Industry News
turing line capable of producing up to 12 Department of Commerce’s United States 2007, two new production lines were put
megawatts of solar modules per year. The Patent and Trademark Office. These newly into service. The new factory will have a
line is designed to be easily expandable at a issued patents cover the manufacture of total surface of 26.500 m² divided into
later date and will integrate Spire’s key as- Nano-C’s core products, carbon nanotubes three floors. www.photovoltech.be
sembly, lamination, and testing machines, and fullerenes. www.nano-c.com
along with intermediate tooling stations. 3s industries ag opens sales and
www.greenbrilliance.com, www.spirecorp.com lDK solar signs 11-year supply service center in arizona
contract with Q-cells 3S Industries AG, manufacturer of auto-
suniva produces screen-printed Multicrystalline solar wafer manufacturer matic string soldering machinery, lami-
solar cells with 20%+ efficiencies LDK Solar Co., Ltd. signed an 11-year nating lines and testers for solar module
Suniva Inc.’s R&D team has developed processing service agreement to process production, recently opened a sales and
several silicon solar cells in its lab with over upgraded metallurgical grade (UMG) solar- service company in Tucson. The establish-
20% conversion efficiencies using a patent- grade silicon provided by Germany-based ment of the subsidiary 3S Industries USA
ed combination of simple cell designs and Q-Cells AG into wafers. Under the terms Inc. is an important milestone for the
screen printing technologies. These high of the agreement, LDK Solar will process a international development of the group
efficiency milestones have been verified by minimum of 20,000 metric tons of UMG with its subsidiaries Somont GmbH, 3S
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory solar-grade silicon in the years 2008-2018, Swiss Solar Systems AG and Pasan SA.
(NREL), the U.S. Department of Energy’s with an option to process an additional American customers involved in crystal-
premier laboratory for renewable energy 21,000 metric tons during the same period. line and thin-film module production will
and energy efficiency research and develop- www.ldksolar.com benefit with immediate effect from the
ment. The efficiency achievement closely shorter channels and simplified advisory
follows Suniva’s two recent customer solel & glaston open us $9m solar and service processes. www.3-s.ch
agreements with Germany’s Solon AG and reflector manufacturing facility
India’s Titan Energy Systems Ltd, together Solel Solar Systems has opened a US $9 enphase energy raises $15 million
worth approximately USD$1 billion. million factory in Finland in partnership to meet demand for its solar micro-
www.suniva.com with Glaston for the production of para-
inverter system
bolic solar reflectors for Solel’s solar field Enphase Energy Inc. has raised $15 million
suntech breaks ground on solar pV projects. The factory, located in Akaa and in new funding to expand manufactur-
cell production facility in china offering the capacity to produce 240,000 ing of its groundbreaking products. New
Suntech Power Holdings Co. Ltd. has parabolic solar reflectors a year, will give investor RockPort Capital Partners led the
broken ground on a new PV cell produc- Solel better control over capacity, qual- round, and existing institutional inves-
tion facility in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, ity and price of its patented solar energy tors Third Point Ventures and Applied
China. Suntech intends the facility to have technology. www.solel.com Ventures, LLC, the venture capital arm of
a production capacity of 300 MW by the Applied Materials Inc., also participated.
end of 2009, and the new production site scc provides process technology www.enphaseenergy.com
will facilitate Suntech’s capacity expansion for new polysilicon plant
plans to reach 1.4GW by year end 2009 Silicon Chemical Corporation (SCC), a solar enerTech acquires stake in
and 2GW by year end 2010. Located in supplier of silicon process technology to
21-century silicon
Yangzhou, the PV cell production facility the polysilicon and solar industries, an-
Solar EnerTech Corp. entered into an
is close to Suntech’s strategic silicon supply nounced their contract and cooperation
equity purchase agreement in which
partner, Shunda Holdings Co. Ltd., and with SILFAB S.p.A., of Padua, Italy, in the
it acquired two million shares of com-
within two hours drive of Suntech’s Wuxi development of a 5000 MTY state-of-the-
mon stock of 21-Century Silicon Inc., a
headquarters. www.suntech-power.com art polysilicon manufacturing facility sited
polysilicon manufacturer based in Dallas,
in Borgofranco d’Ivrea (Turin), Italy. SCC Texas, for $1 million cash. The two million
solar monkey, Ws energia announce is providing trichlorosilane production and shares constitute approximately 7.8% of 21-
us manufacturing agreement purification technology and the integra- Century Silicon’s outstanding equity. The
Solar Monkey™ and Portuguese company, tion of the various functional areas within equity purchase agreement further provides
WS Energia®, signed an agreement to the polysilicon plant to meet the highest that the Company would acquire an addi-
establish a new generation of high preci- standards set by SILFAB for product qual- tional two million shares upon 21-Century
sion, reliable and affordable solar tracking ity and process efficiency. Silicon meeting certain milestones.
systems in North America based on WS www.siliconchemical.com, www.silfab.eu www.solarenertech.com
Energia’s patented award winning tracker
design. The agreement will allow the photovoltech doubling solar cell solar Thin Films to deliver, install
companies to jointly develop manufactur- production capacity
silicon module manufacturing plant
ing and production facilities within the Photovoltech is increasing the photovoltaic
for grupo unisolar, s.a.
US using WS Energia’s technology already cell production capacity of its plant in
Solar Thin Films Inc., manufacturer and
available in the EU. www.solarmonkey.net Tienen, Belgium, from 140 MW by the
marketer of manufac received $3.6 million
end of 2009 to 260 MW by the end of from Grupo Unisolar, S.A. against the
nano-c awarded u.s. patents for 2010. A new production plant at the pres-
$12.3 million contract to build a 5MW
core products ent Tienen site will provide the increased turn-key amorphous silicon (a-Si) module
Nano-C Inc.developer of nanostructured capacity and create approximately 100 jobs. thin-film photovoltaic manufacturing plant
carbon materials, has been issued U.S. Pat- The new solar cell factory is the second in Spain. The company has begun to fulfill
ent Nos. 7,335,344 and 7,396,520 by the expansion of Photovoltech. At the end of the contract. www.grupounisolar.com
42 – Global Solar Technology – November/December 2008 www.globalsolartechnology.com
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