This Week in Solar

On Monday, SunPower (Nasdaq: SPWRA  ) announced the sale of the first two phases of its Montalto di Castro solar array in Italy. This PV project, Italy's largest, came with the purchase of developer SunRay earlier this year. SunPower now needs to close on the third phase, which is over 50% larger than the first two combined, by the end of the year to hit its guidance. The company says it's in negotiations and confident that it will close the transaction in the fourth quarter.

Monday also saw an announcement from Solarfun Power (Nasdaq: SOLF  ) that the Chinese firm is expanding its sales footprint in the United States. The company is targeting shipments of 30 to 50 megawatts in the second half of this year, and 100 to 150 megawatts next year. I recently tapped Solarfun as one of my bright ideas for the back half of 2010.

Mid-week, we got a trio of earnings reports. I already shared my thoughts on SunPower here, so let's take a quick look at the other two sets of results.

JA Solar (Nasdaq: JASO  ) was one of the last holdouts when it came to vertical integration among the Chinese solar players. The firm is moving quickly into module manufacturing, with a target of 500 megawatts of capacity by year's end. JA is moving upstream into wafers as well. It's too early to say how successful these moves will be, but the firm's core cell business appears to be firing on all cylinders. The company increased its full-year shipment guidance by 35%.

LDK Solar (NYSE: LDK  ) raised its own shipment guidance as it reported a huge lift in quarterly revenue. The long-awaited polysilicon project is finally contributing meaningful volumes, with 1,200 metric tons produced in the period, but growth appears to be taking a pause next quarter. Barclays has cited a tightening in polysilicon supply in recent weeks, so LDK's ramp up may be coming at a good time.

Toward the end of the week, we heard from some players that have fallen on hard times of late. Energy Conversion Devices (Nasdaq: ENER  ) announced job cuts in Michigan and a shift in its manufacturing base in favor of Tijuana. Meanwhile, Q-Cells reported a quarterly profit for the first time since 2008. The firm says its restructuring is largely concluded. It will be interesting to see whether the former European high-flyer can regain its place among the solar elite.