Silicon Valley Solar outsources manufacturing to Germany

New solar concentration vendor Silicon Valley Solar (SV Solar) today announced a manufacturing agreement with Gebäude-Solarsysteme GmbH (GSS) of Thuringia, Germany.

GSS is to ramp up production to build SV Solar's Sol-X2 internal concentrator solar modules. 

“This is an important milestone in the scale-up of our company,” said Dave Shannahan, president of SV Solar. “We have been evaluating potential manufacturing partners to enable us to meet the demand for our module technology on an accelerated schedule.”

In December, SV Solar secured a purchase order from Pacific Power Management for 10MW of the company's forthcoming solar concentrating panels. (See Silicon Valley Solar outed.)

“We’ve had extensive meetings with a wide variety of solar industry leaders in Germany, and GSS came highly recommended as an ideal partner to produce our Sol-X modules,” added Patrick Callinan, CEO of SV Solar. “They are an integral part of the German solar industry, having won numerous awards and provided innovative solutions for companies such as Conergy AG, Q-Cells AG and Shell Solar GmbH.”

While SV Solar's Sol-X concentrating modules are form-compatible with standard flat plate modules, some modifications are required to utilize a standard PV manufacturing line, the company said.

The agreement includes a joint development provision for SV Solar to work with GSS to apply modifications to adapt the equipment and process to the Sol-X design, according to SV Solar.

GSS has the capacity to produce nearly 100,000 modules per year (16MWp), and it is expected to build a significant portion of SV Solar’s initial annual production.

Production samples are anticipated to ship in late Q1 of this year, with volume ramping up over the latter half of 2007, the company said.

SV Solar is a manufacturer of flat plate internal concentrator solar modules. The company was founded by Patrick Callinan, President and CEO of Silicon Valley Microelectronics (SVM). SVM has been supplying silicon wafers and feedstock to the semiconductor and solar industries for the past 16 years.

Established in 1992, GSS has provided solutions for the leading PV companies in Germany and around the world.

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