In a post CEO departure management shake-up, the supervisory board of Solar Millennium has appointed Thomas Mayer spokesman for the management board, effective immediately and Oliver Blamberger as new member of the management board.
In brief statements from several of the partners in string-ribbon PV module producer Sovello, the firms acknowledged that an agreement has been made to sell the company to Ventizz Capital Fund IV, L.P for an as-yet undisclosed sum. Closing of the transaction is expected to take place in April. The partners had signed a declaration of intent with the then-unidentified investor in early February.
The Bulgarian State Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (SEWRC - DKEVR) has published on its website a proposal to lower the country's solar feed-in tariff rates.
Dynamic Engineering (DEI) has formed a strategic alliance with Polycrystalline Silicon Technology (PST). DEI now offers PST's advanced hydrochlorination technology as well as its fully closed-loop chlorosilane and silane technology.
Acta has signed a preliminary contract with SPF Energy (SPF) for the installation of large-scale photovoltaic parks in Italy during 2010. The installations will be completed through a joint venture partnership with Fedi Impianti (Fedi Impianti), one of Italy's largest PV installation companies.
Underwriters Laboratories has opened what it calls Europe's largest solar PV testing and certification facility--the Photovoltaic Technology Center of Excellence located near the Frankfurt/Main airport in Germany. The new lab joins UL's existing PV centers in San Jose, CA, and Suzhou, China; the company says it also has plans for new facilities in Japan and India in the works.
SolarBridge Technologies has been awarded US$1.5 million from the State of Texas through the Texas Emerging Technology Fund (TETF) for the development of its module-integrated microinverter and management system. SolarBridge will use these funds to accelerate product development as the company prepares for the 2010 launch of its SolarBridge Microinverter.
Photovoltaics and semiconductor materials provider Voltaix has received $10 million in equity financing from private investment firm MissionPoint Capital Partners. The company also announced the appointment of Mark Schwartz, cofounder and chairman of MissionPoint (and former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia), to its board.
The Intel Corp spin-off, SpectraWatt has raised a further US$41.4 million from investors that include Intel Capital and Goldman Sachs. The start-up plans to start shipping solar cells in 2Q10. The company said that some of the new funds will help finalize completion of the company's factory, advance internal operations and technology development as well as allow for planned capacity expansions.
Taiwan-based c-Si solar cell producer, Neo Solar Power (NSP) is expanding annual capacity to 800MW in response to continued outsourcing demand from Europe. NSP currently has an annual capacity of over 240MW. The cell producer had already made initial plans to boost capacity by a further 180MW by the second quarter of 2010, due to running at full capacity in the fourth quarter of 2009. Strong demand and extended visibility into it 2010 order flow pushed NSP to raise capacity plans to 600MW in 2010. However, continued demand from European module manufacturers has led NSP to take capacity to 800MW in 2010.
