Concentrated photovoltaics systems company Soliant Energy has brought Ben Jamison on board as its new VP of marketing. Jamison, who will report to chairman/CEO Terry Bailey, is a seasoned marketing executive with more than three decades of experience with leading companies in dynamic and growth markets. He will be responsible for all marketing-related activities at the Monrovia, CA-based CPV firm, including product management and field applications.
Recurrent Energy has named Patrick Caramante as its new VP of engineering and construction. In this role, he will lead the company's E&C Group, responsible for the design, installation, commissioning, and operation of Recurrent's portfolio of distributed-scale solar projects.
In a move to bring its production capacity up to 1GW by the end of 2010, Yingli Green Energy will add 300MW of monocrystalline-silicon-related solar manufacturing capabilities at its Baoding headquarters campus in China. The expansion news came as the company announced record PV module shipments for its recently completed fourth quarter and fiscal-year 2009. The vertically integrated company will build ingot, wafer, cell and module lines, and the solar cells will be based on the high-efficiency mono-c-Si technology developed through the Project Panda collaboration (which also includes the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands [ECN] and equipment supplier Amtech Systems). To help finance the new construction and buildout, the company has received a five-year project loan of RMB 1.5 billion ($219 million) and a working capital credit facility of RMB 250 million ($36 million), both granted by the Bank of Communications, Hebei Branch (BOCOM).
Eyelit has landed another customer for its solar PV manufacturing software--flexible CIGS thin-film module maker Ascent Solar. The PV company is using the suite to support the production ramp of its 30MW Fab 2 in Thornton, CO, which is slated to go live the end of March.
The U.S. Navy's Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) has awarded a $200 million contract to build up as much as 40MW of solar photovoltaic power plants at Navy and Marine Corps installations throughout the southwestern United States. Five solar developers/integrators--SunEdison, AECOM Energy/Solar Power Partners, SunPower, SunDurance Energy, and Chevron Energy Solutions--will compete for individual projects ranging in size from 1MW to 15MW.
In the second solar module supply deal announced by the vertically integrated Chinese manufacturer over the past week, Yingli Green Energy has signed a sales agreement with SunDurance Energy to provide more than 10MW of Yingli Solar-branded crystalline-silicon PV modules to the New Jersey-based solar power system designer/integrator through the third quarter of 2010. The deal is also the largest in SunDurance's history.
Reidar Langmo has joined the board of 1366 Technologies. Based in Oslo, Norway, the solar industry veteran is the CEO of VC firm Novus Energy Partners and was a cofounder of silicon PV company REC.
SunPower has signed a strategic supply agreement with Toshiba, in which the Japanese company will order 32MW of high-efficiency monocrystalline-silicon solar panels from the PV firm this year. The SunPower modules will form the cornerstone of Toshiba's new residential solar offering in Japan, to be launched April 1.
What has been Showa Shell Solar will soon be sporting a new name—Solar Frontier. The Japanese thin-film photovoltaics company will be making the brand change on April 1 as part of a plan to expand its global network and eventually hit a target of 1GW of sales per year of its copper-indium-selenide (CIS) modules to customers worldwide. The rebranded company will open offices in Northern California and Munich. A third factory, which will join the two existing production facilities in Japan with a nominal capacity of 100MW, will begin operations in Miyazaki in 2011. The price tag for the new 900MW fab has been reported to be around $1 billion.
Deutsche Solar has chosen Eyelit's manufacturing execution software suite to support its photovoltaic wafer production ramp at its new 500MW facility in Freiburg, Germany. Eyelit and its partner, Systema, were selected to provide a scalable MES solution for the management of factory assets and production, along with material traceability and visibility from raw silicon through wafer processing, including ingot and brick production areas.
