The difficult solar market in the last quarter of 2011, led Elkem Solar to suspend operations at its plant in Kristiansand, Norway. However, the company has advised that full production has been restored due to an increase in orders for Elkem Solar Silicon.
Citing further pricing pressures in the fourth quarter of 2011, LDK Solar has revised down fourth quarter financial guidance and warned of further inventory write downs, expected to be from its polysilicon production operations. The company has already made several downward amendments to its expected quarterly results in 2011, resulting in excess of US$1 billion wiped-off expected revenue and over 1GW in expected wafer shipments alone.
Against a backdrop of many peers reporting lower fourth quarter shipments when compared to the previous quarter, ReneSola held its ground, exceeding shipment guidance for solar wafers and modules. The company reported 2011 revenue higher than guided at US$985.3 million but 18.3% below 2010 net revenue of US$1,205.6 million. Total solar wafer and module shipments in 2011 reached a record 1,294.8 MW, exceeding prior guidance and an increase of 9.5% from 1,182.8 MW for the full year 2010. However, management guided a significant increase in solar wafer and module shipments in 2012 to be in the range of 1.8GW to 2.0GW. Emphasis was placed on module shipments increasing as well as doubling capacity to 1GW.
A new research program to bring ‘Black Silicon’ antireflective layer process and materials to commercialization has been signed between Natcore Technology and material inventor, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with funding of US$150,000.
China-based solar grade silicon producer, JACO has claimed it has achieved several key milestones in its ability to supply SoG for wafer production. Having entered production of its Gen 1 process in 2011, JACO said that it reached a key cost target of US$15/kg that also equated to a CapEx cost of US$15/kg and an electricity consumption cost of 15kwh/kg.
Calisolar is morphing into a polysilicon producer with a name change that better reflects its future ambitions. Renamed, Silicor Materials Inc, the company has bagged a major supply deal for its purified silicon metal material with the PV industries largest module producer, Suntech Power Holdings.
Bloomberg is reporting the Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) has struck a deal with Baraclit, an Italian building-material company, which will integrate ECD’s solar products into its roofing materials. No details on compensation or the amount of materials to be supplied were revealed.
ET Solar advised that on March 20, at Ecobuild 2012, it will debut its new high-efficiency Moly PV module series. The PV modules use the new mono-like cell technology, quasi-mono cell, which are said to achieve conversion efficiencies up to 18.2% and contain a lower amount of oxygen than traditional monocrystalline cells.
Significant booking reductions from customers in the PV manufacturing sector impacted revenue at Ferro Corporation in 2011. The materials provider reported net sales of US$443 million in the fourth quarter, down 18% from net sales of US$537 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.
Dow Chemical’s ‘ENLIGHT’ polyolefin films, recently launched for c-Si module applications have had claims of no power loss after 10,000 hours of operation validated in test carried-out by TÜV Rheinland.
