Damage limitation to JinkoSolar’s image and reputation kicked into gear during a hastily arranged telephone conference call to provide its side of the fluoride chemical waste leak at its cell manufacturing facility in Haining City, Zhejiang Province, China. The leak into a local small river sparked demonstrations and damage to offices and vehicles at the plant that had been picked-up by the international mainstream media.
Softening end-market demand and production overcapacity have led to a significant decline in new PV equipment bookings in the second quarter of 2011, according to SEMI’s latest version of its ‘Worldwide Photovoltaic Equipment Market Statistics Report.’ Equipment billings reached US$2.03 billion for the quarter ended on June 30, 2011, an increase of 17% quarter-over-quarter, after declining 19% in the first quarter. However, bookings, a leading indicator were down 18%, compared with the previous quarter to US$1.79 billion. SEMI said that the book-to-bill ratio dipped below parity to 0.88 for the first time in the past six quarters.
Specialty gas supplier Air Liquide has announced that over the course of the past few weeks, it has signed long-term gas supply contracts worth in the region of US$15 million. The company credits the reduction in manufacturing costs and the subsequent move by smaller companies to move into high growth markets as having contributed to the significant increase in orders experienced by the company.
Two top executives of controversial thin-film PV company Solyndra won't be offering any substantive testimony before a Congressional subcommittee hearing scheduled for Friday. The company has issued a statement that, because of the ongoing investigation and on the advice of their lawyers, president/CEO Brian Harrison and CFO Bill Stover will invoke their constitutional Fifth Amendment rights, which protects citizens from self-incrimination.
Solar Frontier will be starting to put its Kunitomi plant to serious work as it recently closed a deal to supply over 30MW of its CIS solar modules to solar projects in India by the end of 2011. The deal with the National Solar Mission and Gujarat State intends to use Solar Frontier’s CIS modules in various solar projects as the company’s modules are said to deliver higher overall energy output under real weather conditions.
Saint-Gobain has begun construction on its first manufacturing plant in North America. Located in Goodyear, Arizona, the facility will house the company’s mirror line for solar thermal power stations and supply the domestic US market. The plant, with an estimated production capacity that corresponds to an annual thermal output of 300MW, is anticipated to be online by the 2011 fourth quarter.
Several days of angry demonstrations by local residents after a fluoride leak from a JinkoSolar-owned cell manufacturing plant have led to the plant closing. According to reports, the plant had been warned of environmental noncompliance earlier this year, but after residents broke through gates, overturning cars and ransacking offices, local government officials have ordered the closure of the plant in Hongxiao, China.
Berlin-based White Owl Capital had acquired 5 PV power plants built by Gehrlicher Solar Italia, a subsidiary of Gehrlicher Solar for an undisclosed sum. Using First Solar CdTe thin film modules and SMA inverters, all the plants were grid connected before feed-in tariffs were reduced at the end of August, 2011. The projects, with a total power of 10.4MWp, are situated in the regions of Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy.
The first to tout new order bookings directly from the EU PVSEC event, held last week in Hamburg, Germany goes to Singulus Technologies. The company noted that it received an unspecified number of orders for its ‘VITRUM’ wet-chemical processing system for thin film solar modules.
First Solar has completed two PV power plants in Ontario, Canada for Enbridge. The smaller, 5MW Tilbury Solar Project uses 82,500 CdTe modules, while the Amherstburg II Project, split over two sites of 10MW and 5MW, employs 244,000 of the same First Solar modules. Combined costs of the projects were said to been approximately CAD$90 million.
