AES has closed its equity sale with a wholly owned investment subsidiary of the China Investment Corporation (CIC). The deal raises US$1.58 billion in new capital for the company. CIC acquired 125.5 million shares of AES stock for US$12.60/share in exchange for an approximate 15% stake in the company.
ECM, the custom developer and manufacturer of electrically conductive interconnect adhesives and gridinks, has appointed Mark Francis as it global business manager for the solar industry.
Solar Millennium CEO, Utz Claassen, has unexpectedly resigned after serving in the position for only three months. The company faced a management shake-up and tumbling shares this morning as the news reached concerned investors. Before exiting the company, Claassen referred to his contractual right to quit his office within a certain period. "The resignation came unexpectedly," said Helmut Pflaumer, chairman of the supervisory board.
China Sunergy has signed an agreement to acquire 100% of the shares of two related module manufacturers, CEEG (Shanghai) Solar Science & Technology and CEEG (Nan Jing) New Energy.
In another demonstration of the rush to add new ingot production to meet demand for c-Si solar wafers, Meyer Burger has received an order worth approximately US$235 million for wire saws, cropping saws and wafer inspection systems from an unidentified customer based in Asia. Deliveries of the equipment are expected throughout 2010 and 2011.
ReneSola has made several management changes including the appointment of a new chief strategy officer, CFO, vice president of finance and vice president of wafer sales. All management appointments have been approved by the company's board of directors and will take effect as of April 1, 2010.
Prolonged time frames for weathering testing services for PV modules due to capacity constraints could be easing with the announcement of a strategic alliance between Underwriters Laboratories and Atlas Material Testing Technology. UL currently operates Photovoltaic Centers of Excellence in San Jose, Calif., and Suzhou, China, and will open two new state-of-the-art testing facilities this year: one in Germany and one in Japan. Atlas Weathering Services Group has five laboratories and over 20 outdoor exposure sites around the world in a variety of climates, including desert, subtropical, high-altitude and corrosive.
Norwegian power generator Statkraft has reached an agreement with Siemens Energy to build up to 40MW of new solar capacity in 2010. The company opened its first solar power plant in Aprilia, Italy, which will go towards this goal, on March 11. The 3.3MW Casale solar park is expected to reach the annual power production mark of 4.5GWh.
Applied Materials announced last week that it has opened the newly expanded Tainan Manufacturing Center in southern Taiwan, a nearly 15,000 square-meter facility that the company says will enhance its capability to serve thin-film solar photovoltaic and flat-panel display (FPD) customers in Asia. The center employs approximately 150 people and is expected to build and ship about 100 new plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) and physical vapor deposition (PVD) production systems this year
Two grants totalling US$1.5 million have been awarded to SunPower from the California Solar Initiative Research, Development, Deployment and Demonstration (CSI RD&D) Program to explore the planning and modelling for high-penetration PV on the California transmission and distribution network. Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) is also partnering with SunPower on a second project to research the required hardware and software tools needed for providing bi-directional communication and management between PV systems and utility controls using advanced metering infrastructure.
