A consortium of seven partners supported by €13.8 million in financing from the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme for European Research and Innovation are to build a solid state hydrogen storage plant designed to balance power supply and demand of renewable energy installed in the Puglia region of Italy, which employs around 3.5GW of solar, wind and biomass energy resources.
CAMECA has recently introduced the IMS 7f-Auto Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometer, the latest version of its IMS 7f system. The new instrument is designed to deliver precision elemental and isotopic analyses with increased ease of use and productivity of advanced materials research applications.
While talks continue with potential buyers of insolvent PV manufacturer, Q-Cells, Insolvency administrator Henning Schorisch will also potentially conduct a full restructuring of the company under administration. Q-Cells reported that its creditors met in Dessau-Rosslau to hear about the insolvency proceedings.
According to the US Department of Commerce’s latest release of the ‘U.S. Imports of Merchandise’ database, solar-based products from China declined around 45% in May, compared to the same month a year ago. The Coalition for American Solar Manufacturing (CASM) claimed that this decline represented a positive impact of the recent anti-subsidy duties and anti-dumping duties applied to Chinese solar cells as users have therefore become concerned over the risks and uncertainties as well as cost issues of using Chinese modules for installations in the US.
Evonik Cyro has launched ‘ACRYLITE’ Solar Pre-Fab acrylic lens panels, which are combined with a Secondary Optical Element (SOE) to create a complete optical train package for assembly directly onto Concentrated Photovoltaic (CPV) modules. This allows customers to bypass purchasing the tooling device needed to create the product and avoid the required time-consuming installation process.
Edwards has launched the STP-iXR1606 series of magnetically-levitated turbo-molecular pumps (TMP) with a fully-integrated onboard controller. Edwards’ new TMP incorporates a new rotary design that delivers approximately 40% improvement in throughput at high gas flow rates and an increase of nearly 90% in maximum gas flow, compared to existing products.
Engineered Conductive Materials (ECM) has introduced a fast curing conductive adhesive, DB-1590 for use as a solder replacement in next-generation crystalline silicon solar modules using thinned silicon and/or plated bus bars. This material formulation has been optimized to provide improved conductivity and stability on various substrates when cured at 200°C.
Several reports cite General Electric’s general manger of solar technology operations, Danielle Merfeld, saying that the company has suspended the construction and commercial roll-out of its CdTe thin-film modules due to the current market conditions. GE announced the location of its first thin-film plant in October 2011 which would have a nameplate capacity of 400MW and start commercial shipments in 2013. The facility was at the core of a US$600 million investment in entering the solar industry.
Updated. Business conditions at LDK Solar have worsened considerably since reporting fourth quarter financial results at the end of April, 2012. The integrated PV manufacturer has slashed both polysilicon production and full-year revenue guidance, while meeting the low mark of guided sales in its first quarter 2012 results.
Under intense pressure to remain the low-cost leader, First Solar is taking a leaf from the semiconductor industry by teaming up with materials specialists Intermolecular to fast-track R&D research in materials and processes to shorten the time-to-market for higher efficiency CdTe-based, thin-film PV modules. Taking record cell and module efficiencies from the lab to the fab has proved to be a perennial problem for all types of PV technology.
