As part of its updated second-quarter and fiscal year 2011 financial outlook, SunPower boosted its expected quarterly revenues to between $550 million and $600 million, while annual sales are forecast to end up in the $2.8 billion-$2.95 billion range. Because of the new Italian policy environment, the company said it will be reallocating 85MW of product from its utility group in Italy to residential and commercial customers in Europe and elsewhere.
LDK Solar released its unaudited financial results for its first quarter, which ended March 31. While the company did see its gross margin increase both year-over-year and sequentially, revenue and sales were lower in comparison to its fourth quarter 2010 results. Q1 2011 revenue reached US$766.3 million, a 16.8% sequential drop from Q4 2010’s US$920.9 million. However, in a year-to-year comparison, sales grew 120.5% from US$347.6 million in Q1 2010.
Au Optronics (AUO) announced that it is working on strengthening its presence in the European solar market by working with its partners in Germany, Italy, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and the UK, while simultaneously focusing on escalating its business in the Middle East and Asian solar markets. As the company gets ready for its exhibition at Intersolar Europe June 8 through June 10, it advised that its latest 2MW ground-mounted project in Viglas, Slovakia would be using AUO’s EcoDuo PM220P00 module, which will be on display at the convention.
Belectric and Smart Energy Capital said that they have created a joint venture to develop and finance utility-grade photovoltaic power plants. The partnership will focus on multimegawatt sites in the United States, and will develop projects on a greenfield basis as well as through acquisitions from qualified developers.
Borrego Solar Systems revealed that its solar consulting and development services division has reached a milestone by advising on over 180MW of utility-scale solar project for independent power producers (IPP) and private landowners. The unit was created so that customers would be able to receive an analysis of a solar project’s viability, thereby helping IPPs and landowners possibly avoid a process that, over time, can cost millions of dollars while a customer looks into installing a utility-scale solar project.
Canadian Solar said its new ELPS solar cell technology can achieve up to 19.5% conversion efficiency for its monocrystalline cells and up to 18% for polycrystalline. During the fourth quarter, the high-efficiency cells are expected to be in production and modules incorporating them to ship, according to the company. These products and more will be among the firm's offerings at Intersolar Europe.
Toyota Motor Manufacturing UK has partnered with British Gas for a 4.6MW installation in Derbyshire, England. Costing a total of £10 million, the ground-mounted system will feature 17,000 Sharp 245W monocrystalline panels covering an area of 90,000m2 at Toyota’s UK-based vehicle plant.
Schott Solar’s Poly 225 PV modules received top honors after TÜV Rheinland completed its 2010 energy yield testing. The Schott module beat out 12 other competitors in a test that used real energy yield instead of climatic chamber tests and power measurements with a sun simulator. The test was carried out for a full year under real solar radiation conditions, with Schott’s Poly 225 placing first.
PvXchange has named Michael Mueller as CEO and Olaf Emmerich as CMO after the recent investment round from WHEB Partners. Mueller will oversee the company’s new international unit, pvXchange, in Zug, Switzerland. The company intends to continue recruiting and expanding its international reach while further developing its trading technology.
Swiss PV solution company HopSol has entered into a three-year contract with Solar Frontier. The deal will have a market focus in Southern Africa with Solar Frontier delivering double digit megawatts of its CIS solar panels for solar projects in countries such as Namibia, Botswana and the Republic of South Africa. The companies did not reveal the financial details of the supply deal.
