Updated: Subsidaries of China-based polysilicon and PV module manufacturer LDK Solar have been forced into bankruptcy proceedings in China only shortly after the parent company, formerly listed in the US, exited bankruptcy proceedings of its own.
Major semiconductor equipment manufacturer Applied Materials is continuing to disengage from the solar equipment market after previously announcing its exit from Precision Wafering Systems (PWS) wire saw business, headquartered in Switzerland and stop development on its ‘Solion’ ion implant product, based in the US.
Updated: Major PV energy provider SunPower is to ramp Cogenra Solar’s module technology to 2GW by 2020 and only a further 800MW of its ‘Maxeon’ solar cell technology at its new facility, Fab 5 that it expects to ramp in early 2019.
PV manufacturer Zhongli Talesun has become the first of a wave of Chinese firms planning to establish manufacturing operations in Thailand to begin production in the Southeast Asian country.
PV furnace equipment specialist Tempress Systems a subsidiary of Amtech Systems has said it has won an order from a new customer in Taiwan, a repeat order from an existing Taiwanese customer and installed approximately 800MW of its next-generation diffusion systems at a leading Chinese solar cell and module manufacturer.
'Silicon Module Super League' member Canadian Solar is to allocate around US$401 million in capital expenditures through the end of 2016 to significantly increase in-house wafer, cell and module production capacity and locate new plants in multiple countries.
Taiwan-based wafer producer, Sino-American Silicon (SAS), has reported sales in October 2015 of NT$2,335 million (US$71.3 million), down 5.59% on the previous month.
Market research firm IHS has forecasted a slowdown in global solar PV demand growth in 2016 but the market is expected to reach around 65.5GW, compared to 58.7GW forecasted for 2015.
