Editors' Blog

  • Renewable technologies, electric vehicle deployment and smart grids are anticipated to accelerate global demand for copper yet further as th

    Utilities take control with a copper-bottomed trend for inverters

    By Felicity Carus - 16 hours ago

    Concern about copper prices is not a recent phenomenon in the history of electrical generation and delivery. In 1879, Thomas Edison calculated that he would need to spend $18,000 to test his first ever electric light system around his lab in Menlo Park, New Jersey.

  • BrightSource Energy’s LPT solar thermal system efficiently harnesses the sun’s energy to create clean and reliable solar power. Source: Brig

    CSP picks up a head of steam thanks to PV

    By Felicity Carus - 14 February 2012, 09:57 | Comments (3)

    Concentrated solar power has run out of steam as PV prices plunge and transmission costs to CSP resources stranded out in the desert soar … or so many in the PV industry would have you believe. But CSP academics and advocates say the technology could be poised to perform a very fine balancing act on California’s grid.

  • REC guiding FBR poly cost as low as US$13/kg by the end of the year

    REC: forget the Q4 financials - dive into the details

    By Mark Osborne - 11 February 2012, 18:18 | Comments (6)

    Sometimes relying on financial results to paint a picture of the status of a company is more than adequate but this has rarely applied to Renewable Energy Corporation (REC). Though many Chinese PV manufacturers have gone down the fully-integrated business model, it was REC that was the first and it does it with a truly international manufacturing footprint. However, it has been a difficult path to tread and many ups and downs along the way. Feisty, determined, unlucky but pragmatic are words that come to mind when characterizing the last five years or so of its activities, events and business development. Colourful is a nice way to sum it up.

  • Have venture capitalists spread their bets too widely when it comes to this particular emerging technology and inadvertently created barrier

    CIGS finance - the end of the [credit] line for VCs?

    By Felicity Carus - 08 February 2012, 13:15 | Comments (5)

    2011 was hardly a vintage year for thin-film solar in the US. Doubts about revenue-ready technologies based on copper, indium, gallium and selenide coalesced around the Solyndra bankruptcy in August. In December, First Solar decided it could not replicate its success in cadmium telluride, and shuttered its CIGS division.

  • Record German PV installations should lead to major FiT mechanism changes

    By Mark Osborne - 10 January 2012, 15:43 | Comments (2)

    A 30% cut in feed-in tariffs in Germany, after a record 7.5GW of new solar power generation installed in the country in 2011, is almost guaranteed based on the current regression system; double the level seen in 2010. Pressure is now on the German government to combat another year of record installations. This would require further changes in the EEG mechanism, as PV system price declines have been greater than the FiT reductions, boosting investor IRR and renewed interest in PV after a dismal first-half year level of adoption.

  • Norsk Hydro invested approximately US$58.8 million in Ascent for roughly a 20% stake in the firm but sold its stake for US$4 million

    What’s behind the figure of US$58.8 million?

    By Mark Osborne - 04 January 2012, 13:17

    News that Norsk Hydro has sold its stake in CIGS thin-film wannabe, Ascent Solar, for US$4 million, to another investor, TFG Radiant Investment Group, may not help the struggling firm with sorely needed cash injections. Nevertheless, it would indicate a level of ‘trust’ in the firm to help ride out the current industry-wide challenges.

  • The UK solar industry won its case against DECC, but what does this mean for its future?

    UK solar court case: is this really a victory?

    By Emma Hughes - 22 December 2011, 16:20

    For the past few weeks all anyone in the UK solar industry has been talking about is feed-in tariff cuts and unexpected deadlines. In fact, since Government announced it would be reducing the incentive rates by more than 50% for household solar installations, almighty chaos has broken out. Friends of the Earth and two solar companies recently won their case against the unforeseen December 12 cut-off point – but is this really a “victory” for the UK solar industry, or have we been plonked between a rock and a hard place?

  • one financial analyst believes First Solar will have to pull a rabbit out of its hat if the financial markets are going to react positively

    What rabbit will First Solar pull out of the hat?

    By Mark Osborne - 13 December 2011, 19:36 | Comments (3)

    First Solar is holding a conference call tomorrow (Wednesday, December 14, 8:00am EST) to provide financial guidance for 2012. As we noted recently, the CdTe thin film leader is set to be the first of any major PV manufacturer to give guidance for next year, after what can only be described as a ‘challenging’ year for the whole industry.

  • Significantly lower installation costs were thought to be the key in countering the higher CIGS manufacturing costs of the tubular technolog

    Leaked emails about Solyndra are first to make sense

    By Mark Osborne - 02 December 2011, 11:48 | Comments (2)

    Having switched off from much, if not all, of the political aspects to the demise of Solyndra, at last we are getting some solid confirmation of the real problems Solyndra was dealing with and getting more inline with the real issue, which was technology based.

  • Moser Baer's 30MW system in Gunthawada, Gujarat.

    Crunch time for India’s solar industry

    By Chris Whitmore - 23 November 2011, 14:30 | Comments (1)

    It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Winston Churchill was referring to Russia, but his much-reused quote could just as easily apply to India’s nascent solar industry. Shrouded in secrecy, the state of play on the subcontinent is exciting as it is confusing.

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Publications

  • Photovoltaics International 14th Edition

    Photovoltaics International 14th Edition

    Published in November 2011, the 14th edition of Photovoltaics International provides a variety of technical papers from some of the industry’s stalwarts. Features include: TÜV Rheinland on junction box testing; Laser Zentrum Hannover on laser edge isolation of mc-Si cells; Calisolar on the importance of traceability; Fraunhofer ISE on EWT cells; and EPIA on Europe’s LCOE.

  • Photovoltaics International Lite, Volume 05 - 2011

    Photovoltaics International Lite, Volume 05 - 2011

    This digital interactive Lite sees Tom Cheyney follow Agua Caliente’s progress on becoming one of first truly utility-scale PV power farms, where 40–50MW (AC) will be commissioned by the end of the year. We also feature one of the world’s largest silicon thin-film PV power plants, Avenal; a report on warnings of the collapse of module prices from Solarbuzz and PI-Berlin presents tips on PV module testing. A print version of this edition will be distributed at Solar Power International 2011 in Dallas, Texas.

  • Manufacturing The Solar Future: The 2011 Production Annual

    Manufacturing The Solar Future: The 2011 Production Annual

    Manufacturing the Solar Future is the primary source guide for detailed information on the PV production process. This annual provides technical details on how the leading companies and research organizations worldwide are addressing this need by dramatically improving their manufacturing processes.

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