Atlumin Energy has announced plans to open a manufacturing facility in Sunnyvale, California and intends to ship the first product from this new facility January 2010. This will include rotary sputtering targets for solar module manufacturers, to be followed by a full range of other products. With their California site, Atlumin will also provide chemicals, metals, fabricated products, specialized sputtering targets and reclaim services.
SunPower has completed one solar power project in California, and signed a deal for a series of others in Italy. The company finished a nonpenetrating, high-efficiency 1MW rooftop photovoltaic system on three buildings at Agilent Technologies’ headquarters in Santa Clara, CA, and also reached an agreement with Canadian energy company Etrion to build four solar power plants, totaling 4MW, in the Puglia region of southern Italy.
Bosch Solar Energy and Allianz Climate Solutions have entered into a partnership for the planning, financing, and turnkey construction of large-scale PV power stations of approximately 1MW. The agreements have now been signed.
Module manufacturer, MiaSolé, has started shipping CIGS thin-film modules from its California production facility. The company has now shipped its modules to 30 customer sites across Europe and the U.S.
DuPont Apollo, a subsidiary of DuPont, has opened its silicon based thin-film PV module manufacturing facility. The 538,000-square-foot facility will have an annual capacity of up to 50MW with a thin-film-on-glass photovoltaic module production line. Full-scale commercial production is targeted for the first-quarter 2010.
LDK Solar has signed an an agreement to sell a 15% ownership stake in its 15,000MT annualized capacity polysilicon plant in Xinyu City, China, to Jiangxi International Trust and Investment. The purchase price is approximately RMB1.5 billion (about US$219 million).
Yingli Green Energy announced at its annual global customer conference that its Yingli Solar brand modules have received the power controlled certification from TÜV Rheinland. The power controlled certification provides independent verification and assurance that the real rated power of Yingli Solar brand modules are within the specified tolerance stated in the company’s datasheets.
Shortly after eSolar announced its establishment of operations in South Africa and the Sierra SunTower in Southern California, they have now recruited George (Chip) Hambro, the retried COO of First Solar, to its board of directors. Hambro helped First Solar achieve a successful IPO, increase its global reach and focus its R&D to advance the thin-film technology and eSolar now looks forward to Hambro bringing his talent to their board.
Spire Corporation has released their third quarter revenue results for the period that ended September 30. The total revenue amounted to $16.5 million, compared to 2008’s third quarter $16.6 million. The net loss was $3.5 million this quarter compared to 2008, which saw a net income of $445,000. The losses include $1.2 million for 2009 and $77,000 for 2008 third quarter results for the company’s medical products business unit that has now been classified as a discontinued operation.
