PV Tech caught up with Ugo Salerno, chairman and CEO of Italy-based advisory RINA, alongside the firm’s technical director for power and renewables, Simon Turner, to discuss storage retrofits in the UK, financing floating PV and upgrading hastily built European solar plants.
In President Trump's statement imposing a 30% import duty on all foreign made crystalline silicon solar cells and modules reference was made to renewed efforts that would be made to resolve the trade war with China over polysilicon duties on US producers, effectively locking them out of the market.
Saudi’s initial solar bids for the 300MW Sakaka project slipped below two US cents per kWh, but the lowest bid was rejected. We take a look at a claim that its championing of bifacial technology was the root cause.
Meca Solar has launched ‘Hyperion-SR,’ which is touted to be the most advanced single row horizontal tracker on the market. Main features are minimum number of piles per MW, self-powered operation, wireless communications, extended slope tolerances and sophisticated optimization.
Following an extensive research process over the past couple of weeks, we can now reveal the top-10 module suppliers (by shipment volumes) for the calendar year 2017.
After the significant upwards revisions made to global solar PV manufacturing capacity expansion announcements in the first half of 2017, which we reviewed in a previous blog, the third quarter was characterised by much more tempered plans.
Solar PV capital expenditure (capex) covering the midstream segments of the industry (c-Si ingot-to-module and thin-film) is now well into its second major upturn in spending, going into 2018, at a time when the industry is just about to move to a new phase in annual deployment levels of greater than 100GW.
From technology trends breaking out at scale, China’s mind-blowing deployment, a certain trade case in the US and of course, one or two notable bankruptcies, 2017 was never short of drama. But which stories drew your attention in 2017?
Efficiency gains and productivity improvements are set to dominate the PV manufacturing landscape again in 2018, with strong investments continuing to flow into existing and new cell architectures, with gigawatt-level status now becoming the norm for the manufacturing segment, writes Finlay Colville.
