Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

Supporting the statement in one of our Intersolar blogs earlier today that batteries and storage technologies are the buzzwords at this year’s trade show, Sony has unveiled its new lithium-ion rechargeable batteries.

The Oscars of the solar industry honored the most innovative today at the fourth Intersolar Awards ceremony. The nominees were all deserving having made breakthroughs, cut costs, increased efficiencies and impressed the jury.

Following negotiations, Spain-based Isofoton and Hong Kong company HKSilicon are to build what they say is one of the world’s biggest polysilicon factories.

GCL-Poly (Suzhou) New Energy Limited and Goldpoly New Energy Holdings Limited will build a 300 megawatt (MW) photovoltaic wafer plant in Quanzhou, China.

Q-Cells SE has achieved a polycrystalline solar cell efficiency of 19.5 percent. The results have been confirmed by the Fraunhofer ISE Institute for Solar Energy Systems, based in Freiburg, Germany.

Canadian Solar Inc and GCL-Poly subsidiary Suzhou GCL Photovoltaic Technology Co., Ltd. are to build a 600 megawatt (MW) photovoltaic wafer manufacturing plant in China. The ability to expand capacity to 1.2 gigawatts (GW) will exist.

Morgan Solar Inc. has secured USD$16.5 million in the first tranche of its Series B funding round. It aims to use the funds to make its Sun Simba concentrated photovoltaic modules commercially viable.

United Solar will open its new USD$12 million, 15 megawatt (MW) thin film facility in LaSalle, Ontario today. Up to 80 new jobs are expected to be created.

SolarWorld AG has opened Germany’s largest photovoltaic module manufacturing facility. The capacity expansion takes the company’s annual production from 170 megawatts (MW) to 600. Over 250 extra jobs are also expected to be created.

GT Solar International, Inc. has received a $228 million order from OCI Company, Ltd. for its polysilicon production equipment and technology. It is said to be the company’s largest to date.