The North Face, a supplier of outdoor apparel, equipment and footwear, announced its completion of a 1MW solar electricity system at its West Coast distribution center in Visalia, California. The new system will power between 25 and 30 percent of the facility’s energy needs. It was designed, engineered and installed by Suntech Energy Solutions, while financed, owned and operated by Recurrent Energy. 100 percent of the electricity will be sold to The North Face under a power purchase agreement from Recurrent Energy.
BP Solar’s 50MW photovoltaic cell and module manufacturing plant in Sydney Olympic Park, Australia is to close at the end of March 2009, as the company focuses production at larger scale facilities in other parts of the world. Approximately 200 jobs will be affected by the closure, but BP Solar said it would continue to market and sell its solar systems in the country.
Solyndra has signed a long-term sales contract with Carlisle Energy Services, a newly formed division of Carlisle Construction Materials, to supply its proprietary cylindrical-tube-based copper-indium-gallium-(di)selenide (CIGS) solar panels for rooftop applications. The multiyear sales contract--said to be worth up to $320 million-- brings Solyndra's total announced order backlog to more than $1.5 billion.
Centrotherm photovoltaics said it is buying Michael Glatt Maschinenbau, a 74-year-old Bavarian manufacturer of industrial pressure containers and apparatus, from previous owner Büechl Handels-und Beteiligungs for a purchase price said to be in the single-digit millions of euro.
Silicon Genesis Corporation (SiGen) and NorSun AS have endorsed an equipment development and supply agreement. NorSun will assess SiGen’s PolyMax “kerf-free” substrate samples and work together in optimizing the high-volume manufacturing equipment design that can process silicon ingots into kerf-free wafers of 150?m thickness and below. Their new agreement also contains commercial terms for the supply of HVM production equipment to NorSun.
Eyelit, Inc., a manufacturing software provider for visibility, control and coordination of manufacturing operations for the aerospace and defense, discrete electronics, semiconductor and photovoltaic penal industries, released revenues for its first nine months of 2008. It recorded a two times increase in its third quarter revenue, the highest third quarter revenue recorded in company history.
Sunovia Energy Technologies, Inc. and EPIR Technologies, Inc. have successfully demonstrated the optical down-conversion for increased solar cell energy efficiency. This proves to be a significant advancement for the maximization of solar cell efficiency and will play a distinctive role in the commercialization of the companies high-efficiency solar cells. Dr. Jacqueline Johnson completed the optical down-conversion during her employment at EPIR, under the direction of Dr. Paul E. Hausgen, for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate program.
Kyocera Corporation is to construct a new large-scale solar cell manufacturing facility, which will be located in Yasu City, Shiga Prefecture, and will be the largest of the Kyocera Group’s Japan-based solar cell manufacturing plants. The new plant will manufacture the Back Contact Cell, developed in 2006, which achieves an 18.5% energy conversion efficiency rate. Construction is scheduled to start in 2009 with completion within the year so that production can begin in the spring of 2010.
Concentrator photovoltaics company SolFocus has introduced a CPV system targeting the medium- and utility-scale markets. The SolFocus 1100S can achieve panel efficiencies of 25%, resulting in systems which the company says produce the highest energy density and energy yield of any PV systems on the market.
Hoku Materials has signed a silicon metal supply agreement with Polymet Alloys. The wholly owned subsidiary of Hoku Scientific said it plans to use the metallurgical-grade silicon for the production of trichlorosilane, a critical raw material in the manufacture of solar-grade polysilicon.
