Manufacturing

Hanergy Solar is set to receive significant investment from its parent company as it prepares to ramp up its thin-film production capacity.

Shunfeng Photovoltaic is planning to place a 10-year convertible bond valued at HK$3,580,000,000 (US$461.77 million) with selected investors to pay for the US$492.3 million acquisition of Wuxi Suntech via court administrators in China.

Major tier one PV manufacturer, Trina Solar, is to take over operations of tier two module manufacturer, NESL Solartech, and expand capacity to 500MW.

Mozambique has officially opened the country’s first PV module production facility.

Manufacturing equipment firm Manz AG has raised around €26.9 million (US$36.6 million) an increase in cash capital, to be used for the ‘internal and external growth of the company’.

Fraunhofer ISE said it had developed a low-cost rear contact Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact ‘TOPCon’ n-Type solar cell that has achieved a conversion efficiency of 24%.

R&D centre, imec has implemented a laser doping process to its i-PERC solar cell that pushes conversion efficiencies to 20.2%, while claiming lower processing costs that could result in faster commercial adoption.

PV equipment supplier Spire Corporation said that it had completed the installation of a turn-key module assembly line for an unidentified customer in Eastern Europe.

Updated. Market research firm, IHS has reiterated growth projections for PV installations in 2013 of 35GW, while forecasting growth of only 15% to just over 40GW in 2014.

Silicon Valley manufacturer, Solexant, has announced a relaunch as Siva Power and a transition to focusing exclusively on CIGS thin-film PV technology.