Showa Shell Sekiyu subsidiary Solar Frontier has begun the commercial ramp of its new advanced, fully-automated CIS (copper, indium and selenium) thin-film solar module production plant, located in Miyazaki, Japan. Initial production capacity is claimed to be 600MW and is planned to reach a nameplate capacity of 1GW in 2012.
Germany’s PV manufacturing solutions provider Schiller Automation has created a U.S.-based subsidiary, Schiller LLC, to help it service its expanding portfolio of international clients.
Dutch research organisation TNO spin-off company SoLayTec has received an investment from Rena and Brabant Development Agency (BOM) to bring its atomic layer deposition (ALD) technology for volume manufacturing of c-Si solar cells to commercialization. Financial details were not disclosed.
BTU International has signed a worldwide licensing agreement to use DuPont Packaging Graphics’ catalytic oxidation technology. Developed to block volatile organic compounds (VOCs), the technology can be used in tandem with BTU’s Tritan metallization firing systems and is expected to lower the cost per watt of solar cells.
Southern California Edison (SCE) has signed a power purchase agreement with First Solar for its 250MW (AC) Silver State South plant. First Solar’s ground-mounted system, which will be located on 2,500 acres of public land near Primm, Nevada, will start generating electricity in 2014 and be fully operational in May 2017.
A select group of Q-Cells employees will be presented with certificates for solar cell production monitoring by the German Minister of Finance, Dr. Reiner Haseloff, today after attending a training seminar organised by IHK Bildungszentrum Halle-Dessau.
Taiwan-based solar cell producer Neo Solar Power (NSP) has posted its 10th consecutive month of increased revenue, reaching a new record high of approximately US$84.1 million (NT $2.44 billion) for January, which represented a 5.74% increase month-over-month, and 150.06% year-over-year. NSP has raised its capacity expansion target to 1.3GW in 2011, up from the 1.2GW previously guided.
EPIR Technologies has joined a select group of solar cell developers by creating a polycrystalline cadmium telluride (CdTe) cell for commercial use with an efficiency exceeding 15%.
A team of scientists at the Leibniz Institute for New Materials (INM) has developed a glass-like barrier layer that separates the metal carrier from the absorber film. The new material is said to increase the efficiency of metal-based CIGS thin-film solar cells by as much as 13%.
Flextronics and eSolar have signed a deal that calls for the electronic manufacturing services company to provide electromechanical design capabilities to the concentrating solar thermal power plant developer. Flextronics will focus its design services efforts relating to eSolar's next-generation heliostats and solar collector systems at its Plano, TX, location.
