Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Spire secures PV assembly line contract in India

By Mass High Tech Staff

Spire Corp. reports it has received a contract from solar-energy company GreenBrilliance for an assembly line to make photovoltaic cells.  Under the deal, Spire will provide GreenBrilliance’s operation in India with a semi-automated crystalline silicon module manufacturing line capable of producing up to 12 megawatts of solar modules per year.

Spire will also supply Herndon, Va.-based GreenBrilliance with the process technology and training to operate the factory, as well as offer assistance in qualifying the factory and its modules to international standards and certification. Financial terms of the deal were not released. 

Last month, Spire landed two deals with Chinese photovoltaic manufacturers. Spire will provide ChengDu Tianwei New Energy PV Module Co. Ltd. (Tianwei) with multiple Spi-Assembler 6000 systems to fully automate the soldering of individual solar cells into strings, as well as multiple units of its Spi-Sun Simulator, used for testing the performance of the solar panels. The company also landed a multi-year, multi-system contract with Trina Solar Ltd. of China to provide it with several Spi-Sun Simulator 4600 Single Long Pulse systems.

In July, Spire won a contract to provide product safety certifier Underwriters Laboratories Inc. with test equipment for the U.S. and China. Spire’s Spi-Sun Simulator 4600 Single Long Pulse systems will be used in the two countries’ certification systems.

Bedford-based Spire reported a 2007 loss of 1.7 million on revenue of $38.4 million.