Jim Pape has joined SunPower as president of the residential and commercial business group. The company has also established a business group profit and loss (P&L) organizational structure to align its sales, engineering, construction, and customer service teams. Howard Wenger will now serve as president of the utilities and power plants business group.
SMG Indium Resources has closed a private placement for total gross proceeds of US$5,818,000. Rodman & Renshaw acted as placement agent for the offering. SMG plans to use the net proceeds to purchase and stockpile processed and mined indium ingots and for general corporate and working capital purposes.
JA Solar Holdings has appointed Dr. Peng Fang as chief executive officer, effective immediately. Fang will work alongside Baofang Jin who will remain in his role as executive chairman.
Privately held materials supply specialist Targray Technology International said it has seen a 128% increase in sales volume from its solar grade silicon, ingot, and off spec or scrap materials business during 2009. Although a difficult year for the industry, the company cited its global infrastructure and specialist staff for the business increase in 2009. Targray has been involved in the distribution of solar-grade silicon to wafer, cell and module manufacturers in the PV industry, only since 2006.
The U.S.-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has confirmed a new conversion efficiency record for CIS (copper indium selenide) thin film modules fabricated by Avancis. Published in the journal ‘Progress in Photovoltaics,’ NREL confirmed a 15.1 % conversion efficiency for a 30 x 30 cm², fully encapsulated CIS solar module, based on the aperture area of 668 cm². Avancis produced the results in its R&D lab in Munich, Germany. The thin film start-up has produced 11% efficiency levels at its 20MWp/pa capacity plant in Torgau, Saxony.
As part of its plans to boost multi-crystalline solar wafer production capacity to as much as 2GW in 2010, Jiangsu GCL Silicon Material Technology Development Co., a wholly-owned subsidiary of GCL-Poly Energy has placed an order with Meyer Burger for wafer slicing equipment worth CHF35 million. Wafer inspection systems from Hennecke Systems, a subsidiary of Meyer Berger, have also been purchased. Delivery is scheduled for completion in the third quarter of 2010.
Advanced Energy has partnered with AMEC to provide SiteGuard services for Colorado State University's 2MW PV solar power plant located in Fort Collins, Colorado under a multi-year agreement. The new solar facility started producing power in December 2009 and will be fully commissioned in early 2010.
General Plasma (GPI) has appointed Dr. Troy Shangguan as its chief technology officer (CTO). Shangguan comes to GPI from Applied Materials, where he worked at the director of advanced technology.
Single crystal substrate start-up, Confluence Solar is to build a solar silicon ingot plant on a 25 acre site in Clinton, Tennessee at a cost of US$200 million. The company claims that its ‘HiCz’ single crystal ingot growing technology offers 15% better cell conversion efficiencies but at a cost comparable or better than using multi-crystal silicon ingots. Tennessee is fast becoming a hub for polysilicon producers with new plants being built by Hemlock Semiconductor and Wacker Chemie, in the state.
Xslent Energy Technologies has received UL 1741 approval for the XPX A1000 smart grid micro PV inverter. The XPX A1000 is targeted to the residential and commercial markets and will be licensed and distributed under the Powered by XETTM label.
