Financially constrained PV manufacturers are advised to look at alternative ways other than relinquishing hard-to-find cash to end wafer supply deals with suppliers after a long-standing dispute between Conergy and MEMC was partially resolved via old-fashioned bartering.
Although heavily hyped as a low-cost alternative to conventional oil-based PV backsheet materials, start-up BioSolar said that it was to develop a new bio-based backsheet material that would aim to be of even lower cost in order to capture more customers. Back in March, 2011 the company had said it was supplying sample material for PV module manufacturers based in Asia for evaluation.
DuPont PV Solutions and Distributed Sun announced a new collaboration that will focus on increasing the adoption of solar energy through the D-SUN Distributed Solar Network. The companies aim to promote data transparency and provide access to a comprehensive suite of analytical tools for the solar industry.
Higher module shipments on the back of increasing focus on expanding its solar module business and building sales channels supported ReneSola producing better than expected second-quarter 2012 financial results. The company posted US$233 million in sales, up 10.2% from US$211.5 million in the prior quarter.
Daqo New Energy Corporation, a Chinese manufacturer of polysilicon, has received a notification from the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) claiming that the company does not meet its price criteria.
Daqo New Energy released its second quarter 2012 financial earnings, which saw the company post revenues of US$30.6 million, down from US$34 million in Q1 2012. Additionally, Daqo’s Q2 2012 polysilicon shipments were approximately 1,028MT, while its PV module shipments amounted to 3.6MW. Wafer shipments for the second quarter were 11.2MW.
Management at Applied Materials spent little time discussing the performance of its Energy and Environmental Solutions (EES) division results, which houses the majority of its solar sector equipment and services to the PV industry. The company reported EES sales in its financial third quarter that were almost flat with the previous quarter at US$77 million. However, new orders decreased significantly to only US$35 million, compared to US$62 million in the prior quarter.
To avoid further drains on its battered balance-sheet, REC said it would start winding-up REC Wafer Norway via bankruptcy proceedings. The solar wafer operations at two sites in Glomfjord and at Herøya have already been permanently closed down. The bankruptcy of REC Wafer Norway was said to not have an effect on REC Solar and REC Silicon operations, which continue to operate as normal.
New orders for PV equipment suppliers recently reached a critical low point when SEMI posted a PV book-to-bill ratio of 0.40 for the first quarter of 2012. However, market conditions look to have worsened in the second quarter after leading equipment supplier GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT) reported new order intake of only US$13.8 million, while a negative adjustment to its strong order backlog totalled US$31.9 million.
Patent infringement and claims of IP theft by DuPont, on rival materials supplier Heraeus and customer SolarWorld, were put in question by the accused as the legal spat continued to be played-out in public. Heraeus said in a strongly worded statement that DuPont was attempting to threaten customers over possible legal action, while Heraeus believes DuPont is attempting to discredit Heraeus' products with misleading information.
