News

HelioVolt has added two key executives to its Board of Directors,namely, E. Kenneth Pentimonti, Principal at Paladin Capital and RonaldD. Bernal (pictured), Partner at Sequel Venture Partners.  Both ofthese new Board members were recent contributors to HelioVolt’s recent$101 million fund.

Analog and mixed-signal semiconductor specialist Micrel Inc has saidthat it has signed a long-term, multimillion dollar contract with anunidentified customer to supply commercial concentrated solar cellsusing its existing semiconductor fab, based in San Jose, California.

China Sunergy is to supply Canadian Solar with a total volume of 25MWof solar cells for 2008. Under the Agreements, China Sunergy willsupply approximately 12MW and 13MW of solar cells to Canadian Solar inthe first and second half of the year respectively.

Family run and privately held Baccini S.p.A, a specialist equipment manufacturer in the field of crystalline silicon (c-Si) photovoltaic (PV) cells, has been acquired by Applied Materials for $330 million in cash. Baccini was founded in 1967 and is regarded as an innovator in automated material handling, especially in respect to ultra-thin solar wafers. The transaction is expected to close in early 2008, according to the companies.

Perfectenergy International Limited (OTCBulletinBoard: PFEN) has saidthat it has received significant land and tax concessions from theShanghai government to enable the construction of two new solar cellproduction facilities with 200MW of total new production capacity inthe Shanghai Zizhu Science-Based Industrial district of Shanghai, China.

OC Oerlikon Corporation’s CEO Dr. Uwe Krüger has committed tosignificantly growing its solar business instead of selling thebusiness in the near-term. With a reorganization, headed by recentlyappointed Jeannine Sargent as CEO of Oerlikon Solar, the company willescalate production capacities, increase research and developmentactivities and enter new business areas more quickly, with reportsclaiming that acquisitions would be made where necessary.

New thin-film solar enterprise, China Solar Power (Holdings) Ltd (CSP),in collaboration with Tano China Capital Management, Inc. (TCCMI), andTano China Private Equity Fund II (TCPEF II), has signed an agreementwith ULVAC, Inc. of Japan to establish two thin-film solarmanufacturing lines with an annual capacity of 50MW. ULVAC will supplythe turnkey lines as well as the tandem junction process technology.

Solar modules fabricated by EMMVEE Toughened Glass and Photovoltaics Private Limited of Bangalore, India, utilizing Spire’s turnkey photovoltaic module assembly line factory have qualified for the TUV, IEC 61215-2005 and IEC 61730 certificates.

DayStar Technologies has priced a public offering of 15,000,000 sharesof common stock, all of which are being sold by the company at $4.25per share at an estimated value of $63.8 million.

Wacker Chemie AG and SCHOTT AG have laid the cornerstone for a newsilicon solar wafer manufacturing facility of their joint ventureWACKER SCHOTT Solar GmbH in Jena, Germany. Stage one will cost €50million with capacity expected to be ramped to 100MW by the end of2008. Manufacturing equipment will be installed in a two-storeybuilding with a floorspace of over 7,500m2.