SolarWorld launches Qatari joint venture

Leading solar energy firms on both sides of the Atlantic have signed major new deals this week, further fuelling confidence that the market is recovering rapidly after a tough 2009.

German solar energy firm SolarWorld led the way, shrugging off the recent release of its weaker than expected outlook for the year, to announce it has acquired a 29 per cent stake in newly formed joint venture Qatar Solar Technologies (QST).

Under the terms of the deal, SolarWorld has partnered with the Qatar Foundation, which holds a 70 per cent stake in the new venture, and the Qatar Development Bank, which holds the remaining one per cent stake.

The new company will be headquartered in Qatar and will invest more than $500m (£335m) in the construction of a new production facility with a planned output of around 3,600 tons of high-purity polysilicon a year.

SolarWorld said the new joint venture would further secure its supply of solar-grade silicon, while also bolstering its own silicon recycling activities. It also predicted that the location for the new facility, the Ras Laffan Industrial City, could provide a hub for future solar module manufacturing.

The announcement came on the same day as US solar PV manufacturer SunPower announced that it had secured a major deal to supply electronics giant with 32MW of panels this year – enough to power up to 32,000 homes.

The deal represents a major coup for SunPower, providing it with a route into a Japanese solar market that is expected to expand rapidly with the imminent launch of a new incentive scheme.

Toshiba said that it would use the panels as the cornerstone of its new residential solar service, which it plans to launch at the start of next month.

SunPower chief executive, Tom Werner, said the company's high efficiency PV cells, which have reportedly reached conversion efficiencies of 22 per cent, would prove "particularly well suited to Japan's residential market, where the new Japanese feed-in tariff rewards production of solar energy in excess of domestic consumption, but available roof area is typically quite small".

The deal comes just days after rival Californian solar cell producer Solyndra announced that it has inked a major distribution deal with US renewable energy services firm DC Power Systems.