Mark Osborne

Evergreen Solar has signed a second supply agreement with polysilicon supplier DC Chemical, which will bring the agreement’s lifespan through to 2015.

EMCORE has signed a memorandum of understanding with SunPeak Solar forthe provision and installation of between 200MW and 700MW of turnkeysolar power systems for SunPeak’s project in Albuquerque, New Mexico.SunPeak expects construction of the utility scale project to begin inearly 2009.

Voltaix, LLC has said that it has significantly increased theproduction of trimethylboron to meet growing demand from the PVthin-film manufacturing industry. The product specifications for oxygenand other key contaminants have also been improved to ensure that theproduct will continue to meet the performance requirements of the solarindustry, the company said.

Consarc Corporation has announced that it will form a new division tobuild and market furnaces for solar grade silicon volume production.The company currently makes vacuum and controlled atmosphere furnacetechnologies for the processing of metals, specialty alloys andengineered materials. Consarc is a subsidiary of Inductotherm Group.

Product Brief Outline: Sputtering Materials, Inc. is now offering high-density casted CIG (CuInGa) targets for thin film deposition in rotatable and planar form factors for thin film solar production. The casted targets offer high-density (99% +) materials that offer thin film technicians greater control and better material utilization in thin film deposition, physical vapor deposition and sputtering system processing. 

Not your average eBay item up for grabs, rather a piece of photovoltaictechnology history. Nanosolar, roll-to-roll Copper Indium GalliumDiselenide (CIGS) PV solar start-up, has put one of its first threeproduction line commercially-produced PV modules (Panel #2) up for saleon eBay with a $10,300 starting price!

As part of Solland Solar Cells’ planned capacity ramps, the crystallinesilicon cell producer has secured a new and extended multi-crystallinesilicon wafer supply deal with Renewable Energy Corp (REC) that runsthrough 2015 and is worth approximately €500 million to the company.The agreement is structured as a take-and-pay contract withpre-determined prices and volumes for the entire contract period.

SunPower Corporation has signed a five-year agreement with Jiawei SolarChina Co., Ltd. (Jiawei) to secure a supply of monocrystalline silicon ingots and silicon wafers, beginning in 2008. The deal is expected to enable SunPower to produce the equivalent of 900MW during the agreement period.

ersol Solar Energy AG has said that another new polysilicon supplycontract with Wacker Chemie AG has been signed that secures 300MWp ofcrystalline solar cell capacity from 2010 onwards and lasts for 9years. The forward-looking move is due to ersol Solar’s expectingpersistent polysilicon supply constraints far beyond current marketexpectations.

Due to continued polysilicon supply constraints, the price per kilogramof scrap wafers has reached $300 US dollars in a recent auction,according to a news story at DIGITIMES . This compares now with recent polysilicon supply contracts that are in the region of $300-330 per kilogram.