Eyelit has landed another customer for its solar PV manufacturing software--flexible CIGS thin-film module maker Ascent Solar. The PV company is using the suite to support the production ramp of its 30MW Fab 2 in Thornton, CO, which is slated to go live the end of March.
Although still in a business transition period with its shift to greater (60%) PV inverter manufacturing in China, Satcon Technology has reported a strong order book entering 2010, which is first-half year loaded as well as a project pipeline expectation that indicates sales in the second-half of the year will remain strong. The company also reported full-year financial results for 2009 that were approximately 3% down from 2008. Revenue reached US$52.5 million in 2009, compared to US$54.3 million in 2008. Its renewable market revenue was approximately US$47.7 million, equivalent to 162MW, according to the company.
Magnolia Solar has received a US$1 million award from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). This award is to develop advanced thin-film solar cells in partnership with the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) of the University at Albany.
The U.S. Navy's Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) has awarded a $200 million contract to build up as much as 40MW of solar photovoltaic power plants at Navy and Marine Corps installations throughout the southwestern United States. Five solar developers/integrators--SunEdison, AECOM Energy/Solar Power Partners, SunPower, SunDurance Energy, and Chevron Energy Solutions--will compete for individual projects ranging in size from 1MW to 15MW.
Updated: The largest crystalline silicon PV module manufacturer, Suntech Power Holdings has reported revenue figures for 2009, which were impacted by the decline of average selling price (ASP) for its PV modules. Total net revenues for the year were US$1,693.3 million, compared with US$1,923.5 million in 2008, even though shipments were up 43% compared with 2008. However, margins improved due to lower polysilicon and wafer costs. Gross profit was US$338.8 million and gross margin was 20.0% compared to consolidated gross profit of US$342.9 million and gross margin of 17.8% for the full year 2008. Suntech said it was sold-out through the first half of 2010 and would be boosting capital spending and increasing capacity, specifically for its ‘Pluto’ cell technology based modules.
Privately held manufacturing software provider, Eyelit said that it had won 5 new solar customers in 2009, which helped to see the company post record revenue for the fourth quarter of 2009. Eyelit doe not report financial figure results. The software specialist said that a roll-to-roll thin film, CIGS solar manufacturer became a customer in the fourth quarter, making it 5 new customers from the PV industry in 2009. The others in the sector included a UMG-silicon producer, a concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) manufacturer, a mono- and multi-crystalline silicon wafer producer and a silicon cell manufacturer.
Satcon Technology has won a new order to supplier GCL Solar with 500kW ‘PowerGate’ Plus inverters for three separate solar power plants with a combined power of 38MW. The company had previously won inverter sales for projects reaching a combined 23MW for ground-mounted and largest rooftop projects in China in 2009.
Portland General Electric is expanding its solar energy resources with a new 2.4MW rooftop project. Once complete, this will be the largest rooftop solar project in the Pacific Northwest. PGE will partner with the U.S. Bank, ProLogis, and several Oregon companies on the project.
New orders for its diffusion processing systems have pushed Amtech Systems new order flow past US$80 million in its 2010 financial year. Solar orders in its fiscal Q2 reached US$27 million. New orders worth US$8.5 million were recently received from two new customers in Asia and one new customer in Europe.
