma. Both companies will now operate under the Steed name.
Princeton Power Systems (PPS) has opened its new Princeton, New Jersey facility, which will manufacture inverters and energy storage systems for the alternative energy divisions. In addition to housing PPS’s military-qualified variable speed drive product, the 10,000 square foot facility contains floors that are qualified for assembling 90” inverter cabinets. The new facility boasts various labs, including an inverter test lab, a printed circuit board lab and a variable speed drive test and assembly lab.
H.B. Fuller is to build an innovation centre of excellence for the solar panel and window industries at its world headquarters in St. Paul, Minnesota. The centre will centralise application and product development with the aim of providing manufacturing solutions to the company’s customers more quickly and efficiently.
Widely surmised from its takeover by the chemical company Hanwha, former integrated module manufacturer Solarfun will be a fully integrated PV producer in the future.
New PV module assembly plants are being built by Kyocera in the Czech Republic and China, which, when combined with existing facilities, will see Kyocera’s capacity reach 1GW in early 2013. The expansions at the two new plants will contribute another 620MW of nameplate capacity.
Parity Solar has enlisted the help of China National Building Materials (CNBM) to expand the production capacity of its existing PV module manufacturing facility in Zhenjiang, China.
