Newport Corporation has continued to expand rapidly into the photovoltaics equipment market, now offering c-Si and thin film products that tap into its core technologies of lasers, motion control and optical systems. The company noted in a conference call with financial analysts to discuss fourth quarter and full-year results that orders to PV manufacturers had grown more than 150% in 2008, to reach US$33.6 million compared with orders of US$13.3 million in 2007.
Yingli Green Energy, a photovoltaic product manufacturer, has appointed Dr. Dengyuan Song as Chief Technology Officer, replacing Dr. Guoxiao Yao, who resigned to pursue other interests. Dr. Song will lead Yingli Green Energy’s research and development initiatives.
Adept Technology, Inc. has announced its financial results for the fiscal 2009 second quarter, ending December 27, 2008. Revenues were down to US$11 million, compared to US$14.4 million in the same period last year and US$14.3 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2009.
BP Solar has reported a production capacity decline for the fourth quarter of 2008. The reasons for this were a combination of the running down and expected closure of its 50MW photovoltaic cell and module manufacturing plant in Australia, as well as a fire at its joint venture production plant in India, Tata BP Solar. BP detailed the production disruption and decline in MW capacity in its latest quarterly financial filings.
Canadian Solar Inc. has opened its new 1500M2 PV Cell Research Center, which is located in the company’s solar cell Fab II in Suzhou. It consolidates the company’s R&D facilities to a single location and is meant to improve the efficiency and production yield of regular polysilicon cells and proprietary solar grade e-cells.
Digitimes reports that the Taiwan-based crystalline silicon solar cell producer E-Ton Solar Tech has received an order for 50MWp of solar cells from a previous client, with shipments to occur this year.
Market research firm, VLSI Research Inc., has compiled its inaugural, though currently a preliminary list of the Top 10 PV cell manufacturing equipment suppliers for 2008, based on sales. Although dominated by German based equipment suppliers, the market research firm noted that U.S. based Applied Materials was the largest supplier, with sales of US$455 million. Applied took the number one spot due to its acquisitions in recent years coupled with the recognition of revenues from its first ‘Sunfab’ turnkey thin-film installations, which entered production for the first time in 2008.
pvXchange has announced that Electrical Engingeer Martin Mesmer will be overseeing operations and sales as Sales Director for the North American PV-Market. Mr. Mesmer will be based in Oregon and California where he will be charged to develop the US business as one of the company’s core markets over the next few years.
Evergreen Solar, Inc. has appointed Chinua Ejeka to the role of Applications and Field Support Engineer for Europe. The appointment is an indicator of the company’s expansion efforts within Germany and Europe as a whole. Mr. Ejeka’s main responsibility in this role will be serving as Evergreen Solar's senior technical customer support representative for the company’s product and system performance throughout Europe.
Japanese utility Shikoku Electric Power Co. announced its plans to increase capacity at its only solar power plant by 4MW in stages by April 2010, according to Reuters.
