Solar Cells Info

Cologne, Germany & Yokohama, Japan, May 25, 2007
Source. PR Newswire
http://sev.prnewswire.com/environmental-services/20070525/3419691en-1.html

Around 70 percent of all solar module manufacturers have their products tested for durability and energy efficiency at the TUV Rheinland Group’s Cologne laboratory. As world market leader in this dynamic growth sector, the global service provider for quality and safety will invest just under 3.5 million euros in the further development and expansion of new laboratory capacities in Asia by the end of 2008. Professor Dr.-Ing. Bruno O. Braun, President and CEO of the TUV Rheinland Group, announced these plans at the opening of the newly expanded Global Technology Assessment Center (GTAC) in Yokohama, Japan. (more…)

UPI Energy, May 23, 2007
Source: Semiconductor International
http://www.reed-electronics.com/semiconductor/articleXml/LN616914141.html

What was once garbage for Richardson, Texas-based Texas Instruments has now turned into a multimillion-dollar revenue source.  A new program for Texas Instrument’s silicon scraps are redefining the once worthless excess and are feeding solar industry’s growing appetite. The chipmaker historically had sold its scrap silicon wafers — the wafers that, for one reason or another, can’t be used to produce chips — at garage-sale-like events near its Richardson headquarters. A 55-gallon drum of old wafers might previously have gone to a local hobbyist for $100 or so, according to Mike Hayden, the silicon procurement engineering manager at Texas Instruments, Cnet News.com reported.
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by Craig Whitlock, Washington Post Service
Espenhain, Germany, May 21, 2007
Source: Miami Herald.com
http://www.miamiherald.com/154/story/111713.html

When it opened here in 2004 on a reclaimed mining dump, the Geosol solar plant was the biggest of its kind in the world. It is so clean and green that it produces zero emissions and so easy to operate that it has only three regular workers: plant manager Hans-Joerg Koch and his security guards, sheepdogs named Pushkin and Adi.  The plant is part of a building boom that has made gloomy-skied Germany the unlikely global leader in solar-generated electricity. Last year, about half of the world’s solar electricity was produced in the country. Of the 20 biggest photovoltaic plants, 15 are in Germany, even though it has only half as many sunny days as countries such as Portugal.
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Kassel/Niestetal, 14 May 2007
Source: SMA Technologie AG /press release
http://www2.sma.de/en/news-detail/article/942/

By the year 2009, SMA will supply all the system technology for a solar power system near Leipzig, Germany, which is to have a capacity of 36 MW

SMA Technologie AG has accepted the largest single order it has ever received for central inverters. Between April 2007 and August 2008, the company plans to deliver 42 Sunny Centrals, each with a capacity of 500 kW, to juwi solar GmbH, which is managing the installation. Delivery of another 30 units is scheduled for 2009. In addition, the order includes all solar data systems technology necessary for Internet-based system monitoring. The solar power plant, built on an unused former military airfield near Brandis, not far from Leipzig, is at present the largest photovoltaic system in the world, promising CO2 savings of approximately 25,000 tons per year.
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The world’s largest solar power plant is only the latest addition to Germany’s investment in alternative power, Michael Dumiak reports for Fortune.
By Michael Dumiak, FORTUNE Magazine, May 22 2007
Source: CNNMoney.com
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/28/100049624/
The former East Germany, once one of the world’s gloomiest places, has become home to one of the world’s brightest industries: solar power. In late April ground was broken at a former Soviet air base near Leipzig for a $176 million, 40-megawatt photo-voltaic power plant, four times the size of the largest existing solar plant in the world. The facility, being built by Germany’s Juwi International, is scheduled to begin production in late 2009. When it does, it will add significant capacity to eastern Germany’s mushrooming solar power industry.
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Source: Solar World AG /corporate News /April 13, 2007
http://www.solarworld.de/Corporate-News.78.0.html?&L=1

SolarWorld AG strengthens its leading position in the international photovoltaic market by consistently expanding its integrated production capacities. In the presence of the Federal Minister of Transport, Wolfgang Tiefensee, the group officially opened its largest expansion project to date, the new wafer factory, at the production location in Freiberg. With the new production facility in which highly advanced silicon wafers are manufactured the wafer production capacities in Freiberg will gradually increase to 500 Megawatt (MW) by the end of 2009. This is equivalent to a doubling of the current capacity. ‘With this millennium expansion we are presenting one of the most efficient wafer factories of our time. In it we will be leading the way of the international industry trend towards more
raw material and performance efficient wafers’, says Professor Dr. Peter Woditsch, CEO of the SolarWorld subsidiary Deutsche Solar AG. The new factory will offer more than 100 new jobs until 2008.

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Source: SolarWorld AG press release /May 24, 2007
http://www.solarworld.de/Corporate-News.78.0.html?&L=1

SolarWorld AG is vigorously expanding its business with the international solar cell and module industry. The Deutsche Solar AG subsidiary has entered into new long-term agreements with a number of globally operating cell and module manufacturers for the supply with solar silicon wafers from the Freiberg production. The order volume of these new contracts runs up to a total of 1.5 billion EUR for the SolarWorld Group. The time span of the orders covers the period until 2018. 51 per cent of the orders originate
from Europe. Asia follows with a rate 37 per cent. China and Taiwan alone account for 16 per cent of all new supply contracts. 12 per cent of the wafers ordered will be shipped to North America. The entire order backlog of Deutsche Solar AG for external customers from existing orders and new contracts amounts to 4.0 billion EUR.
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Moser Baer of India aims to get 40% of its revenue from producing sun panels by 2010.
By Amy Yee, Financial Times, May 28, 2007
Source: Los Angeles Times
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-ft-solar28may28,1,4386266.story?

NEW DELHI — Moser Baer India transforms tons of tiny plastic particles into 3 billion blank compact discs and digital video discs each year in a factory in a Delhi suburb, claiming a 20% share of the global CD market.  But with higher costs for raw materials and digital downloads raising questions about the future of discs, the company has found a new outlet for its expertise in stamping and coating: solar panel production.
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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, May 29, 2007
Source: Bernama.com
http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news_business.php?id=264733

The Government is once again offering Malaysians a chance to install the solar building integrated photovoltalc (BIPV) systems at their premises at a highly discounted price.  It is making the offer under a programme called SURIA 1000, which will provide a maximum discount of 70 percent to the successful bidders for the rebates.  The second call to apply for rebates under SURIA 1000 programme will be effective from June 1 to October 1, this year, a statement from Pusat Tenaga Malaysia (PTM) said today.
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Canadian Solar Signs a 45 Million Euro Annual Sales Contract and Breaks Ground of a 250 MW Module Facility in Changshu, China

Jiangsu, China, May 29 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/
Source: Canadian Solar Inc. press release
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=196781&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1007679

Canadian Solar Inc. (“the Company”, or “CSI”) (Nasdaq: CSIQ) today announced it has concluded a 2007 annual sales contract worth 45 million Euro with a leading German customer. CSI has already started to deliver to this contract in March, before official signing, due to immediate demand for the products.
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