India's prowling monkeys are infamous for thieving cameras off unsuspecting tourists at the Hanuman temples of Hampi and the mountain city of Shimla, but they’ve now found a new target – the rooftop solar sector. Tom Kenning looks at some key challenges unique to the Indian PV industry.
New research undertaken by the in-house research team at Solar Media Ltd. reveals that 2017 is expected to be the year that Longi Silicon Materials (incorporating its subsidiary LERRI Photovoltaic Technology) finally moves into the upper echelon of solar PV manufacturers.
Huawei Technologies decided to enter the PV inverter market, bringing its ICT know-how and hardware to a market already burdened by overcapacity and declining margins. In a few short years, instead of floundering, Huawei soon became the market leader in China.
Green bonds have the potential to unlock vast new sums of capital for the deployment of solar and other low-carbon infrastructure. Katie House looks at how a relatively new concept is rapidly evolving into a potentially major source of clean energy finance.
By Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies, Australasia, Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA)
Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies, Australasia, Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), explains how significant this loan is for India and what else will be driving the targeted US$100 billion solar investment by 2022.
The second Solar and Off-Grid Renewables West Africa event in Ghana in April heard mixed views on the progress of solar in the region. But with the first projects reaching completion and others moving forward, brighter times seem to be around the corner. Tom Kenning reports
This year saw Ghana not only install the largest solar project in East and West Africa, but also a major 30MW module manufacturing facility near its capital, Accra, in what is a major milestone for the upstream solar sector across Africa. PV Tech visited the plant to understand some of developer 3SIL's thinking behind location and business.
The US is leading the charge for solar in North America, but its next-door neighbours, Canada and Mexico, are also pressing ahead with plans to boost deployment. Danielle Ola reports on the policy developments expected to underpin the growth of solar in the two countries.
SolarEdge's Lior Handelsman explains some of the thinking and development processes behind HD Wave, which the publicly-listed Israeli company believes represents a significant leap forward for inverter technology. The product was launched at the beginning of the year, when Handelsman said in another interview for PV Tech that inverters can now "evolve at the speed of electronics, not mechanics".
