Strong quarterly shipments failed to offer respite from a rapid decline in revenue and profit margins within OCI Chemicals, polysilicon production division in the third quarter of 2011. Revenue in its polysilicon segment fell from KRW572 billion in Q2 to KRW495 billion in Q3. Margins fell from 50% in Q2 to 36% in Q3, according to the company.
Citing some customer cutbacks in solar module manufacturing production levels and continued pressure on wafer prices that have declined more than 50% since April this year, PV Crystalox Solar is taking drastic measures to reduce cash burn in difficult times for the global PV industry. The company guided a significant reduction in wafer shipments, compared to previous forecasts, job losses and short time working.
The Solar Gateway Project – a combined effort from full-service construction company Gilbane Co. and solar panel manufacturer SunPower Corp. – is underway to build a 1.1MW solar power system at California-based West Valley College campus. With SunPower's high-efficiency solar panels, the system will generate approximately one-third of West Valley College's electricity demand and save more than US$9 million.
At the Solar Power International Expo this October 2011, technology pioneer OutBack Power Technologies will demonstrate their off-grid power conversion components. And Ameresco Solar, a leading energy efficiency and renewable energy company has reached an agreement to provide BP Solar International’s small area module (SAM) line of solar panels that range from 5 watts to 180 watts under the Ameresco Solar brand.
Task force leader, Christian Prischmann, from UIbrich, a specialist metals provider to the PV industry, was the recipient of the Standards Leadership award. The European Semi award went to Dr. Tibor Pavelka, CEO of Semilab Co. Ltd. who is a producer of metrology equipment for the characterization of semiconductor and PV materials.
Voltaix has formed a sales and customer support office in Shanghai, China. The company’s Asian business manager, Yun Liu, will be responsible for running the office and also implementing the regional sales and marketing strategy.
Three months ahead of schedule, Wacker Chemie has started ramping its new polysilicon plant in Nünchritz, Germany. The €900 million investment which includes debottlenecking strategies to boost output to 15,000MT per annum has created 500 new jobs at the plant. Full nominal capacity is expected to be operational in the second quarter of 2012.
No surprises after announcing it was entering into Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US, Evergreen Solar has been officially delisted from Nasdaq. Evergreen Solar stock was suspended from the exchange on August 24, 2011 and has not traded on NASDAQ since that time.
Optimising its PV5400 Series encapsulant for use with the Bürkle Ypsator multi-opening, three-stage laminator platform, DuPont Photovoltaic Encapsulants is claiming a breakthrough in productivity and a reduction in manufacturing costs for glass/glass thin-film solar module manufacturing.
A power outage on October 4 at REC’s polysilicon production facilities in Moses Lake, Washington, caused a complete shut down of operations. REC said there had been no safety issues, but it would be two to three weeks before full production could be resumed at pre-outage levels, resulting in a 500MT reduction to REC’s previously guided annual output at the facility of 19,000MT.
