Market research firm, IHS, has significantly raised its forecast for global PV demand for 2014. Driven by expected demand growth in China and Japan, IHS expects installations to reach 46GW, a 22% increase over 2013.
Major photovoltaics energy provider, SunEdison, has claimed to have reached a new milestone by hitting 1GW of outsourced PV module production in less than three years.
Market conditions in the PV industry continued to impact PV inverter leader, SMA Solar Technology in 2013, with the company registering a loss of €89.1 million for the full year.
Led by BofA Merrill Lynch, SolarCity has secured US$250 million in a new financing facility to support the roll-out of more than 200MW of PV system installations in the US.
Although the shutdown of its Sichuan Phase I polysilicon production line impacted profitability in 2013, tier one PV manufacturer, ReneSola reported a 142.5% year-on-year increase in PV module shipments, reaching 1,728.8MW with plans to reach 2.5GW in 2014.
Market research firm, IHS has made further tweaks to its PV manufacturing capital expenditure forecast, highlighting another US$430 million is expected to be spent in 2014 with the total reaching US$3.8 billion by year-end.
As part of the expected IPO of SunEdison’s semiconductor wafer and polysilicon operations into SunEdison Semiconductor Limited (SSL), Samsung Fine Chemicals is planning to purchase US$100 million in shares in the spin-off company in private placement.
Although, silicon wafer specialist, 1366 Technologies does not expect to announce the location of its 250MW new production plant for the next six to nine months, the company has created a new VP of manufacturing position and appointed Brian Eller to head-up the operations.
Shunfeng Photovoltaics is expected to need US$1.26 billion in working capital requirements for the next 12 months once its takeover of Wuxi Suntech is finalised, financial filings reveal.
