Since Chinese investments into major cell and module facilities started - more than 10 years ago - success ultimately has been driven by overseas market-share gains, above other technical or financial benchmarks that otherwise would be expected.
A number of international initiatives have helped large-scale solar gain a foothold in Africa. The question now is how the market for this segment will develop beyond these programmes and how much capacity grids will be able to support.
Module selection for utility-scale solar sites in 2019 is likely to see the widespread availability of higher performance products with average selling prices significantly lower than witnessed over the past 12-18 months. So what does this mean for EPCs and developers? Finlay Colville reveals all.
The US Naval Research Laboratory selected Alta Devices, as the solar solution for the prototype Hybrid Tiger UAV, Edgar A. Gunter explores the results and the implications for the thin-film market.
PV Tech looks at market trends through the eyes of the CEO of DK Electronic Materials (DKEM), a metallization solution provider for high efficiency cells.
PV manufacturing capacity expansion announcements in the first quarter of 2018 continued to follow the strong trend set in the fourth quarter of 2017. The quarter also represented a revival in thin-film expansion plans as well as the return of PV module assembly outpacing solar cell announcements. Also notable was the return of India and the US as major destinations for new capacity plans.
India’s unusual tender for 5GW of PV manufacturing capacity linked with 10GW of solar projects has been called many things, ranging from pioneering to fanciful, but the earliest stages have seen some of the global industry’s biggest names toss their hat in the ring.
The past few weeks has seen some of the most dramatic knee-jerk, naïve and misinformed PV market reporting seen in recent times, with the headlines often resembling nothing more than tabloid sensationalism.
Hanwha Q CELLS became the latest company to make a gigawatt-scale manufacturing commitment in the States but Trump has some way to go to make US solar manufacturing great again.
Move over pesky perovskites and old faithful intrinsic amorphous silicon as the preferred solutions for tandem-junction solar cell post crystalline-silicon PERC (passivated emitter rear cell) technology: A perennial conversion efficiency record holder and space-proven solution is back to gate-crash the party.
