MEMC Electronic Materials has said that a production problem at its Pasadena, Texas facility had impacted its utilization rate by approximately 20 percent. The lower than anticipated output would also impact revenues in the quarter.
Daisuke (Doug) Koshima has been named as successor to the CEO and Chairman role as vacated by Toshihiko Fujimoto, who has moved to take up the role of General Manager for strategic planning within Sharp Corp.’s International Business Group. Mr. Koshima, a 37-year employee of the company, departs from his former role as Corporate Director and Group General Manager of the International Business Group.
Spire Corporation has said that it has won a competitive bid to supply turnkey equipment for a combined solar module and solar cell facility from Jiangxi Gemei Sci-Tech LTD, based in Jiangxi, a southern province in China. The contract includes a 25MW multi-crystalline solar cell factory and an adjacent 25MW module facility.
Konarka has revealed in the Advanced Materials (Volume 19, Issue 22) journal its use of inkjet printing technology to deposit organic materials used in its thin-film PV solar cells. Konarka used FUJIFILM Dimatix Technology’s cartridge-based Dimatix Materials Printer (DMP), the first time such technology has been used to produce solar cells, according to both companies.
Q-Cells CEO Anton Milner said during a conference call with financial analysts that the major solar-grade silicon supply deal signed with Becancour Silicon, a division of Timminco, using purified metallurgical silicon would be almost exclusively used at its new 300MW solar cell facility, Line VII in Malaysia. The Malaysian facility is expected to start production early in 2009. The Malaysian facility would have an integrated ingot and waferingoperation attached to the solar cell facility, specifically designedwith proprietary processes that the company has developed to fullyexploit metallurgical silicon for solar cell production.
Solarfun Power Holdings said that it reached its expected capacity ramp target of 240MW at the end of 2007. The company expects capital spending to be in the region of $65 to $75 million in 2008 to add further lines to boost production to 360MW by mid-year 2008.
Becancour Silicon, Inc. (BSI), a division of Timminco, has entered into an agreement to supply solar-grade silicon to Q-Cells AG. Q-Cells will receive 410 metric tons in 2008 and 3,000 metric tons in 2009 at fixed prices.
A new joint venture company AES Solar has been formed to develop, own and operate utility-scale solar projects for partners The AES Corporation and Riverstone Holdings LLC, with an investment of $1 billion over five years.
WACKER AG has said that its polysilicon capacity is expected to rise from 10,000 to over 22,000 metric tons by the end of 2010. Its Burghausen plant which has been undergoing an expansion was completed 3 months in advance of schedule and reached a capacity of 3,500 metric tons at the end of 2007. Expansion Stage 6 was said to be running at full capacity since Q4 2007, according to CEO Peter-Alexander Wacker at an annual investor conference held in Munich this week.
SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES and Q-Cells will start a joint development program towards having a fully automated vacuum coating system for depositing anti-reflective layers on solar wafers to drive conversion efficiencies higher while reducing production costs, the companies have said.
