Q-Cells CEO Anton Milner said during a conference call with financial analysts that the major solar-grade silicon supply deal signed with Becancour Silicon, a division of Timminco, using purified metallurgical silicon would be almost exclusively used at its new 300MW solar cell facility, Line VII in Malaysia. The Malaysian facility is expected to start production early in 2009. The Malaysian facility would have an integrated ingot and waferingoperation attached to the solar cell facility, specifically designedwith proprietary processes that the company has developed to fullyexploit metallurgical silicon for solar cell production.
Becancour Silicon, Inc. (BSI), a division of Timminco, has entered into an agreement to supply solar-grade silicon to Q-Cells AG. Q-Cells will receive 410 metric tons in 2008 and 3,000 metric tons in 2009 at fixed prices.
Product Briefing Outline: Surfect Technologies has launched Solargy, the industry’s first programmable plating computer for solar applications. Capable of accommodating combinations of 125, 156 and 210mm size cells, Solargy’s Direct Energy Plating technology is claimed to offer significantly reduced plating costs, while improving manufacturing speed and yield.
A new joint venture company AES Solar has been formed to develop, own and operate utility-scale solar projects for partners The AES Corporation and Riverstone Holdings LLC, with an investment of $1 billion over five years.
WACKER AG has said that its polysilicon capacity is expected to rise from 10,000 to over 22,000 metric tons by the end of 2010. Its Burghausen plant which has been undergoing an expansion was completed 3 months in advance of schedule and reached a capacity of 3,500 metric tons at the end of 2007. Expansion Stage 6 was said to be running at full capacity since Q4 2007, according to CEO Peter-Alexander Wacker at an annual investor conference held in Munich this week.
SINGULUS TECHNOLOGIES and Q-Cells will start a joint development program towards having a fully automated vacuum coating system for depositing anti-reflective layers on solar wafers to drive conversion efficiencies higher while reducing production costs, the companies have said.
Malibu GmbH & Co. KG in Bielefeld, Germany, a joint venture between energy utility E.ON and Schüco, a buildings systems manufacturer, has signed a long-term contract for over-the-fence supply of nitrogen (N2), hydrogen (H2), silane (SiH4), nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), argon (Ar), and helium (He).
Signet Solar has committed to building its second large substrate thin film photovoltaic plant in the Sriperembudur Special Economic Zone near Chennai, India. Construction is expected to start later in 2008 on a 300MW facility at an initial estimated cost of $500 million.
Next Solar, a new solar panel manufacturer based in Tripoli, Greece, has announced that it is to be use Oerlikon’s micromorph technology in the establishment of its first thin-film solar module factory. Oerlikon will deliver the turnkey production line this year, while Next Solar’s fabrication line will start production in early 2009.
JA Solar has raised its annual solar cell production guidance figures for 2008. Previously, the company has said that it expected to ramp to 425MW by the end of the year; however, it is now guiding 500MW capacity due to an acceleration in number of production lines planned for the year. Total production output is expected to reach 340MW for 2008, the company said. JA Solar was able to ramp production lines from 75MW in 2006 to 175MWin 2007, and expects to add 20 new production lines to an existingplant and ramp a new plant nearing completion.
