In reporting its fourth-quarter earnings, Applied Materials (AMAT) announced net sales within its Energy & Environmental Services (EES) segment (which includes PV tool revenues) of US$606 million. Accordingly, Solarbuzz equipment supplier analysis reveals that AMAT has just reached a significant landmark: the first equipment supplier to reach and exceed the US$1 billion barrier for PV-specific trended ttm tool revenues. Certainly, this achievement offers comfort to tool suppliers that the PV segment has grown to an appreciable level. However, while every other PV tool supplier would welcome reaching this milestone, AMAT’s road taken to the US$1 billion PV revenue mark has been far from incident free.
Critical information and insight source, IHS, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire iSuppli. The transaction, which is subject to closing conditions contained in the agreement document, is expected to be completed by November 15.
Sustainable Energy Technologies announced that it will be moving its North American inverter assembly and test center to Guelph, Ontario, with an expected 4MW per month production of its Sunergy inverters by the first quarter 2011. Melitron, a Guelph based manufacturer, will run the facility and also provide enclosures for the Sunergy inverter.
The latest figures for the German Bundesnetzagentur show that registered installations in Germany in the first eight months of 2010 reached 4.8GW, a massive 327% higher than the same period in 2009. According to IMS Research, Germany accounted for 48% of global demand in the first three quarters of 2010 – up from 40% for the same period in 2009.
Despite only a small improvement in solar inverter component supply expected in the second-half of the year, IMS Research has raised its forecast for global photovoltaics system installations. The market research firm expects installs to reach 14.6 GW, a 95% increase from 2009 and nearly three times size of the market back in 2008. Increased demand from Germany and other European countries is fuelling demand but growth in other regions such as the U.S. is playing a part, IMS Research said.
Ontario, Canada, will be home to Silfab’s newest PV module production site. Ramp-up of the 120MW capacity site, capable of producing around 500,000 PV modules, will be conducted in two stages, with the first 60MW to be completed by the second quarter of 2011 and the second 60MW the following year. The plant’s location has yet to be determined, but will be controlled by Silfab International.
Solarbuzz has announced Finlay Colville as the new senior analyst who will be in charge of improving the company’s reporting on solar manufacturing equipment, which includes technologies and trends and forecasts in the solar industry. The new appointment comes after Solarbuzz’s recent acquisition by the NPD Group last month.
Electronics manufacturing services company Flextronics will utilize production floor space in its Silicon Valley operations for a 75MW module assembly facility for SunPower. The Silicon Valley-based PV manufacturer is carrying out a solar cell capacity expansion program at its own facilities in Asia. The new subcontract production should be operational by the end of the year and will service module installations throughout the Western U.S. from its Milpitas facility. Approximately 100 jobs will be created at the facility.
The German solar industry’s research and development efforts into advanced solar cell technology will be given a boost of €100 million, after Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet approved plans, according to Reuters. The move was made, according to the report, to weaken resistance by members of the lower house of parliament (Bundesrat), particularly from eastern states such as Thuringia, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, to a proposed 16% extra solar feed-in tariff cut. There are a a significant number of PV manufacturers located in these regions, and many have openly opposed the FIT cut suggested by Merkel’s government.
MCP Group, a specialty chemicals producer of thin-film metals such as indium, gallium, selenium, and tellurium, is combining manufacturing operations into Atlumin Energy to streamline operations and meet growing demand, especially from the thin-film PV industry. Copy-exact processes at its U.K. operations in Wellingborough are to be expanded to its Sunnyvale, CA, facilities.
