Payom Solar has taken over the remaining 47.4% of US project developer Amsolar Holdings. The German company acquired a majority share of the San Diego-based company in March.
Daniel Matloff has joined 1366 Technologies as its new CFO and is charged for strengthening the company’s financial strategy and managing all finance and accounting transactions as it prepares to commercially-scale its direct wafer technology. Matloff comes to 1366 from Hittite Microwave where he was the corporate controller and previously held various positions at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Thermo Fisher Scientific and PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is a CPA and graduated from Bentley University.
Saint-Gobain disclosed its plans to acquire the Solar Gard Specialty Films unit from Bekaert, which will be housed under Saint-Gobain’s Performance Plastics division. The agreement, which did not expose the price of the purchase, includes production facilities in San Diego, California, Zulte, Belgium and Suzhou, China, as well as operations under development in China and all global sales and service centers.
Steve Iyer will be joining the executive team of 8minutenergy Renewables as its new vice president of development. With 23 years of experience in developing large-scale power generation projects throughout North America, Europe and Asia, Iyer will focus on end-to-end project development for originated projects. Additionally, he will oversee that 8minutenergy’s developed projects undergo a seamless transition to the company’s partners. Iyer will also be tasked to assist with sourcing from Asia and risk identification and management.
GE Energy is to consolidate its business partnership with eSolar by investing US$40 million in the concentrated solar thermal power technology developer. As part of the agreement, Paul Browning, GE Energy’s president and CEO of Thermal Products, will join eSolar’s board of directors.
The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is putting out a call to all energy developers and financiers to submit their input on renewable financing terms, which will help the NREL in its effort to collect and share quantitative data in order to evaluate obstacles in the development of renewable energy projects.
Company name changes can often be as part of a rebranding exercise, sometimes due to poor performance or turmoil. This is certainly not the case with GT Solar, which is outperforming much of its competitor base in the PV equipment market sector. Having secured approximately US$1 billion in order backlog for its new foray into the LED sapphire wafer manufacturing market and hints by executives of further acquisitions, a new name, GT Advanced Technologies was seen as better reflection of what the company is now doing and where it intends to play in the future.
Updated: The optimism from the first quarter was short-lived at JA Solar, which has warned investors that ASPs declined faster than expected in the second quarter, negatively impacting gross margins. Coupled to ‘high-cost inventory provisions,’ gross margins are expected to be in a negative low single digit range, according to a company statement.
The continued construction and eventual interconnection of what will be the world’s largest solar PV power plant now seems assured. The US Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office has finalized a $967 million loan guarantee for the 290MW (AC) Agua Caliente solar project in Arizona, thus triggering the purchase close of the project by NRG Energy from First Solar. The plant could start generating electricity for PG&E as early as the end of this year.
(UPDATED) First Solar has reported second-quarter 2011 net sales of US$533 million in the quarter, a decrease of US$34.5 million from the first quarter, which were a decrease of US$42.5 million from the fourth quarter of 2010. The CdTe thin-film leader noted that the sales decline was primarily due to lower average selling prices, which in turn were due to policy uncertainties in Italy, Germany and France, leading to weaker-than-expected demand.
