Your daily dose of Photovoltaic Technology Developments and Solar News

The landmark announcement of PG&E yesterday to purchase power from facilities that will have a combined capacity of 800MW got me thinking about who is really going for gold among solar power generation centres around the world.
The hypothesis: “The top sporting nations in the world also offer the best prospects for the implementation of solar energy in the mainstream.” Read more >>

Reports from the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona have once again focused on the potential of the Sahara desert region to produce ALL the electrical energy needs of Europe if a mass concentration of solar technology was to be established there. Read more >>

2007 was not the best of years for Japanese PV manufacturers like Sharp. Capacity ramps halted and government subsidies, previously withdrawn, saw the market shrink in what had been the strongest region in the world for PV. Read more >>

Martin Roscheisen’s infrequent but welcomed blog over at Nanosolar’s website has posted an interesting video, showing the company’s proprietary nanoparticle ink dispensing tool that the company claims was running at a 100 feet-per-minute speed. Read more >>

As day one of the three-day Intersolar 2008 event in Munich drew to a close, there were a lot of tired but happy faces meandering through the halls. Tired, because of the sheer enormity of the Messe München means that you need sturdy, forgiving footwear to visit all seven halls, but happy because some of the exhibits on display here really are impressive. Read more >>

The 4th annual PV Industry Forum, forms the opening salvo of this years Intersolar conference and exhibition in Munich. Bringing together the great and the good of the PV industry, it gives the B2B big wigs a chance to mingle and “learn” before the main event starts on Thursday with the Intersolar Trade Fair. Read more >>

The news that Q-Cells, the largest PV manufacturer in the world in 2007, will break ground on a major manufacturing complex in Mexicali, Mexico in 4Q08, marks several potential milestones for the emerging thin-film PV market. Read more >>

It is a tale of two strategies when dealing with the U.S. solar markets, be they consumer or business markets. Both Akeena Solar and First Solar have announced their first quarter financial results recently. The scale of each company is worlds apart and their approaches to a growing market segment are at polar opposites, and it shows. These two companies cannot be directly compared; using these two companies is purely to highlight a growing trend among many solar companies of focussing on certain end-user segments of the solar market. Read more >>

Silicon solar cell producers should forget about the polysilicon shortages, while thin-film companies need not worry about silane supplies. Not because constrained supply issues are expected to ease and material costs to finally lower over the next two years, but because a potentially bigger concern is looming! Read more >>

At the PV Fab Managers’ Forum in Dresden this week, IBM outlined its plans for partnering with the PV manufacturing industry to improve technology and manufacturing processes. Rainer Klaus Krause, IBM’s ISC Innovation Champion, presented to a high level audience of Fab managers and solar manufacturing executives the strategy to partner with manufacturers and technology providers to help the industry achieve price parity more quickly. Read more >>