Soventix Canada, formally Sovello Canada, announced at the Ontario Feed-In Tariff Forum 2012 that it has extended its material and workmanship warranty from five to ten years. The new warranty covers Soventix Canada's Sovello Project Pro Series and Consumer Pro Series solar modules, effective April 1, 2012.
Eyelit has completed tallying its financial results for Q4 and the full year 2011. The company did not release specific numbers, but advised that it had completed a record high in Q4 revenue with new customer sales doubling in 2011, over numbers in 2010. Eyelit noted that 50% of its new customers are large multinational corporations with revenues topping US$1 billion.
Solar Millennium’s week has started with a low as the company revealed that its US subsidiaries and investment filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Furthermore, the company’s former CEO, Utz Claassen, is suing the company, and certain of its subsidiaries, for US$265 million, claiming harm by defamatory statements to the public and press after he retired in March 2010.
Phoenix Solar advised that it had recently amended its restructuring plan, including its business development plan for the next few years, due to cuts in FiTs for solar power in several of its key markets. Due to the changes, the financial negotiations have been put on hold and the moratorium that was agreed to with the syndicate banks and other bilateral lenders and guarantors, including trade credit insurers, was extended at the end of last month to allow financing negotiations to continue.
Yingli Green Energy and FC Bayern Munich are jointly hosting the FC Bayern Youth Cup finals. The tournament comes after Yingli Green became an official sponsor of the FC Bayern last year, amidst a flurry of Chinese sponsorship in German football clubs. Yingli’s 3 year sponsorship deal with the club will give them marketing rights to areas such as tickets, advertising and public relations. It is hoped the event will help provide underprivileged children with the opportunity to play football and showcase their talents.
SAG Solarstrom’s sale of the 48MW Serenissima PV plant in Italy to an unnamed European investor will be concluded shortly, the company has announced. The completion of the sale was delayed by contingent high administrative efforts.
A recent report by market analysts Yole Développement has predicted that the PV equipment and materials markets will drive manufacturing cost reduction, leading to the purchase of in the region of 35GWp of new equipment by 2017. The report, “Crystalline Silicon PV: Technology, Equipment & Materials”, singles out the c-Si sector as facing a period of change whereby the low-efficiency portion of manufacturing capacity will be shut down in order to concentrate on the higher-yielding technologies.
Bloomberg BusinessWeek has reported that R. Todd Neilson, a forensic accountant and former FBI special agent, has advised in a recent report filed with the US Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Delaware, that Solyndra communicated truthful information about its finances to the government before it claimed bankruptcy last year.
After announcing last October that it was halting polysilicon production at its German facility and cutting wafer jobs in the UK, it is perhaps no surprise that PV Crystalox Solar has posted some rather dreary numbers for 2011. Group revenue was €210.4 million, 17% lower than 2010, due to what the company stated was the effect of lower average selling prices. EBIT, before exceptional items, was €4.1 million, a 1.9% margin. The company did note that shipment volumes of 384MW were reached in 2011, compared to 378MW in 2010.
Having posted record revenue of CHF 1.32 billion in 2011, major PV equipment supplier, Meyer Burger acknowledge that 2012 would be a lean year due to overcapacity and significant cuts to capital spending from PV manufacturers. The company guided revenue to be down significantly in 2012 and in the range of CHF 600–800 million and an EBITDA margin between 4–8%. Management noted that it didn’t expect a recovery in demand for equipment until 2013 and had started a restructuring plan to reduce operating costs with a 15% workforce reduction.
