Many key PV manufacturers in Taiwan are still reporting monthly sales in February, 2017 that are well below the levels set in the first half of 2016, due primarily to the expected boom in China’s downstream PV market, which has yet to take hold.
‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member Hanwha Q CELLS is allocating only US$50 million to capital expenditures in 2017, indicating there would be no new in-house capacity expansions in 2017.
NEXTracker, a Flex company, has launched a solar plus energy-storage solution for US and international markets. ‘NX Fusion Plus’ integrates the latest, in solar tracker design, battery, inverter, and software to deliver better return on investment to owners of solar power plants.
In defiance of a significant trend by a growing number of leading PV manufacturers to either completely replace P-type multi c-Si cell technology with P-type mono c-Si with PERC (Passivated Emitter Rear Contact) technology, or hedge their bets and do PERC on both wafer substrates, Silicon Module Super League member Canadian Solar is placing a potentially risky bet on pushing ahead with the migration to P-type multi c-Si PERC cell technology using diamond wire saw (DWS) and ‘Black Silicon’ texturing under its ‘ONYX’ cell branding.
von Ardenne’s ‘SCALA’ platform has been designed to close the gap between R&D and production of Silicon heterojunction (HJ) solar cells. The modular platform provides a pathway via a technology approach, the tuning of the PVD processing and the complementary technology steps such as texturing, PECVD and metallization processes for 22% conversion efficiencies on 6-inch substrates and thus to ease the path to commercialization.
Silicon Module Super League (SMSL) member JA Solar is continuing to expand manufacturing capacity in 2017 after guiding total shipments to be in the range of 6GW to 6.5GW, up from 5.2GW in 2016.
Growatt has combined a unique technology and design concept into the Growatt SPF3000/5000 series to provide power independently and cost-effectively in off-grid and self consumption applications.
China-based polysilicon producer Daqo New Energy is responding to the need for higher specification polysilicon demand by increased adoption of high-efficiency mono wafers, notably being required for PERC (Passivated Emitter Rear Contact) solar cells.
