Waterloo-based solar technology firm ARISE Technologies Corporation (TSX: T.APV, Stock Forum) announced Monday that it has met the fourth major milestone for its Silicon Feedstock Pilot Plant project.
"We have completed all the engineering planning required for the new 68,000-square-foot Pilot Plant in Kitchener, Ontario. The retrofitting of the existing building to suit our needs is underway and on schedule. As previously announced, we are planning that the Pilot Plant will have a production capacity of 50 tonnes per year in 2009 and a further expansion to 400 tonnes per year is expected by 2010," said Bart Tichelman, the company’s president and chief executive officer.
The project is developing a new approach being used for refining high-purity silicon needed for high-efficiency photovoltaic cells and the fourth milestone included completing the initial construction phase of the Pilot Plant and the successful completion and operation of a Pilot Plant scale furnace, says the company.
"The engineering design, procurement, and fabrication for the first SiRF(TM) 4 furnace are complete and we are very pleased with the results of the initial runs. We expect to use SiRF(TM) 4 equipment in our 400-tonnes-per-year facility, planned for 2010," said Jeff Dawkins, vice-president and general manager, of the company’s PV silicon division.
Shares of ARISE Technologies were up 1.75% to 58 cents Monday.
On the ARISE Technologies Bullboard, posters commented on the market’s response to the news, with Stockhouse member sopot saying:
It is amazing the lack of response of the market to this remarkable news. Perhaps it is the most important news recently. Development in the silicon production is( in my opinion) "make it or brake it" for Arise! People are getting excited about hundred of millions in revenue and not paying enough attention to the margins. Chipper silicon would allow Arise to increase its margins, and on the other hand 7N will allow APV to get higher efficiency (20% and up?) which brings also higher margins. You can sell in billions and still register loses. Increasing margin from present of 2-3% to 20% and higher is the solution to the success!!! There is nothing more important than successful development of the silicon production division(!!!) - Arise without it may progress, but with such a small margins it would be constant straggle for survivle. Let's hope for continuation of the positive and fast development in silicon production, which will boost growth of this company (and its SP) tremendously!!![sic].
mouser_man added: “is it possible that there is more news to come???? Whenever this stock trades on low vols, there is usually a follow-up news release. Stay tuned, I think we could see some news updates on line #2 and its progress on the setup for production. That would move the stock![sic].”
