It appears the waivered salary of 2011 from Frank Asbeck, CEO for SolarWorld, was not wasted. The company has invested a total of US$27million to upgrade and replace several factory systems at its Hillsboro, Oregan, US plant. This particular facility was considered to be one of the ‘last plants standing’ in September 2011 because production lines were shuttered in Germany and throughout the US. The Hillsboro location also houses a demonstration park to debut technological advances, it hopes will boost the power output of its high-performance solar panels. The new initiatives push SolarWorld’s total capital investment in Hillsboro to more than US$600 million.
Ascent Solar Technologies, a developer of flexible thin-film PV modules, has signed an agreement to supply BIPV thin-film laminates to Foxconn. The laminates will be used as part of a pilot installation at Foxconn’s new plant in Zhenzhou City, Henan Province, China. Foxconn is a specialist in the manufacture of electronic devices and produces products such as the iPad and iPhone.
Dow Chemical Company's plans for expansion, announced last year, have come to fruition with the production of its Enlight Polyolefin Encapsulant Films for use in PV solar panels in Thailand. Having commenced production in Ohio, US, in 2010, the company is also constructing a third manufacturing site for this film in Schkopau, Germany.
Major restructuring efforts at First Solar took a backseat during the company’s second quarter conference call as management focused on a significant increase in its PV project pipeline. First Solar said it had added almost 1GW of new projects to a pipeline that previously stood at 2.9GW. Net sales were US$957 million, up from US$497 million last quarter while revenue guidance was raised for 2012 to US$3.6-US$3.9 billion, up from a range of US$3.5 billion to US$3.8 billion.
Patent infringement and claims of IP theft by DuPont, on rival materials supplier Heraeus and customer SolarWorld, were put in question by the accused as the legal spat continued to be played-out in public. Heraeus said in a strongly worded statement that DuPont was attempting to threaten customers over possible legal action, while Heraeus believes DuPont is attempting to discredit Heraeus' products with misleading information.
With insolvency protection proceedings underway, not surprisingly, centrotherm photovoltaics have said it would delay its Annual General Meeting and the first-half year financial results.
SolarCity is continuing its upward spiral. At the beginning of this week, the company announced its partnership with Credit Suisse on a second round of investment. SolarCity has now opened an expanded operations centre in Beltsville, US. The company is ensuring new jobs in Maryland and to give the state’s homeowners, businesses and non-profit organizations better energy options that can cost less than their utility bills. Attendees at today’s grand opening included US senator Ben Cardin, as well as state senator Jim Rosapepe and state delegate Joseline Peña-Melnyk.
Emcore and Camstar Systems announced that Emcore will be replacing various legacy manufacturing systems with the Camstar Enterprise platform. The changes will be incorporated into different systems, including the manufacturing execution (MES), quality management and statistical process control (SPC). The solution aims to simplify the system complexities essential to running Emcore's wafer and cell processing and assembly, test and panel manufacturing.
Waaree Energies revealed that it had landed a contract to deliver a 5.75MW turnkey thin-film solar PV plant for Shree Saibaba sugar factory in Latur, Maharashtra, India. No details were given as to a timeline for project completion.
TetraSun has disclosed that its monocrystalline Czochralski (Cz) silicon is now production-ready through the successful completion of its SunShot Initiative PV Incubator grant from the US Department of Energy (DoE). Alongside the DoE grant, since its founding in 2009, TetraSun has raised US$12 million from equity and strategic customer investors. TetraSun's technology turns monocrystalline Cz wafers into high-efficiency cells, in what the company claims as innovative and cost-effective, by making a surface passivation and replacing silver by copper.
