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.
A group of private companies is pioneering a new approach to powering the agricultural industry in rural India that could significantly increase productivity of small-holder farmers, by combining mobile and stationary solar-powered mini-grids and linking them to a range of agricultural services, beginning with irrigation.
While at Intersolar Europe/ees Europe this week, we caught up with Detlef Neuhaus, CEO of the Dresden-headquartered Solarwatt who told us more about his company's strategy, as well as offering up some candid views on the industry.
By Jonathan Selwyn, chairman of the Downing Indian Solar EIS
As an investor from a matured solar market in the West looking at India, Jonathan Selwyn, chairman of the UK retail investor-backed Downing Indian Solar EIS, discusses the experience of investing in Indian solar.
SPONSORED: Having been selected as a supplier of complete monitoring solutions for new large-scale solar plants in Egypt and in other regions during the past year, Gantner has repeatedly confirmed its position as a leading global player in the utility-scale PV industry.
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.
HeliosLite has developed a disruptive PV tracker based on a patent pending 1.5 axis kinetic capturing more energy than 1 axis horizontal trackers without sacrificing cost effectiveness. This disruptive PV tracking solution boasts higher energy output than 1 axis horizontal trackers and is said to bring cost-effective tracking to decentralized PV plants.
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.
Close on heels of its recent announcement on forming a new global unit focused on the hybrid and energy storage market, Indian EPC Sterling and Wilson has won a captive solar-diesel-storage microgrid project in Africa. PV Tech caught up with Vish Iyer, global head of business development, strategy and marketing for the Hybrid and Energy Storage division at Sterling and Wilson, to find out more.
