The largest solar installer in the US SolarCity dropped a major bomb in reporting third quarter financial results as it trimmed 2015 installation targets and said it would focus on cost reductions over growth in 2016, ahead of the potential step-down of the investment tax credit.
Teams from solar cell research institute Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and the university École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have combined a silicon heterojunction solar cell with a perovskite solar cell monolithically into a tandem device and reached a record efficiency of 18%, with potential to hit 30% after further modifications.
A heterojunction c-Si solar cell with a conversion efficiency of 25.1% has been showcased by its maker at an event hosted by the Japanese government to exhibit technological innovations in “new energy”.
CdTe thin-film producer and project developer First Solar has signed an agreement with US-based solar project developer Strata Solar for the supply of 400MW of First Solar’s advanced thin film PV modules.
PV laser technology equipment specialist InnoLas Solutions has received a major follow-on order for its ILS-TT high throughput laser machines for Passivated Emitter Rear Cell (PERC) technology.
India-based project developer ACME Solar Holdings has won the highest capacity of projects in yesterday’s solar auction in Uttarakhand with four projects totalling 50MW combined out of the 171MW awarded.
PV solar system provider First Solar has installed approximately half of its 141MW Luz del Norte solar project in Chile, as the first two blocks of the project have been connected to the country’s central grid.
All the winning bids in the latest 170MW Indian state solar auction in Uttarakhand have remained below the INR6/kWh (US$0.09) tariff, despite several bankers commenting on previous auctions that only prices of INR6-6.5 per unit would be workable given India’s market conditions.
Germany’s electricity network could cope with the addition of “huge amounts” of solar-plus-storage being added to it and in fact benefit from the storage, but policy changes might be required to enable that scenario.
India’s energy ministry has amended its invitation for state-owned corporations (CPSUs) to set up 1GW of solar PV plants across India, by bringing forward its funding timelines.
