Intel Corporation has spun off solar cell technology developed in-house under its New Business Initiatives group that is designed to stimulate new businesses from Intel employees. The start-up is called SpectraWatt, with the lead investor being Intel Capital. Other investors in the $50 million round include Goldman Sachs, PCG Clean Energy and Technology Fund (“CETF”) and German module manufacturer Solon AG, presumably an expected customer of SpectraWatt. How much Intel or the other partners actually invested was not made clear.
LDK Solar has signed a five-year solar wafer supply agreement with China-based Jiangxi Solar PV Corporation (JSPV), a venture created by Solar PV Corp. The agreement will see LDK provide approximately 70MW of multicrystalline solar wafers to JSPV from 2009 to 2013, with JSPV paying an upfront advance payment of a portion of the overall agreement cost to LDK Solar.
Brian Jacolick (pictured), former Vice President of sales for SunEdison, has been promoted to General Manager for the North America region and in this role will oversee operations for the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. Mr. Jacolick will be based in Beltsville, Maryland, and will report directly to CEO Tom Rainwater.
Continuing its strategy to leverage semiconductor and related technologies to the photovoltaics industry, IBM has said that IBM Research is targeting 15 percent plus conversion efficiencies for CIGS solar cell modules. Current CIGS thin-film cells achieve efficiencies in the range of 8 to 12 percent.
Polysilicon and multicrystalline wafer manufacturing start-up, Prime Solar, headquartered in Perth, Australia has selected CDI Corp to undertake detailed engineering design work for the construction of a polysilicon manufacturing facility near Leipzig, Germany. The contract was signed with CDI Engineering Solutions, a division of CDI Corp.
Dr. Stephen R. Forrest (pictured) has been added to the Applied Materials Board of Directors and also to the Strategic Committee of the Board. An expert in the fields of optoelectronics and organic compounds, Dr. Forrest is a well-known lecturer, fellow of IEEE and recipient of many awards for his inventions and innovations.
During the Intersolar exhibition held last week in Munich, Germany, SCHOTT Solar announced plans to accelerate the capacity targets of its parabolic trough technology (Concentrated Solar Power) by the end of 2009 to approximately 1GW, and also announced a target of 1GW of annual capacity for PV production by 2012.
An Italian start-up, Estelux, has given a contract to Jacobs Engineering Group Inc., to oversee the construction of it first polysilicon production facility to be built on an existing petrochemical site in Ferrara, Italy. SOLON Group was said to be an owner of shares in Estelux. The plant is expected to cost approximately €360 million and produce 4,000 tins of polysilion per year with full capacity expected to be reached in 2010.
SOLON S.p.A. has concluded a framework agreement with Deutsche Bank that will see the construction of turnkey solar power plants with a total capacity of 150MWp in Italy. The agreement between the Italian subsidiary of Solon AG and Deutsche Bank will run from 2008 to 2010, with the majority of the solar parks to be located in the south of Italy.
With plans to boost its sales into the photovoltaic market to over $1 billion in sales in the next five years from approximately $300 million currently, DuPont has said that it will more than double its production capacity of thick-film metallization pastes at its Electronic Materials DuPont Dongguan Ltd. (EMDD) facility in China.
