Everyone in the industry knows the price of solar continues to fall in most global sectors, inching closer to – or reaching – parity with other energy sources, both renewable and carbonaceous. But when a well-respected market researcher says prices are falling in real time in some regions, that attention-grabbing statement is not something one usually hears in any timeline.
It was a long time coming but on Monday evening, Yingli released its annual report. Financials had been released separately at the tail end of last week offering some insight to the company’s fortunes as it looks to navigate an extremely tricky cashflow situation.
‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member Canadian Solar has made further revisions to its planned manufacturing capacity expansion plans for 2016, while reiterating previously guided PV module shipments for the year.
By Jasmeet Khurana, associate director, consulting, Bridge to India
Grid curtailment of solar power is already affecting Germany and China despite billions being spent on grid projects. With a target of 100GW, India is hoping to get 8% of its power requirements from solar PV by 2022, which is a higher penetration than both Germany and China today. Jasmeet Khurana, associate director, consulting, Bridge to India, investigates the potential for future curtailment of solar power in India and its consequences while identifying which states might be most affected.
LayTec has introduced the first commercially available system for simulation and monitoring of LID (Light Induced Degredation). ‘LID Scope’ is a table-top system that helps to quantify the expected performance loss of any solar cell directly at the production line or in the lab. The tool performs accelerated or real-life degradation tests fully automatically. It is claimed to deliver highly reproducible results and a permanent monitoring of Voc changes by integrated metrology.
The non-profit, clean energy education group, formerly known as the Solar Electric Power Association, recently changed its name to the Smart Electric Power Alliance. Along with the name change, the company has realigned its core objectives, seeking no longer to focus on “solar in a vacuum” but on the evolution of solar within a network of other technologies and incentives.
The ‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) members in 2015, Trina Solar, Canadian Solar, JinkoSolar, JA Solar, Hanwha Q CELLS and Yingli Green may have the largest module shipments and manufacturing capacity significantly higher than any other c-Si manufacturer but still lag behind others when it comes to R&D spending.
‘Solar Ready Vets’ is the US Department of Energy’s answer to the urgent demand in solar for highly-trained workers; pairing skilled military veterans with civilian job training in an industry eager to recruit. PV Tech spoke with graduate Logan Rozanski.
Remote schools in West Africa can suffer from high levels of dropouts, a lack of enthusiasm and low rates of literacy and numeracy, but solar technology is now offering a chance to reinvigorate some of the lowest performing schools. PV Tech visited a school that is benefiting from such solar and software installations in the Greater Accra region of Ghana.
On Friday in New York, the historic UN global climate agreement was officially signed by a host of world leaders, signifying the unified global effort to tackle one of the world’s most insurmountable environmental and economic issues.
