JinkoSolar Holding has opened new regional headquarters, for its Asia-based operations, in Singapore. The office will manage sales, logistics, financing, project development and customer service for the country. The company noted that with the opening of its new office in Singapore, it now has nine sales and marketing offices located on four continents.
French PV module manufacturer KDG Energy has begun the production of China Sunergy’s modules in France. The two companies have entered a memorandum of understanding in 2011, stating that China Sunergy (CSUN) will provide components for solar modules that KDG Energy will manufacture under CSUN’s brand name. KDG Energy officially commenced production of the modules in mid March 2011.
Air Products has completed and brought onstream its hydrogen selenide (H2Se) facility expansion at its electronic specialty materials manufacturing facility in Hometown, PA, USA. The newly expanded high-purity H2Se facility will serve the growing demand from the CIGS market for the compound, which is provided by Air Products to semiconductor and PV customers at more than 99.99% purity levels.
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.
AQT Solar advised that its Sunnyvale production facility had transitioned to a fully automated WIP management system, run by Sapphire Automation’s Emerald software platform. AQT noted that it had partnered with Sapphire in order to improve its equipment utilization and planning in order to ramp up its technology development and deployment cycles.
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.
NexPower Technology, Taiwan-based thin film manufacturer, is supplying thin film modules to one of the largest PV projects in the New Jersey area, a ground mounted installation generating 10MW of energy. Construction is expected to begin soon.
The partnership between Silfab SpA and ISC Konstanz has announced the achievement of a 21% energy conversion efficiency for large area monocrystalline silicon solar cells. The news is a result of the companies’ research partnership on ‘Zebra’ interdigitated back-contact (IBC) cells as unveiled by the joint venture last summer. It is believed that efficiency could eventually top 24% for the solar cells.
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.
Emphasis on high-performance module production and increased shipments to markets such as the US and Japan, to take advantage of growing utility-scale and residential businesses respectively, was a key highlight in JA Solar’s quarterly conference call. China, would also receive greater attention as partnerships with utility customers expanded its pipeline.
