Suniva’s newest addition to the staff team is industry veteran Dr.Daniel Meier, who will head up the R&D section as Vice President. Bringing over 27 years of industry experience, he joins Suniva from theNational Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
LDK Solar has said that the severe weather conditions experienced inChina recently would have no significant impact on the progress of itspolysilicon plant construction.
SOLON AG’s recently renamed subsidiary SOLON S.p.A. has announced theestablishment of a new solar module production site in Carmignano diBrenta, Padova. With an annual capacity of 120MW, the company claimsthat the addition of the new site will bring the company’s total yieldto 150MW by the end of the year.
SunEdison’s solar energy operations development has seen theappointment of two new Senior Vice Presidents, the company announced.Jubran Whalan (pictured) is to oversee Business Development, while BobGrier has been appointed Senior VP of Engineering, Procurement andConstruction.
Dr. Immo Kötschau has joined centrotherm photovoltaics AG as Directorof Research and Development for the company’s new R&D center inBlaubeuren, Germany. He joins the company from the Hahn-MeitnerInstitute (HMI) in Berlin, where he worked on thin-film processdevelopment.
Sean Shao has tendered his resignation from the post of CFO of TrinaSolar to pursue other interests, it was announced by CEO Jifan Gao(pictured) today. His resignation comes into effect on March 31st,2008, and he will be replaced in the post of CFO on that date by TerryWang, who has joined the company as Senior Vice President of Finance.
EMCORE has signed a memorandum of understanding with SunPeak Solar forthe provision and installation of between 200MW and 700MW of turnkeysolar power systems for SunPeak’s project in Albuquerque, New Mexico.SunPeak expects construction of the utility scale project to begin inearly 2009.
Amtech Systems has received a further $4.3 million in orders to ship inits fiscal 2008. Since October 1st 2007, Amtech has received solarorders totaling approximately $33 million, the company said. The neworders were placed with its subsidiary Tempress Systems for diffusionprocessing systems, and are from two new German customers and afollow-on order from an existing customer based in the Asia-Pacificmarket.
Trina Solar has provided manufacturing guidance for 2008 and beyondwith the target of achieving cell efficiency rates of approximately 19percent for monocrystalline solar cells by 2010. Importantly, TrinaSolar expects to reduce wafer thickness to 140 microns by 2010 as partof its cost reduction strategies. Multicrystalline cell efficienciesare also expected to reach 18 percent in the same timeframe. Currently,the company plans to initiate production tests of 180-micron wafers andcells in the first half of 2008.