Echoing other PV manufacturers comments over weak demand for solar products in key markets such as Germany and Italy in the first-half of the year, Conergy announced after the German stock market had closed that it was retracting its 2011 fiscal year guidance of sales topping €1 billion. Conergy did not provide new guidance for 2011.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has offered a conditional loan guarantee totalling US$1.2 billion to help build a 280MW Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant in southern California. If confirmed, the DOE guarantee will help fund the construction and start-up of Abengoa’s Mojave Solar Project (MSP), which is to be located around 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles in San Bernardino County.
In an attempt to close the gap between design and manufacturing new PV inverter technology, SMA Solar Technology is acquiring dtw Sp.z o.o., one of Poland's largest electromagnetic components manufacturers. SMA said that dtw had been a supplier to the inverter firm for 10 years. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed, though dtw was said to have annual revenue of €74 million. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and scheduled to be completed in July 2011.
Several large sapphire furnace orders have helped GT Solar to almost double its equipment order backlog guidance from approximately US$1 billion to US$1.6 billion. However, technical upgrades offered to existing customers of DSS650 furnaces are tracking ahead of schedule, enabling GT Solar to raise revenue guidance for the current quarter to approximately, US$225 million, up from previous guidance of between US$140 million - US$150 million.
According to the United News of Bangladesh, top executives at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) have agreed to help finance a 500MW solar system, which will be built at locations throughout Bangladesh. The plan has officials proposing the 500MW solar system include solar irrigation pumps, solar rooftop installations in urban areas and mini solar grid plants in rural areas.
As part of its updated second-quarter and fiscal year 2011 financial outlook, SunPower boosted its expected quarterly revenues to between $550 million and $600 million, while annual sales are forecast to end up in the $2.8 billion-$2.95 billion range. Because of the new Italian policy environment, the company said it will be reallocating 85MW of product from its utility group in Italy to residential and commercial customers in Europe and elsewhere.
LDK Solar released its unaudited financial results for its first quarter, which ended March 31. While the company did see its gross margin increase both year-over-year and sequentially, revenue and sales were lower in comparison to its fourth quarter 2010 results. Q1 2011 revenue reached US$766.3 million, a 16.8% sequential drop from Q4 2010’s US$920.9 million. However, in a year-to-year comparison, sales grew 120.5% from US$347.6 million in Q1 2010.
Belectric and Smart Energy Capital said that they have created a joint venture to develop and finance utility-grade photovoltaic power plants. The partnership will focus on multimegawatt sites in the United States, and will develop projects on a greenfield basis as well as through acquisitions from qualified developers.
The nascent solar arm of electronics giant, Samsung has been shuffled into subsidiary, Samsung SDI, known originally for flat panel display manufacturing but more recently for lithium ion battery manufacturing. Samsung said that the transaction, valued at approximately US$148 million was to ‘manage the company’s resources more efficiently and focus more on its key businesses.’Samsung SDI will take over the solar cell business on July 1, 2011.
Morgan Solar has closed the first installment of its Series B funding round with US$16.5 million. The funding will enable the company to increase its manufacturing and deployment for its Sun Simba concentrated PV module. Existing investors Inversiones Financieras Perseo, of the Iberdrola Group, and Nypro were joined by new investor, The Frost Group. Morgan Solar is in talks with strategic investors to close the remainder of the funding round.
