Is trouble brewing for solar equipment and material manufacturers?

Dr. Robert Castellano, The Information Network

NEW TRIPLOI, USA: I noted in an Insight article last week that by clever misrepresentation of the current situation of slowing demand in solar installations, top tier Chinese solar manufacturers are able to secure financing in the multi-million dollar range under the guise that their cells and modules and only their cells and modules have bankability. Large Chinese government or government-owned banks are extending billions of dollars in loans to domestic firms.

I also noted that China-based first-tier solar firms Suntech, JA Solar, Trina Solar, and Yingli Green Energy, plan to expand total annual capacity by 40GW in 2011. However, global demand for solar cells in 2011 might only be around 15GW, hence an oversupply is very likely. The overcapacity I speak about is real-world overcapacity, not the imaginary-world undercapacity of bankable solar promulgated by the first-tier firms.

If an equipment or materials company has customers in the first-tier group, anticipate another banner year in 2011. According to analysis by The Information Network, the top equipment manufacturers for 2010 were:Source: The Information Network, USA.

The top 13 companies sold 61.4 percent of the total equipment to solar manufacturers in 2010, and there are dozens of smaller companies that sold the remaining 38.6 percent ($4 billion) of the market in 2010.

According to SolarBuzz, Sharp declines in book-to-bill ratios are currently being posted by equipment suppliers that have been over-dependent on c-Si expansions in Europe, tier 2 c-Si spending from China, and speculative thin-film investments. The book-to-bill ratio compares new-order-intake to revenues-recognized within a given period. It is the ratio of demand to supply in the equipment supply chain. SolarBuzz expects the book-to-bill ratio to drop and be below parity (less bookings, more billings) for the remainder of 2011.

That being said, 2011 will be a tough year for solar equipment manufacturers. Equipment manufacturers (and material manufacturers because of the 15 percent demand growth in 2011) will need a “hook”. I’ve mentioned in previous articles that by offering technology to increase yield and reduce costs by more than 10 percent, privately held SolarPA is well positioned to license its technology to these manufacturers.

Santa Clara University’s School of Engineering to launch new scholar program for PV research

SANTA CLARA, USA: Santa Clara University’s School of Engineering will receive an anonymous gift of $1.3 million from an engineering alumnus and his wife from the San Francisco Bay Area to help create some of the country’s top students in the field of renewable energy.

“This is the first substantial donation to our energy program following our successes in the 2007 and 2009 Solar Decathlon competitions,” says Godfrey Mungal, Santa Clara University School of Engineering dean.“It comes at a very exciting time for us as we begin celebrating our 100th anniversary and a century of engineering excellence here at Santa Clara University. Energy is a prime focus for us as we move into the next 100 years of educating leaders of integrity to solve the world’s most challenging problems and we are so appreciative of this gift that will, we hope, be just the start of more support for this important program.”

The donation will help the school launch the Latimer Engineering Scholars Program in the 2011-12 academic year to support teaching and research in sustainable energy. Electrical Engineering Professor and Latimer Engineering Scholars Program Director Tim Healy will begin working with incoming freshman engineering students. He will select five students and assign them laboratory projects, provide education on renewable energy, focusing initially on photovoltaics and then expanding to other areas as the program grows.

Each student will also receive stipends for working in the lab and on the projects. With each successive quarter, Healy says the students will receive new education, projects, and materials as long as they are successful. The projects will also become increasingly sophisticated after each year, and as the students move up in rank, they will be able to mentor the younger students.

“The objective is to develop highly-educated undergraduate students in photovoltaics and renewable energy,” says Healy. “We hope to have among the best educated students in the country in this area.”

Healy also envisions that the program will develop strong personal contacts with companies and create internship opportunities for the scholars during the summer.

“After students spend a year or two in the program, they will be able to pursue internships in places such as the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, solar technology companies like SunPower Corporation in San Jose, Calif., and perhaps one of the light-emitting-diode companies in the Silicon Valley,” says Healy.

Healy and his colleague Professor Samiha Mourad co-founded the Latimer Engineering Lab at Santa Clara University in 2008 to teach undergraduate and graduate students about renewable energy. Faculty also use the lab for SCU’s annual Summer Engineering Seminars to give high school students a chance to explore engineering.

