Major restructuring efforts at First Solar took a backseat during the company’s second quarter conference call as management focused on a significant increase in its PV project pipeline. First Solar said it had added almost 1GW of new projects to a pipeline that previously stood at 2.9GW. Net sales were US$957 million, up from US$497 million last quarter while revenue guidance was raised for 2012 to US$3.6-US$3.9 billion, up from a range of US$3.5 billion to US$3.8 billion.
Patent infringement and claims of IP theft by DuPont, on rival materials supplier Heraeus and customer SolarWorld, were put in question by the accused as the legal spat continued to be played-out in public. Heraeus said in a strongly worded statement that DuPont was attempting to threaten customers over possible legal action, while Heraeus believes DuPont is attempting to discredit Heraeus' products with misleading information.
With insolvency protection proceedings underway, not surprisingly, centrotherm photovoltaics have said it would delay its Annual General Meeting and the first-half year financial results.
SolarCity is continuing its upward spiral. At the beginning of this week, the company announced its partnership with Credit Suisse on a second round of investment. SolarCity has now opened an expanded operations centre in Beltsville, US. The company is ensuring new jobs in Maryland and to give the state’s homeowners, businesses and non-profit organizations better energy options that can cost less than their utility bills. Attendees at today’s grand opening included US senator Ben Cardin, as well as state senator Jim Rosapepe and state delegate Joseline Peña-Melnyk.
Emcore and Camstar Systems announced that Emcore will be replacing various legacy manufacturing systems with the Camstar Enterprise platform. The changes will be incorporated into different systems, including the manufacturing execution (MES), quality management and statistical process control (SPC). The solution aims to simplify the system complexities essential to running Emcore's wafer and cell processing and assembly, test and panel manufacturing.
Waaree Energies revealed that it had landed a contract to deliver a 5.75MW turnkey thin-film solar PV plant for Shree Saibaba sugar factory in Latur, Maharashtra, India. No details were given as to a timeline for project completion.
TetraSun has disclosed that its monocrystalline Czochralski (Cz) silicon is now production-ready through the successful completion of its SunShot Initiative PV Incubator grant from the US Department of Energy (DoE). Alongside the DoE grant, since its founding in 2009, TetraSun has raised US$12 million from equity and strategic customer investors. TetraSun's technology turns monocrystalline Cz wafers into high-efficiency cells, in what the company claims as innovative and cost-effective, by making a surface passivation and replacing silver by copper.
While talks continue with potential buyers of insolvent PV manufacturer, Q-Cells, Insolvency administrator Henning Schorisch will also potentially conduct a full restructuring of the company under administration. Q-Cells reported that its creditors met in Dessau-Rosslau to hear about the insolvency proceedings.
AETI's (American Electric Technologies) ISIS 1MW solar inverter has been witness-tested to UL1741 by TÜV of North America. The integration of 1MW of liquid cooled power inverters with a 1MVA transformer and medium voltage switchgear, is aimed at reducing field installation costs. SEMV (Socios Energeticos de Mexico Verde) has selected AETI to a solar project in Mexico. Contract terms were not disclosed.
According to the US Department of Commerce’s latest release of the ‘U.S. Imports of Merchandise’ database, solar-based products from China declined around 45% in May, compared to the same month a year ago. The Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM) claimed that this decline represented a positive impact of the recent anti-subsidy duties and anti-dumping duties applied to Chinese solar cells as users have therefore become concerned over the risks and uncertainties as well as cost issues of using Chinese modules for installations in the US.
