The long and winding road for polysilicon start-up, Hoku Materials looks to straightening after the company said it expected to start operations at its poly plant in Pocatello, Idaho. Hoku said it had received continued financial support from Tianwei New Energy Holdings, to complete construction of its first phase (2,500MT) plant and begin production.
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.
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.
China-based PV cell and module manufacturer, Realforce Power Co has entered into a long-term wafer supply deal with GCL-Poly. Under the supply contract, GCL-Poly is providing a total of 4,200MW of solar wafer products starting from July 2011 to December 2016. A price adjustment mechanism is included in the contract, according to the wafer producer. GCL-Poly has provided wafers to the 3-year old start-up for some time.
ReneSola said it has progressed on two manufacturing fronts, with the start of trial production of its in-house steel wire used for slicing solar wafers and the development of a new generation of higher capacity casting furnaces.
Despite current weakness in solar related equipment spending, due to weak demand for PV modules in the first half of the year and a longer than expected inventory build, GT Solar posted first quarter financial year revenue of US$231.1 million, compared to US$271.6 million last quarter and up 71% from the US$135.2 million of revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 2011. Record order backlog stood at US$2.3 billion.
The ongoing wafer supply deal dispute between China Sunergy and REC Wafer entered a new phase with a Norwegian court ruling in favour of China Sunergy. REC Wafer is said to appeal the decision made by the Norwegian Court of Appeal.
Despite the first-half slump in PV installations and significant inventory build across the PV supply chain, leading polysilicon producer Hemlock Semiconductor would seem to be riding its 50th year in business in style, as Dow Corning management noted that the polysilicon JV arm had remained ‘sold-out’ in the first half of the year and the situation would remain the same for sometime.
