Manufacturing

Energy company E.ON’s solar subsidiary, E.ON Climate and Renewables (EC&R), has completed its US first projects, in Arizona.

PV system integrator, Phoenix Solar, has signed a contract with solar developer Silicon Ranch for a 38.6MW solar plant near Atlanta, Georgia.

SolarWorld has confirmed it will lay off 100 people from its plant in Hillsboro, Oregon.

Japanese PV manufacturer Panasonic is to close its module factory in Hungary at the expense of 550 jobs.

Citing changing market conditions and an extended period of consolidation within the solar sector, PV inverter market leader, SMA Solar Technology plans to reduce its headcount further by around 700 full-time positions in Germany by the end of 2014.

With the aim of achieving 20% conversion efficiencies but with lower material costs, Solliance and imec have demonstrated a CZTSe (Cu2ZnSnSe4)-based thin-film solar cell (1x1cm2, AM1.5G) with 9.7% efficiency.

Module manufacturer Canadian Solar’s project development subsidiary has sold a 10MW solar plant to energy provider TransCanada Corporation.

Having received an unspecified capital injection, CIGS thin-film start-up Solarion has successfully exited insolvency proceedings.

PV Crystalox Solar has sold its polysilicon production operations in Bitterfeld, Germany to the former management team, contributing €12.3 million to the renamed Silicon Products Research Engineering Production in the process.

US-based ultra-thin silicon wafer start-up Crystal Solar is planning to complete pilot production of its ‘Epi Thin-Silicon’ technology this year with volume production targeted sometime in 2014.