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Private equity firm Element Partners has announced that it is to acquire both Bekaert Advanced Coatings (BAC) and Soleras Ltd, with the two companies merging to form Soleras Advanced Coatings.
The chief operating officer of OPEL Solar has returned to retirement, citing the recent success and continued market growth the company has seen lately as his reason. Francisco Middleton came out of retirement in 2006 to develop the company’s HCPV technology and universal solar tracking systems.
Although new conversion efficiencies have yet to be ratified by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL), Abound Solar would seem to have caught-up with CdTe thin-film leader, First Solar. It may have an enormous task to close the gap on manufacturing metrics, but aperture area efficiencies of 12.2%, generating modules with 82.8W specification on existing production equipment is a good start. First Solar reached volume production of modules with an average efficiency of 11.7% in 2011.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has verified Alta Devices’ most recent and highest efficiency solar panel at 23.5%. The technology used for these panels was unveiled at PVSC37, Seattle, US, in June last year. The company announced its solar cell conversion efficiencies resulted from harnessing the high efficiency of gallium arsenide (GaAs) in cost effective ways.
Schneider Electric has signed on to provide construction services for Hevel Solar’s 130MW factory in Novocheboksarsk, Russia. The company will design and install the in-plant electric power, supply medium and low-voltage equipment and training of the technical personnel in the plant. The plant is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2012.
CPV provider, Alpha-Omega Power Technologies, has announced that Taiwanese company Solapoint has purchased its GEN2 solar simulator.
Though not independently verified, copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film producer, MiaSole has claimed it has produced a 17.3% champion device result, while the manufacturing process for 14% efficiency is now in production. To date, MiaSole has claimed it has shipped over 55MW of modules since starting production in mid-2009. MiaSole started production of 13% efficient modules in October, 2011.
According to Polyera, the Newport Corporation’s PV cell lab has confirmed that Polyera’s polymer/fullerene OPV cell has achieved a 9.1% power conversion efficiency with an inverted bulk heterojunction architecture using ActivInk PV 2000 semiconductor material. The company said its active layer materials are able to be deposited using a wider range of film thickness without lower cell efficiency, which is said to improve yields and simplify manufacturing.
Following the establishment of MidAmerican Renewables in mid-January, it has been announced former Phoenix Solar CEO Paul Caudill has assisted with the acquisition of the Topaz solar farm from First Solar. The 550MW PV power plant is being built in San Luis Obispo County, California and will have the capacity to generate enough renewable energy to power approximately 160,000 average California homes.
A debt-to-equity swap deal between Q-Cells and its bondholders has been agreed in principle, a situation that will result in the company’s being majority owned (95%) by the bondholders. In return, Q-Cells would be virtually debt-free and retain the €304 million of liquidity the company had at the end of 2011 to continue to restructure and continue operations. Q-Cells will also sell further non-core assets that could raise €200 million, which would be given back to the 2012, 2014 and 2015 bondholders on an equal basis.
