UPDATE: An explosion at Mitsubishi Materials Yokkaichi polysilicon plant has resulted in the death of five workers with a further 12 injured, according to reports.
Taiwan-based specialist solar wafer producer, Green Energy Technology (GET), has said that continued strong sales would lead to capacity expansion as utilisation rates are set to remain at 95% in the first quarter of 2014.
North Carolina and Texas both surged up the rankings of leading US solar states in 2013 in what was a record-breaking year for the country, according to analysts NPD Solarbuzz.
Hanergy Group has secured financing from several Chinese banks totalling around 20 billion yuan (US$3.3 billion), according to reports, as it looks to become a major PVEP (PV Energy Provider) employing a-Si and CIGS thin-film technology for downstream PV power plants.
In a new detailed report by Deutsche Bank’s US-based solar industry analysts, the PV industry is said to be heading into its “second gold rush” with a base demand of 46GW in 2014, topped by an expected 56GW of demand in 2015.
Chile’s Environmental Assessment Service (SEA) has given the green light to the 92MW Gramadal PV power plant project proposed by US PV developer SunEdison.
ReneSola, the Chinese tier one PV manufacturer, has announced that it will supply 420MW of modules to an unnamed project developer in Japan for use in 10 PV plant projects.
