All About Solar | Green Energy News

January 22, 2006 – Vol.10 No.44

All ABOUT SOLAR.

This week’s news...

Cypress Semiconductor, the majority shareholder of SunPower Corporation, is reaping the benefits of its investment. For the fourth quarter of 2005 SunPower's revenues were $29.3 million, up 33.8 percent over the third quarter and 12.3 percent of Cypress’s total for the last period of ‘05.

The big news of the quarter was a $330 million supply contract with PowerLight.

2006 should be off to a good start as well with demand for solar energy soaring and SunPower’s ramping up of manufacturing capacity. However, demand for solar energy has put a pinch on polysilicon supplies that will drive solar prices higher. The solar industry, including SunPower, heavily reliant on silicon for cells, may have difficulty meeting demand in 2006 because of the shortage of silicon.

SunPower's core product is the A-300 mono-crystalline silicon solar cell which carries an efficiency rating of up to 21 percent. Visit SunPower Corporation at http://www.sunpowercorp.com/ .

In review of 2005, Solar Integrated announced that it had installed 39 solar systems during the year bringing the company’s total to 58 installations. Combined nameplate capacity of all 58 systems is 5 megawatts. The company has completed solar projects in Arizona, California, Nevada, New York, Texas, Germany and Spain. Customers were household names such as Coca-Cola, Frito-Lay and Wal-Mart.

Solar Integrated specializes in Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) systems, particularly a flexible solar roll roofing material, known as SmartRoof (tm). SmartRoof utilizes United Solar’s flexible thin-film, self-stick solar product. The company also sells conventional solar modules.

Flexible solar roofing products have the appeal of being lightweight, attractive, and able to withstand high winds, but being a permanent part of roof create difficulties if a roof needs repairs. Visit Solar Integrated at http://www.solarintegrated.com/ .

The solar industry tries to find every method it can to chip away at costs. Automating the production process as much as possible - eliminating the human factor - is one way to do it.

Spire has introduced a new line of solar module assembly equipment, the SPI-ASSEMBLER 6000. A few words describe the new model: It increases throughput over the previous model. More panels in the same amount of time.

Visit Spire’s new website at http://www.spirecorp.com/