Solar Cells Info

Source: InterSolar.de
http://www.intersolar.de/2+M5074dbdb453.html

The European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) expects new photovoltaic systems to be installed per year with a volume of 5,600 Megawatt peak from 2010 on. In 2006, the market volume was 1.362 Megawatt peak. The international photovoltaic industry will be discussing this ongoing dynamic development and other current issues at the 3rd PV Industry Forum. The industry-focussed conference will be communicating the latest trends of the international photovoltaic markets as well as key technical issues. The 3rd PV Industry Forum is supported by the German Solar Industry Association (BSW-Solar) and the German Energy Agency GmbH (dena), and will take place in the run-up to Intersolar, Europe’s largest solar technology fair, on the 20th of June 2007 in Freiburg, Germany.
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Office Marks Expansion to California’s Wine Country
Los Gatos, CA, May 7, 2007
source: Akeena Solar, Inc. press release
http://www.akeena.net/cm/Investor%20Relations/Home.html

Akeena Solar, Inc. — one of the largest solar installers in the country — acquired certain assets of Alternative Energy Inc. (AEI) of Santa Rosa. Under the terms of the agreement, Akeena will assume AEI’s backlog, and commence a marketing campaign to take advantage of the solar power opportunities in Sonoma and Napa Counties.
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San Jose, CA., May 30, 2007
Source: SunPower Corp. press release
http://investors.sunpowercorp.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=246299

For eight communities in the Whitney Ranch residential development in Rocklin, Calif., outside Sacramento, an average of 1.9 homes have sold each month since 2006. A ninth community, Grupe Homes’ Carsten Crossings, stands out with more than twice as many sales, or an average of 4.6 homes sold per month over the same time period.   Four miles down the road in West Roseville’s West Park residential development, homes in Lennar Homes’ Laureate, Wayfarer and Ironcrest communities are selling almost twice as fast as comparable homes in six neighboring West Park communities.
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Macy’s to install solar power in 26 stores while significantly reducing energy consumption
San Francisco, CA, June 5, 2007
Source: SunPower Corp. press release
http://investors.sunpowercorp.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=247372

Macy’s today announced it will install solar power systems and significantly reduce energy consumption in 26 stores throughout California in partnership with SunPower Corporation (Nasdaq: SPWR), a Silicon Valley-based manufacturer of high-efficiency, commercially available solar cells, solar panels and solar systems. SunPower’s subsidiary PowerLight will install PowerGuard® rooftop solar power systems under contracts totaling 8 megawatts on Macy’s stores.
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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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