AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電), the nation’s No. 2 LCD panel maker, yesterday said it had clinched a 9 megawatt deal to supply solar modules and to build a solar plant to power the Pennsylvania School District, marking the company’s progress as it diversifies into the “green” energy industry.
“The US is a very important solar market. AUO’s high-efficiency and high-quality solar modules are not only widely acclaimed for their performance in the residential and commercial markets, but they have also successfully helped us bid for large utility and government projects,” AUO Solar Business vice president James Chen (陳建斌) said in a press release yesterday.
The solar power plant project, the largest of its kind in Pennsylvania, is expected to use 37,500 of AUO’s high-efficiency solar modules, according to the statement. Construction is expected to be completed in September.
When it begins operating, the plant, which occupies an area equivalent to 87 football fields, is expected to supply 10,880,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year to 5,000 students at five schools.
Demand for solar power installations in North America is expected to grow by more than 60 percent this year compared with last year, because of falling prices and new government subsidy policies, market researcher NPD Solarbuzz said in a report issued on Monday.
AUO shares inched up 0.6 percent to NT$16.8 yesterday, better than the benchmark TAIEX’s 0.25 percent gain.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by