Spire Corp. has announced the delivery of a solar module production line to ET Solar Group, located in the People’s Republic of China. Equipped with this line, ET Solar will be capable of producing up to 15MW of solar modules per annum.
SVTC Technologies has officially launched its Silicon Valley Photovoltaic Development Center, with the aim of becoming a leading RD&E center for the global photovoltaics industry. The new center is located in an 87,000 square foot facility in south San Jose, California, and cost between $20 and $30 million. The facility will also house a 5MW turnkey solar manufacturing line from Roth & Rau.
In a new report on the solar inverter market from IMS Research, revenues are projected to double in less than four years as a consequence of the continued fast-paced expansion of the photovoltaics industry. The market is led by SMA Solar Technology, according to IMS Research,controlling 33 percent of the global solar inverter market in 2007.
groSolar has signed a follow-on $175 million deal for solar module supply from Evergreen Solar for the commercial and residential solar market in North America. The contract will continue through 2012. The two companies had signed a previous contract worth $88 million in 2006.
With the photovoltaic industry growing at a compound annual growth rate of 40 percent through 2010, iSuppli Corp. is projecting that the global production of PV cells will reach 12GW by 2010, up from 3.5GW in 2007. To reach that figure, as many as 400 production lines with at least 1MW of PV cell production per year will be established, a four-fold increase from about 90 to 100 production lines in existence at the end of 2007, iSuppli said. Importantly, iSuppli sees the number of 1GW scale fabs to grow as part of the photovoltaic industry’s cost reduction strategies.
A new study by clean-tech research publisher Clean Edge and Co-op America, a non-profit green-economy organization, has suggested that the U.S. could attain production of 10% of its electricity requirements via solar power by the year 2025. The Utility Solar Assessment (USA) study provides a roadmap for use by utilities and regulators, as well as solar power companies, which outlines the necessity for involvement of utilities in scaling solar power in order to reach the 10% goal.
Renewable Energy Corporation ASA (REC) has announced plans to invest NOK 13 billion, approximately $2.5 billion in a new manufacturing complex to be built in Singapore that will include an initial capacity of 740MW of multicrystalline solar wafers, 550MW of solar cells and 590MW of solar modules starting in the first quarter of 2010. Full capacity is expected to be reached before 2012, and is being treated as ‘Phase 1’ of several planned developments, with the decision for the next expansion phase said to be made in 2009, according to REC.
Conergy SolarModule GmbH & Co. KG has named Mathias Kamolz as Managing Director of its Frankfurt (Oder) production site. Effective immediately, the new role managing the Oder plant will see Mr. Kamolz apply his semiconductor-related experience to building the business of the new solar factory.
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.
