Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Suntech Opens Sales and Customer Service Office in Italy

SAN FRANCISCO and WUXI, China, Dec. 16 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (NYSE: STP), the world's largest photovoltaic (PV) module manufacturer, today announced the opening of a sales office in Milan, Italy to provide enhanced sales and service support to Suntech's Italian customer base.

Jerry Stokes, Suntech's President of Europe, said, "Our new office in Milan is another step towards the increasing globalization of Suntech's sales and service capabilities. To complement our core sales competency, we are building a multi-faceted team across Europe that is in tune with local market conditions and can respond to customer needs promptly. We believe our customers appreciate this commitment and see Suntech as a reliable, long term solar partner."

Mauro Sgherri, Suntech's Director of Sales, Italy, said, "Suntech's involvement in many of the highest profile solar projects in Europe combined with a deep dedication to quality and continuous technology improvement distinguishes Suntech's solar offering in the Italian market. Moreover, Suntech's industry leading scale, broad product portfolio and timely product delivery highlight our market leadership. We have established a top tier customer base of companies that have long term solar plans and have already built an order book in Italy of over 130 megawatts for 2009. We look forward to supporting the growth plans of our Italian customers through the stablesupply of high quality solar modules and responsive customer service."

The Italian market is set to grow rapidly in 2009 due to strong support from the Italian government in the form of solar subsidies that range from EUR0.36/kWh for large ground-mounted PV systems and up to EUR0.49/kWh for building integrated PV systems. The high solar irradiation provides excellent conditions for generating solar energy.

About Suntech

Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (NYSE: STP) is a world-leading solar energy company as measured by both production output and capacity of solar cells and modules. Suntech is passionate about improving the environment we live in and dedicated to developing advanced solar solutions that enable sustainable development. Suntech designs, develops, manufactures, and markets a variety of high-quality, cost-effective and environmentally friendly solar products for electric power applications in the residential, commercial, industrial, and public utility sectors. Suntech offers one of the broadest ranges of BIPV products under the MSK Solar Design Line(TM). Suntech hassales offices worldwide and is a market share leader in key global solar markets. For more information, please visit http://www.suntech-power.com .

Solar cell maker E-ton signs two long-term supply contracts

Nuying Huang, Taipei; Yvonne Yu, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 16 December 2008]

E-ton Solar Tech, a Taiwan-based maker of crystalline silicon solar cells, announced that the company has signed long-term silicon wafer supply contracts with two separate companies, according to a company filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE).

According to the filing, E-ton will supply 6-inch polysilicon wafers totaling 309 MWp over six years to one company, while supplying a total of 326MWp worth of monocrystalline 6-inch wafers over seven years to another company.

E-ton did not revel the names of its customers.

China solar cell makers may launch fresh price war

Nuying Huang, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES [Tuesday 16 December 2008]

Many second-tier and small makers of crystalline silicon solar cells in China, in order to clear high inventory levels for cash revenues, waged a fierce price war on the spot market in November, and some of them may do so again to further reduce inventories before the off-season period following Christmas and New Year, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

Spot prices of solar cells dropped to US$2.4-3.0/watt in November 2008 due to the price war, and have now fallen further to US$2.2-3.0/watt, the sources pointed out. Because current spot prices are almost at bottom levels, they are unlikely to slip much even if China-based makers kick off another wave of pricing competition, the sources analyzed.