1366 Technologies said it has completed its National Renewable Energy Laboratory PV Technology Preincubator program six months ahead of schedule. The crystalline-silicon photovoltaic equipment company signed the contract with NREL in October 2009 for the development of its "Direct Wafer" technology, a "kerfless" approach which produces compatible silicon wafers directly from the silicon melt without casting or sawing and has the potential to reduce wafer production costs by as much as 70%.
Sharp Solar Energy Solutions has been chosen to provide the photovoltaic panels for a 3.2MW solar system at the Denver Federal Center (DFC), one of the largest Federal agency centers in the U.S. This project, funded through the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was awarded by the General Services Administration in December 2009. Construction will begin in April.
In another example of consolidation within the solar industry, Advanced Energy Industries has signed a definitive agreement to buy PV Powered, a manufacturer of grid-tied photovoltaic inverters in the residential, commercial, and utility-scale markets.The purchase price, a combination of cash and AE stock, could rise to as high as $90 million, depending on PV Powered's financial performance for the year.
Underwriters Laboratories has opened what it calls Europe's largest solar PV testing and certification facility--the Photovoltaic Technology Center of Excellence located near the Frankfurt/Main airport in Germany. The new lab joins UL's existing PV centers in San Jose, CA, and Suzhou, China; the company says it also has plans for new facilities in Japan and India in the works.
Photovoltaics and semiconductor materials provider Voltaix has received $10 million in equity financing from private investment firm MissionPoint Capital Partners. The company also announced the appointment of Mark Schwartz, cofounder and chairman of MissionPoint (and former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia), to its board.
CIGS thin-film PV producer Nanosolar has replaced long-time CEO and company cofounder Martin Roscheisen with semiconductor industry veteran Geoff Tate. The company offered no mention of the ousted chief exec in its official press release, let alone an explanation of the reasons behind the leadership change or any details of his plans, although a spokeswoman did confirm to PV-Tech that Roscheisen will remain as a director on the Nanosolar board.
Flextronics has dedicated 1 million square feet to create a "Clean Tech Super Site" at its established facility in Port of Tanjung Pelepas, Malaysia. The electronic manufacturing services company already has a range of solar photovoltaics module production capabilities operational at the PTP location, with development plans to increase its site capacity to support 1GW of module production over the next two years.
Premier Power Renewable Energy said that its Spanish solar project development and construction operations have reached record contract backlog in its first quarter of 2010, with more than 3MW of residential and commercial photovoltaic rooftop contracts secured.
SolFocus is installing a 1MW high-concentrator photovoltaics system at Victor Valley College in the high desert of California. Construction of the HCPV installation, which consists of 122 of the company's SF-1100S 8.4KW arrays spread across six acres, is taking place on the college's main campus in Victorville, CA. When the power plant is completed in May, it will generate about 2.5 million kilowatt-hours annually (roughly 30% of the college's electricity demand) and be the largest facility of its kind in North America, according to SolFocus.
Applied Materials announced last week that it has opened the newly expanded Tainan Manufacturing Center in southern Taiwan, a nearly 15,000 square-meter facility that the company says will enhance its capability to serve thin-film solar photovoltaic and flat-panel display (FPD) customers in Asia. The center employs approximately 150 people and is expected to build and ship about 100 new plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and physical vapor deposition (PVD) production systems this year
