Linde has signed a long-term contract with Sodiff Advanced Materials for the supply of electronic-grade silane. The agreement, the duration and cost of which were not specified in the announcement, will see the delivery of the silane from Sodiff’s facility at Youngju, Korea, which comes on line in the second half of 2009. This contract will account for a large proportion of Sodiff’s 2,000-tonne silane production output.
Dyesol Ltd. has agreed to provide a turnkey R&D laboratory and comprehensive training in Dye Solar Cell (DSC) development with Korea-based Acrosol, a Korean University spin-out company. The €600,000 agreement will see the companies collaborate on the commercialization of Acrosol’s DSC technology and products via materials supply and technical co-operation.
The second long-term supply order for IBC SOLAR over the past few days brings the company’s total spend this week to approximately $2 billion. The company has placed an order with ersol Solar Energy AG for the supply of crystalline silicon solar cells over the next 10 years, an order that is worth over €500 million. The $2 billion total also takes the company’s recent $1.2 billion order with Evergreen Solar into account.
Oerlikon Solar has announced that it has received an order for two end-to-end thin film silicon production lines from Sunwell, a wholly owned subsidiary of CMC Magnetics. The first 60MW delivery will be to Sunwell’s Taiwan facility, while the remaining 120MW will be for Sunwell’s new site that is currently under construction.
MEMC Electronic Materials, Inc. has announced the signing of an agreement for the supply of solar wafers to the value of over $3 billion to Tainergy Tech Co., Ltd., a Taiwan-based solar cell manufacturer. The agreement, which will see MEMC provide Tainergy with solar wafers for the next ten years, will commence in the third quarter of 2008. The price of the wafers has been pre-determined, allowing for an estimate of the value of the deal.
IMS Research, a market research company for the electronics industry, has claimed that its figures indicate a more than 40% growth rate in the solar inverter market. The growth is being driven primarily by demand from Germany and Spain, but a slowdown in these two countries could contribute to a slowdown in growth for 2009. Data for this study were obtained from sales figures of leading solar inverter suppliers.
Sulfurcell has announced its intention to expand its manufacturing capabilities following a successful equity funding round of €85 million. The company plans the construction of a new plant in Berlin for the production of CIS/CIGS thin-film solar modules. The plant will have an annual capacity of 75MW, with an intermediate expansion to 35MW.
In an attempt to meet the increasing demand for high-purity silane gas in the PV industry, the Linde Group and Schmid Silicon Pilot Production have decided to collaborate on silane production via the joint ownership of a new facility in Dresden, Germany. The silane produced at this facility will contribute towards the current capacity for Linde’s customers and will be based on the new Schmid Monosilane Technology process.
Applied Materials has announced that it has won its first customer in Italy for its ‘SunFab’ 5.7m2 turnkey thin-film line. The new customer is Moncada Energy Group s.r.l., a leading private Italian producer of renewable energy currently using wind farm technology. Moncada is expected to build a 40MW plant in Campofranco, Sicily.
EMCORE Corporation has said that it has received two definitive supply agreements for solar cell receivers in June 2008 with a total value of approximately $29 million, which include advance deposits for production fast tracking.
