As DEK Solar Chairman, I’ve been reflecting on the year gone by recently and naturally, my attention has turned to what 2011 has in store for us. So, here are my thoughts – for what they’re worth!
2010 was better than even we could have predicted. After the downturn of 2009, last year was characterised by a solar market ramp-up of an unprecedented scale. Of course, we had seen clear signs of recovery but the explosive return of the industry exceeded our expectations.
Naturally, we capitalised on the market buoyancy and launched a new scalable platform for solar cell metallization. It was very well received. Very well indeed! With the world hungry for sustainable green energy, more players entered the photovoltaic race. We knew that scalability was the hinge pin. Companies were looking to establish manufacturing quickly then ramp up production to meet demand. What they needed was a metallization platform that could grow with them equally as rapidly. We gave them that with our new Eclipse and bookings have remained strong.
Fortunately, our years of experience in manufacturing flexibility both in our UK and China plants allowed us to keep lead times short, though perhaps not as short as we would have liked. But that’s a primary objective for 2011. One way we’re achieving this is by starting to manufacture solar equipment in China, which puts us closer to most of our customers – right now China remains the hub of world photovoltaic manufacturing.
Going forward, we have a raft of initiatives in place to grow the DEK Solar team and deliver even greater localised support. Internally we look forward to appointing more engineering and operations staff, and to increasing our manufacturing space in the UK and China. Again! Our customers can expect to see more sales and applications resources, including an expanded and more effective laboratory & demonstration facility in China which we’ll make available to our customers. So, if you’ll excuse the cliché, the future’s bright!
- John Knowles, DEK Solar Chairman
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