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GT Solar to Deliver HEM Furnaces to Deutsche Solar

GT Solar to Deliver HEM Furnaces to Deutsche Solar

Published 04-30-02

Submitted by GT Solar Technologies

NASHUA, New Hampshire - GT Solar Technologies, a leading manufacturer of photovoltaic (PV) wafer, cell and module manufacturing equipment, will deliver multiple units of its GT-MX225 HEM furnace to SolarWorld AG subsidiary, Deutsche Solar. The value of the contract is in excess of $6 million.

The HEM furnaces will be installed at Deutsche Solar's Freiberg, Germany facility as part of the company's ongoing growth. The HEM (Heat Exchanger Method) is a crystal growth process for growing multicrystalline silicon ingots, which are further manufactured to produce electricity-producing solar cells, a key high growth product in the solar energy industry now growing over 35% annually.

"It required only a couple of growth runs to put the HEM furnace into full operational mode after installation." said Dr. Armin Mueller, Head of Production Crystallization and Research & Development at Deutsche Solar. "From then on we produced ingots that fully met our specifications."

"Our systems are proven and come on line quickly," explained Keith Matthei, Vice President of GT Solar. "Our experience in manufacturing PV equipment initially attracts customers like Deutsche Solar. They quickly develop confidence in the HEM manufacturing process, and that enables them to move on to focus on other critical business issues."

Deutsche Solar chose GT Solar's HEM furnaces after comprehensively testing one GT HEM furnace, which successfully displayed the proven capabilities of the equipment. GT Solar's HEM furnaces currently produce nearly one-third of the world's polycrystalline cells. The HEM furnaces' output, combined with the output of other silicon growth furnaces built by GT, yield close to 50% of the world's polycrystalline silicon material production of the solar industry.

About GT Solar

GT Solar, a specialist in automated manufacturing and sensor-based process control, is a leading manufacturer of integrated turnkey photovoltaic (PV) fabrication lines and PV manufacturing equipment for solar electricity-producing wafers, cells and modules. GT Solar Technologies is a division of GT Equipment Technologies, Inc. based in Nashua, New Hampshire (USA) and employs 85 people. The company received the Small Business Administration's New Hampshire Exporter of the Year Award for 2002. For more information: http://www.gtsolar.com/

About Deutsche Solar

Deutsche Solar GmbH, formerly part of the Freiberger Elektronikwerkstoffe GmbH in Freiberg, has been founded 1994 by partial acquisition of the Bayer AG, Leverkusen, Germany. In 2000 SolarWorld AG acquired Deutsche Solar from Bayer. The headquarters remained in Freiberg because of the locally accumulated substantial know-how in silicon technology. The company went public in February 2002 to become the Deutsche Solar AG. Deutsche Solar's role within the SolarWorld conglomerate is the production of feedstock, wafers and solar cells. For more information visit: http://www.solarworld.de/dtsolar/grundseite_idx.htm

GT Solar Technologies

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