In a new twist to the long running saga of renewable energy tax breaks in the U.S. the House of Representatives has passed a modified bill rather than rubber stamping the bill already passed in the Senate. The Senate had urged the House not to make changes or additions as this would raise the likelihood of the White House vetoing the bill altogether.
Siemens AG has developed and manufactured inverters for photovoltaic applications since 1987. The latest products of this development are the SINVERT PV inverters, a family of three phase grid-connected inverters in the range of 60kVA up to 1700kVA.
The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) in Freiburg has surpassed its own European multijunction III-V solar cell efficiency record, recently reaching 37.6 percent. The new record of 39.7 percent was achieved using a front-side network of thin metal wires that transport large currents but with low resistance.
Product Briefing Outline: Buerkle GmbH has introduced its multi-opening module laminator that can process both crystalline and thin-film photovoltaic cells. The ‘Ypsator’ system laminates up to 20 modules per cycle. On a surface area of 3.5m² per opening and five openings, manufacturers can produce 10 photovoltaic modules per batch at the same time. The total annual capacity is around 500,000 modules, which corresponds to an annual power capacity of 40 megawatts.
LDK Solar has filed a preliminary prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a proposed follow-on public offering of American Depository Shares, expected to generate $150 million. The funds will be used for the construction, currently ongoing, of its major polysilicon plant as well as expanding its wafer production.
Product Briefing Outline: SierraTherm Production Furnaces has introduced its new 5500 Series APCVD system with a 660mm deposition width. This tool is capable of depositing a combination of up to five layers of doped (BSG, PSG) and undoped SiO2 films in a single pass. Its throughput capacity of 1875 WPH for 156mm wafers or 2300 WPH of 125mm wafers make it compatible with today’s high production cell lines. Films with thicknesses of up to 300nm can be deposited at this process speed.
In its bid to meet targeted capacity expansion plans, Solar-Fabrik has secured a new long-term 156mm monocrystalline wafer supply deal from Korean based Smart Applications Co. Ltd. The $120.7 million worth deal starts in January 2009 and runs for 6 years.
A new NanoMarkets report covering the manufacturing of thin film and organic photovoltaics, projects that sales of equipment in this sector will reach annual revenues of $4.8 billion in 2015, compared to $450 million being projected for 2008.
Product Briefing Outline: The ‘Eyelit Manufacturing’ solution delivers a full featured, technically advanced manufacturing execution system (MES), asset management, product costing, plant-level connectivity hub, and broad spectrum of other essential functionality. By giving clear insight into production process efficiency, performance/equipment efficiency, inventory control and resource management along with the ability to automatically react to conditions in any factory system, Eyelit Manufacturing suite enables customers to coordinate, control, and respond to changing demands in production.
At the recently held Global PV Demand Conference, hosted by SolarPlaza, attendees raised concern over the potential overcapacity in the photovoltaics industry having a significant impact, starting in 2009.
