A power outage on October 4 at REC’s polysilicon production facilities in Moses Lake, Washington, caused a complete shut down of operations. REC said there had been no safety issues, but it would be two to three weeks before full production could be resumed at pre-outage levels, resulting in a 500MT reduction to REC’s previously guided annual output at the facility of 19,000MT.
Although the financial costs remain unknown, an agreement has been reached over conservation issues arising from the 550MW Topaz Solar Farm project that First Solar is developing in San Luis Obispo County, California. A lawsuit against the project started by North County Watch and Carrizo Commons is expected to be dropped.
Having used Solyndra’s modules on a majority of its solar rooftop projects, EPC firm, Orion Energy Systems continues to champion the Chapter 11 firm’s technology and remains optimistic Solyndra could still emerge from the bankruptcy proceedings. Though its shares have fallen since Solyndra’s collapse, Orion Energy Systems claimed that it did not expect its business to be ‘adversely impacted.’
Constellation Energy has started to construct a 16.1MW solar installation in Emmitsburg, Maryland as part of the state’s Generating Clean Horizon’s initiative. The US$60 million facility will be financed, owned and operated by Constellation Energy with Maryland’s Department of General Services and the University System of Maryland purchasing the produced electricity under a 20-year PPA.
Citing recently undertaken ‘channel checks,’ Jefferies equity analyst Jesse Pichel said in an investor note that both Tier 1 & 2 China-based module manufacturers were running at ~50% utilization rates due to overcapacity and weak demand, especially in light of the lack of financing for PV projects across Europe. With respect to Tier 3 producers, Jeffries said that some have effectively stopped production and shut down plants.
Continuing to build its project pipeline, First Solar has been awarded the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for a 130MW solar park to be built in Imperial County, California. Tenaska Solar Ventures, the solar energy affiliate of independent utility company Tenaska, will operate the park and has a 25-year power-purchase agreement (PPA) with San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E), which was announced in March 2011.
Sopogy’s Concentrating Solar Collectors have received OG-100 classification from the Solar Rating and Certification Corporation (SRCC). The certification qualifies Sopogy’s collectors for the solar programmes of a number of US states and validates the performance of Sopogy’s collector technology. The SRCC is the US’s independent accreditor for solar thermal products and Sopogy’s MicroCSP collector passed all of the third-party laboratory and outdoor tests; it was awarded the OG-100 certification after meeting all durability, safety and thermal performance requirements.
Although the company has long held a presence in the country via its distribution network, Tenesol has decided to establish a subsidiary company in Marousi, central Greece. The company has appointed Manthos Kallios, formerly of PPC Renewables, as general manager of the subsidiary.
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.
