Daqo New Energy’s first quarter 2011 financials show the company increasing their revenues, income and polysilicon shipments over 2010’s fourth quarter results, but the company still holds a conservative outlook for its second quarter 2011. Revenues for Q1 amounted to US$87.3 million, a 6.6% increase over Q4 2010. The company acknowledges that its revenue growth can be credited to an escalation in its polysilicon sales, which amounted to 1,089MT during Q1.
SolarBridge Technologies’ plans to increase the production capacity to over 70MW for its Pantheon microinverter have reached a promising new level with the beginning of the microinverter’s volume production at Celestica’s facility in Dongguan, China. SolarBridge further reveled that it has opened an office in Shenzen, China to support manufacturing and operations with a staff that specializes in manufacturing, test engineering and logistics.
The Solar Trust of America has formed a joint venture with SolarHybrid as it looks to establish itself in the solar industry. The new company, SolarHybrid of America, has already signed a letter of intent to establish a range of utility-scale projects in North America. This portfolio will include stand-alone systems, as well as projects incorporating concentrated solar power (CSP).
JSW Green Energy has placed an order for 500kW of United Solar’s thin-film laminates to help power a portfolio of planned on-grid rooftop projects in India. These installations are the latest signal of JSW’s intent to establish itself as one of India’s premier private power producers.
Bentek Solar has received ETL listing to UL 1741 and CSA 22.2 certification for its circuit breaker recombiners for commercial and utilty-scale PV solar power systems. The San Jose-based balance of systems design and manufacturing firm said it has shipped more than 100MW recombiner products to several North American customers.
Natcore Technology scientists working at Ohio State University have continued to make progress on the development of the company's liquid-phase deposition (LPD) process, demonstrating how it can be used to apply an antireflective coating to textured solar cells as well as standard planar cells. The company said this could help open the door for the industry to achieve even further wafer thickness reductions by eliminating the thermal vacuum AR coating process.
Sanyo Canada will supply the Westburne division of Rexel Canada Electrical with solar modules, which will be available at the distributor's locations across the country. The strategic partnership will help facilitate the supply of quality PV components to the growing number of electrical contractors in Canada operating in the solar field, according to the companies.
Later this year, DuPont Microcircuit Materials (MCM) is expecting to commercially launch a new version of its Solamet brand of PV metallization pastes that are claimed to significantly reduce the silver (Ag) content. MCM plans a new product that will reduce the silver content by 10%, having accelerated development efforts that should at a later time see a 20% reduction in silver content, all designed to be near drop-in replacements for current products.
Photowatt Ontario has entered an agreement, which will see it supply 24MW of its solar PV modules to a global supplier of solar power serving the Ontario solar market. Photowatt Ontario did not disclose the name of its customer, or the financial details of the supply deal, but did advise that the supply agreement is a two-year commitment between the two companies.
Applied Energy Technologies (AET) is further developing its solar-mounting solutions production with the opening of its new 43,100 square foot manufacturing and warehouse facility in Maumee, Ohio. The new facility includes a 41,600 square foot manufacturing and warehouse space, along with 1,500 square feet of office space and triples AET’s US production capacity.
