LDK Solar, one of the world's largest producers of solar wafers, has finalised a deal to sell three solar plants to Henan Xindaxin Materials for RMB140 million (US$22.4 million).
PV modules and wafers manufacturer ReneSola has announced the establishment of its Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa regional sales headquarters in Singapore.
SunPower has announced plans to restructure its Fab 2 cell manufacturing plant in the Philippines. The company’s Fab 1 facility was shuttered in April this year with some equipment transferred from there to Fab 2, to reduce manufacturing constraints during the second quarter.
Overcapacity in the c-Si ingot/wafer supply chain has forced materials specialist, Cookson to close one of its two ingot crucible production plants in China, with immediate effect. The company had closed a similar plant in the Czech Republic in July 2012, which has supplied crucibles, primarily to the European market. Major European-based ingot/wafer producers such as PV Crystalox are down below 30% capacity utilization on the back of weak demand.
SolarCity has expanded its presence in the northeast with new locations in New York’s Westchester County and Long Island joining its recently magnified Albany operations centre.
French trade union the CGT has expressed concern over the proposed idling of module production at Bosch’s Vénissieux plant in France for two weeks at the end of October.
Already incorrectly type-cast by the mainstream media as the illegitimate love child of failed copper indium gallium di selenide (CIGS) thin-film manufacturer, Solyndra, flexible CIGS thin-film start-up SoloPower has officially opened its first volume production plant in Portland, Oregon. Unlike other CIGS start-ups, SoloPower uses proprietary roll-to-roll processes via electro-deposition processing as its differentiator.
