Spire Corporation, a solar company providing capital equipment and turn-key manufacturing lines to produce photovoltaic ("PV") modules and optoelectronics thin film services, announced on December 17th that a major Korean company has purchased Spire’s Advanced Test and Metrology equipment including Simulator and Electroluminescence ("EL") Test equipment for a highly automated module manufacturing facility.
Initial production volume will be 100 megawatts ("MW") of high-efficiency crystalline silicon ("c-Si") modules. In addition, implementation of a phased production plan is expected to produce over 400MW of c-Si modules supporting the demand for utility-scale power installations. The manufacturing facility is a highly automated inline factory including manufacturing execution systems communications, material identification, and integrated tracking over the entire production line. Spire is providing the process and technical expertise to integrate the multiple Simulator and EL Test equipment. Initial production is planned to fulfill installation requirements in early 2014.