Solar cell manufacturer Blue Chip Energy has filed for insolvency. The company informed a court in Eisenstadt about its financial state on Thursday and production was abandoned with immediate effect.
Citing the “deterioration in the overall industry climate as well as delays in the recognition of sales and earnings for projects currently under way,” Roth & Rau has cut expectations for the second half of 2011 and withdrawn its forecast guidance for the year. “Given the reduction in demand for solar modules,” the company stated, “some customers have reviewed their investment projects intended to expand their production capacities and postponed the agreed delivery dates.”
Wafer manufacturer MEMC is to create 400 jobs by opening a new module production line in Ontario, Canada. Located in Newmarket on the outskirts of Toronto, the Flextronics-owned site will produce PV panels for the project pipeline of MEMC’s subsidiary, SunEdison.
On the heels of awarding a $16 million loan to Azure Power for a solar photovoltaic project in India, the Export-Import Bank of the United States said it is providing a $9.2 million long-term loan to support exports of Colorado-based Abound Solar's CdTe thin-film PV modules to Punj Lloyd Solar Power for a 5MW power plant in Rahjasthan.
CIS thin-film module manufacturer Solar Frontier has started shipping 150W modules with 12.2% conversion efficiencies after accelerating its production roadmap and achieving production targets ahead of schedule at its Kunitomi plant in Japan. Based on ‘keen’ interest in its low-cost, high-yield technology, which benefits from the ‘light soaking effect', unique to CIS technology, Solar Frontier said shipments were going to customers on a global basis, though quantity figures were not released.
Monocrystalline silicon solar cell specialist, Suniva is adding 25-30MW of module production to its Norcross, Georgia plant, which already has a capacity of 170MW for its ‘ARTisun Select’ solar cells. The expansion is scheduled to be completed in late August and operational in September, 2011, according to the company.
Phoenix Solar was selected by solarcomplex, a regional supplier of renewable energies in the Lake Constance region of Germany, to act as the EPC contractor for the 4.7MW power plant being built in Bodman-Ludwigshafen, Germany. The project will be developed on around .49 miles of land on both sides of the railway tracks between Stockach to Radolfzell.
AccuStrata has signed a contract to sell its monitoring and automation systems to one of India’s largest crystalline silicon solar cell manufacturers. The platform will help to increase the yields of the unnamed firm and represents AccuStrata’s largest deal to date in Asia.
OAI's Solar Test Division is featuring the capabilities of a recently introduced 350nm to 1800nm Class AAA solar simulator at Interoslar North America, being held in San Francisco, this week. The solar simulator is said to be ideal for multi-junction solar cell testing, high current I-V testing, and as a solar power meter.
SolFocus’ latest concentrator photovoltaics array, the SF-1136X, has nearly twice the rated power of the company’s SF-1100P and can be deployed in the field in less than half the time. The firm said it has increased the level of factory integration, simplified the mechanical structure of the system, and improved the logistics packaging.
