News

High-purity metals and compounds supplier 5N Plus, Inc. has amended the materials supply contract with First Solar to run for an extra year to the end of July 2013. The companies have also agreed to increase the minimum amount of cadmium telluride (CdTe) ordered by First Solar by 50%.

Often touted as the next thin-film technology to take on cadmium telluride thin-film leader First Solar, copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) technology is set to grow and the use of indium, a key absorber material, will grow even faster. In a new report from NanoMarkets entitled ‘Indium Markets for Photovoltaics’, indium consumption is expected to see a rise of 80% by 2016, equating to 228 metric tons (MT) in 2016, up from the 20MT consumed today. However, the market research firm is forecasting that CIGS PV cells would represent only 8% of PV megawatts in that time.

ASYS is offering solar-cell metallization line upgrades to its customers, improvements that the tool and automation supplier says will increase capacity by as much as 22%. The upgrade kit consists of hardware and software changes and can be installed in three days.

Thin-film module manufacturer Sunfilm AG can now boast of five module sizes that have gained IEC certification, with the news that its larger module sizes have now received IEC 61646/EN 61730 certification. The company had been granted certification for two of its smaller module sizes earlier this year.

The first of Xunlight's 25MW wide-web, roll-to-roll photovoltaic manufacturing equipment lines has been fully installed at the company's 122,000-sq-ft facility in Toledo, Ohio, putting the operation on track to begin production of high-efficiency thin-film silicon PV modules. The company’s proprietary roll-to-roll equipment, the first of four systems in the pipeline, has been shown to demonstrate uniform deposition of triple-junction thin-film silicon solar cells.

Lotus Systems has announced its latest commitment to branch out into the US market. bringing its wet process, chemical and cleaning systems for optimizing the production of semiconductors and MEMS to the West Coast states by opening a new sales and services subsidiary.

Advanced Energy said that its suite of Solaron photovoltaic inverters has again achieved record-setting ratings in the California Energy Commission list of approved inverters.  The company said that its inverters exceeded their own record of 97% CEC-weighted efficiency by posting a 97.5% CEC efficiency rating last month—an achievement claimed to be unmatched by any other line of grid-tie, commercial, and utility-scale inverters.

Astronergy and its partners have formally launched the first 10MW phase of a planned 100MW solar photovoltaic power station in central China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Initially covering two square kilometers in Shizuishan City in the arid Gobi Desert region, the project is expected to be completed within three years.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) announced today that it has ordered an AIXTRON 2800G4-R MOCVD tool with automated wafer handler, due to arrive in the fourth quarter of 2009.

U.S Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced on Monday that Iowa and Michigan will receive federal grants in order to fund energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.