Google partners with SolarCity to create $280 million fund for residential solar projects

SAN MATEO & MOUNTAIN VIEW, USA: SolarCity and Google announced the creation of a new $280 million fund to finance residential solar projects. The Google-backed fund is the first collaboration between the Internet giant and the nation’s leading solar power and energy efficiency service provider, and represents Google’s largest investment to date in the clean energy sector.

The fund is SolarCity’s largest project financing fund and the largest residential solar fund created in the US SolarCity has now created 15 project funds with seven different partners to finance $1.28 billion in solar projects.

“Google is setting an example that other leading American companies can follow,” said Lyndon Rive, CEO of SolarCity. “The largest 200 corporations in the US have more than $1 trillion in cash on their balance sheets. Investments in solar energy generate returns for corporate investors, offer cost savings for homeowners, create new, local jobs for jobseekers, and protect the environment from polluting power sources. If more companies follow Google’s lead, we can dramatically reduce our nation’s dependence on polluting power.”

The SolarCity/Google fund will extend solar lease (SolarLease) and power purchase agreement (SolarPPA) options to customers who desire to have solar panels installed on their homes, but do not wish to make the larger upfront investment to purchase the systems.

SolarCity serves Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas, and has more than 15,000 solar projects completed or underway. More than 12,000 of those customers have chosen SolarCity’s financing options, while 3,000 have purchased their systems.

“Google has made a series of investments in renewable energy because they make business sense and help deploy a range of solutions that can help move us toward a clean energy future,” said Rick Needham, Director of Green Business Operations at Google. “Now, through this partnership with SolarCity, we’re excited to be making our first investment in distributed residential solar, making it easier and more affordable for consumers across the country, including our own employees, to use renewable energy at their own homes.”

Google has now invested more than $680 million in a wide range of clean energy technologies. This marks Google’s first investment in residential solar.

“As American consumers better understand the consequences of their energy choices, demand for affordable clean power is increasing,” said Benjamin Cook, vice president of project finance at SolarCity. “This collaboration with Google will enable us to provide solar power to thousands of homeowners at or below the cost they currently pay for electricity.”

Power-One announces digital power management patent license with ZMDI

CAMARILLO, USA & DRESDEN, GERMANY: Power-One Inc., a leading global manufacturer of renewable energy and energy-efficient power conversion and management solutions, and Zentrum Mikroelektronik Dresden AG (ZMDI), an innovative provider of energy efficient analog and mixed-signal semiconductor solutions, have entered into a non-exclusive, worldwide, Field of Use agreement for Digital Power Technology (DPT) patents from Power-One.

Digital Power Technology drives increased system efficiency, improved design flexibility, faster time to market, decreased footprint size and lower system costs. DPT also enables telemetry capability, providing access to critical information including current, temperature and voltage. Telemetry allows the system to accurately monitor its power consumption and thermal performance, enabling designers to easily engineer key features such as system optimization, fault detection and predictive maintenance features into their end products.

As applications in server, storage, networking and wireless infrastructure continue to drive board densities higher, requiring complex power architectures to drive FPGAs, ASICS, DSPs and other semiconductor devices, Digital Power Technology is an extremely attractive solution.

"Power-One is pleased to license its Digital Power Technology to ZMDI, an emerging market leader in the power-management IC industry, for incorporation into its products," said Steve Hogge, President of Power Solutions at Power-One. "With the expanding number of leading power supply and semiconductor companies partnering with Power-One, we will continue to expand the market by providing energy-efficient technologies with increased functionality for our customers."

"Leveraging the DPT patents meshes with our goal of delivering energy-efficient solutions for point-of-load applications," stated Bernhard Huber, ZMDI Business-Line Manager for Standard Components. "We can focus on developing chipsets that address all output loading conditions based on ZMDI's performance goals."

GT Solar completes expansion of its sapphire manufacturing facility

MERRIMACK, USA: GT Solar International Inc., a global provider of polysilicon production technology, and sapphire and silicon crystalline growth systems and materials for the solar, LED and other specialty markets, celebrated the grand opening of its new state-of-the-art sapphire production facility located in Salem, Massachusetts.

The opening of the newly expanded plant concludes a project that began in the fall of 2010 that triples the sapphire production capacity in its Salem facility. GT invested $27 million to create a high volume production facility to provide sapphire material for the fast-growing LED market and other industrial material industries.

