Features

The CISARIS oven from Singulus Technologies is an in-line rapid thermal processing equipment, designed for the CIGSSe absorber formation on large area glass substrates. The main features of the CISARIS include a high uptime and mechanical yield, as well as a fast cycle time, which, in combination with the robust selenisation process, lead to a production capacity of over 25 MWp per year.

A thermoplastic encapsulant from Wacker, ‘TECTOSIL’ has proved to offer protection against potential-induced degradation (PID), according to tests carried-out by Photovoltaik-Institut Berlin. The testers confirmed that such modules do not display leakage currents due to PID when using the thermoplastic silicone elastomer sheet in the encapsulation of PV modules.

In the Eddie Murphy film Coming to America, the protagonist prince quickly realises that the USA is not a place where guests come to sit on their hands when he lands himself a job at a McDonald's lookalike fast food joint on his quest to find a wife.

Business transactions are very often about relationships — the solar industry is no exception. But have plunging prices of PV thrust upon the nascent global market by the Chinese really spoilt the industry with too much choice? Has the young bachelor industry been too busy speed dating with $0.65/Wp panels at the expense of a stable and more meaningful relationship between investor, developer and consumer expectations of a quality product that is going to stand the test of time?

Soon it will be as easy to go solar in California as it is to buy a lunch-time burrito, according to some in the industry.

The media frenzy over the precarious financial situation of one of Japan’s iconic corporate brands and a major PV module producer, Sharp Corporation has raged all week as an expected financial bailout led by Mizuho Financial Group and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group loomed. On Thursday, September 27, Sharp issued a short statement confirming it had secured both immediate and near-term funding amounting to around US$4.6 billion.

The main fuel used in Polish power plants is still coal. In fact, 91% of the energy used in Poland is conventional. The plans of the Polish government, resulting in, amongst others, from the European Union’s Directive 2009/28/EC requiring an increase of renewable energy generation to 15% by 2020, indicate that a lot of investment will need to be undertaken in the oncoming years.

Growatt North America has unveiled a new ‘High Frequency Series’ of residential solar PV string inverters, and their light commercial ‘TL3 Series’ string inverters during SPI 2012. The HF Series inverters are initially offered in 2.0kW, 2.5kW, and 3.0kW power classes, while the TL3 Series inverters are initially offered in 10kW, 12kW, 18kW, and 20kW power classes.

Centrosolar Glas has developed a particularly thin solar glass for photovoltaic modules. The ‘CENTROSOL’ thin glass is only 2.3mm or 2.6mm thick, enabling a reduction in the minimum thickness by almost 30 % at the same mechanical resistance thanks to process optimization. The thin glass currently offered exclusively by Centrosolar Glas reduces the total weight of modules, which is claimed to simplify the assembly and transportation and mounting costs.