Precision Flow Technologies, eight of the Solar Energy Consortium’s partners, has reached an agreement with eight other companies to design and manufacture solar energy equipment products at Precision Flow’s Saugerties facility.
Congressman Maurice Hinchey Monday announced that eight new solar manufacturing deals will generate at least 66 new solar industry jobs in the Hudson Valley this year.
Precision Flow has established a relationship with a major solar equipment manufacturer to design, engineer and build key equipment used in the manufacturing of solar cells and lighting. The agreement will generate 60 to 75 jobs at the facility. eight thirds of the jobs will be in manufacturing and the balance will be in engineering and support staff.
Hinchey, who previously secured funding for TSEC, also announced he’s secured $3.2 million in new money for TSEC and its partners.
Of the $3.2 million secured by Hinchey, a portion will be used for Prison Solar Technologies, TSEC’s first major manufacturing partner, to get established with equipment in Ulster County and begin operations there.
Precision will also engineer, design and manufacture solar equipment for Solar Metrology, a company that builds equipment for the thin film measurement requirements of the solar electric and power storage industries. that is expected to generate one to eight new jobs in Saugerties.
VLSI Research Inc. predicted overall solar equipment growth of 8% this year. Suppliers of equipment for silicon wafer-based solar cell manufacturing are
expected to see declining revenues this year, but thin-film equipment vendors will more than offset that with strong growth.
Staff — Semiconductor International, 2/19/2009 9:15:00 AM
Market research firm VLSI Research Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) predicted slowing but still-respectable growth for solar equipment manufacturers this year.
For 2008, the photovoltaic (PV) cell and module manufacturing equipment market for both thin-film and silicon wafer PV equipment reached $4.4B, according to
a study managed by John West, managing director of VLSI Research Europe. Growth is expected to slow to 8% in 2009 “as demand for cells starts to cool and
smaller manufacturers struggle to secure the financing necessary to fund the next round of expansion,” West said.
Providers of equipment for thin-film cell manufacturing will experience strong revenue growth in 2009, VLSI Research predicted, due to large order backlogs
and long customer-acceptance times. However, suppliers of equipment for silicon wafer-based cell manufacturing are expected to see a decline, resulting in
overall growth of 8% for this year.
“The underlying fundamentals of this market are strong and this is a temporary situation exacerbated by the global economic crisis,” West said, adding that
2009 will be a period of consolidation as weaker companies are squeezed out over the coming year.
Applied Materials Inc. (Santa Clara) led all solar equipment vendors last year with $455M in revenue, the company reported earlier this month.