Several years removed from the PV manufacturing boom of 2010-2011 and the widespread factory closures and bankruptcies that followed, is the next purchasing cycle for PV production equipment finally in view?
Tuesday provided mixed signals, at best.
On the positive side, Bedford, Massachusetts-based Spire Corp. announced a new contract for a custom solar simulator from "a major Chinese thin-film module manufacturer with facilities in Europe, China and the United States."
But across the country in Silicon Valley, Applied Materials provided no reason to believe in an immediate major resurgence for the segment during a presentation of its first-quarter results.
In response to an analysts request for "more color" on its PV division, the companys chief financial officer, Bob Halliday, replied, "On solar, we are managing that pretty darn well. The end use market for solar panels and solar cells is pretty good, but there still is an overhang of excess capacity out there thats still being eaten up. So its sort of a neutral market. Its treading water. Its just quarter-to-quarter variations on small numbers."
Popular content
The "small numbers" the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company reported for its solar division in its first quarter included a $3 million loss on sales of $55 million. Applied also reported $50 million in new orders.
While the solar sales were "below expectations," Halliday said Applied expects these to rise to $75 million next quarter.
During the boom in PV manufacturing capacity for example, in 2011, when Applied was the sectors most prolific supplier the companys solar division generated in excess of $1 billion in annual sales.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
Share
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.