"The investment in this new plant is a testament to our belief in the growth of the sapphire market and our ability to capture a leadership position in this industry," said Tom Gutierrez, GT Solar’s president and CEO. "We’ve leveraged forty years of crystal growth expertise from Crystal Systems and combined it with GT’s successful track record of rapid scale-up of commercial crystalline growth technology to create a new state-of-the-art sapphire manufacturing facility capable of producing predictable and repeatable high quality sapphire crystal run after run."

"We are extremely proud of having constructed our world-class manufacturing facility in such a short amount of time, and it is a testament to the dedication and hard work of the team that drove the planning and construction," said Cheryl Diuguid, vice president and general manager of GT’s sapphire equipment and materials business unit.

"We are also proud to be able to generate high quality employment opportunities to the people of Salem and throughout the North Shore area. Since the completion of the acquisition of Crystal Systems last summer, we have doubled our employment within our business unit. Our sapphire business is growing, and at a time of high unemployment for so many Americans, we are pleased that we are in a position to offer high quality manufacturing employment opportunities."

“Governor Patrick has focused on stimulating economic activity in our Gateway Cities and creating jobs in innovation sectors like clean energy and advanced manufacturing. This expansion project combines all three of those important elements,” said Secretary of Housing & Economic Development Greg Bialecki. “On behalf of the Patrick-Murray Administration, I congratulate GT Solar on their significant growth and thank them for their commitment to doing business in Massachusetts.”

GT Solar acquired sapphire producer Crystal Systems in July 2010. Construction of the new 20,000 square foot manufacturing facility began in October and is ramping to full volume production over the next several months. The facility is a highly efficient manufacturing environment utilizing the latest production control technology to produce high-yielding boules of consistent size and quality. The boules produce cores of two, four, six or eight-inch and beyond for downstream processing into high quality wafers for the LED market and other material such as large diameter A and C-axis windows for other industrial markets.

The company’s crystal growth experts also use the manufacturing facility as a research and development center – testing advancements in process technology and commercializing process knowledge and know-how that deliver value to our growing list of ASF™ equipment customers.

First dedicated electrical test kit for solar PV installation

Intersolar North America 2011, TAMPA‚ USA: The new Seaward Solar Installation PV100 is the first dedicated multi-function electrical tester for those involved in solar panel installation.

The new tester is capable of carrying out all electrical tests required by the international IEC 62446 standard for grid connected PV systems and eliminates the need for multiple test instruments for PV solar panel electrical installation and connection.

With the push of a single button the new combination tester carries out the required sequence of electrical tests in a safe and controlled manner, avoiding the risk of contact with exposed live DC conductors.

The rugged and robust Seaward Solar Installation PV100 is hand held and battery operated for maximum portability. The supplied MC4 and Sunclix test leads allow it to be connected quickly, easily and safely to all standard PV modules and arrays to test ground continuity‚ insulation resistance‚ open circuit voltage and short circuit currents.

All required measurements are performed automatically and displayed clearly with confirmation of whether the test results are acceptable. The instrument will also compare the performance of multiple strings and indicate whether the open circuit voltage or short circuit current measurements deviate by more than 5 percent.

An AC/DC current clamp is provided for the measurement of operation currents and the complete test kit, including all test probes‚ alligator clips, Sunclix and MC4 adaptor leads is supplied in a convenient carrying case.

In addition‚ a special SolarCert Elements manual entry PC software program is available for the recording of test data and the production of professional inspection reports and test certificates.

Sunvalley Solar receives LoIs for over 600 KW of solar installation projects

WALNUT, USA: Sunvalley Solar Inc., a leading provider of solar power technology and solar integration systems, announced that it received new non-binding Letters of Interest for 604.84 kilowatts of solar installation projects for 2012 from three Southern California customers.

Sunvalley Solar continues to aggressively promote its thin film technology solar system solutions by leveraging the incentives from the Federal Government (30 percent of the project cost as a Federal Tax Cash Grant) and solar rebate programs from the utility company, and by capitalizing on Sunvalley's own client-financing plan.

On June 7th, Sunvalley received new non-binding Letters of Interest for over 600 kilowatts of solar installation projects with a potential value of approximately $2.85M from CGM Development, PGI Pacific Graphics, and PTP Inc. in the Los Angeles area. Definitive contracts are under negotiation.