Technology investments into advanced PV cell manufacturing have been at record levels in the past few years, with high-efficiency concepts seeing investment levels not seen since the days of turn-key thin-film lines a decade ago.
The solar industry gets to grips with the bewildering array of new module technologies at the second edition of the PV ModuleTech event in Penang, Malaysia. The conference raised a huge number of questions such as how to evaluate bifacial technology and whether it might rise faster than predicted, how long p-type multicrystalline has left in the running and the perennial issue of quality, to name a few.
The fourth PV CellTech conference will take place in Penang, Malaysia on 12-13 March 2019, with the excitement starting to build up once again.
PV manufacturing capacity expansion announcements in the second quarter of 2018, were slightly higher than the previous quarter, although activity slumped specifically in June, after China’s decision to suddenly cap utility-scale and distributed generation (DG) projects (531 New Deal). But large-scale multi-gigawatt production plans in the first half of the year may have hidden an inevitable slowdown, despite the impact on downstream demand from the 531 New Deal.
We have tracked the annual R&D spending of 12 key publicly listed PV module manufacturers over the last 10 years. We present our new methodology with a broader scope which reveals record levels of investment in solar innovation.
PV ModuleTech 2018 will explain exactly what module companies and technologies will dominate large-scale commercial and utility solar sites in 2019, including the key drivers, risks and opportunities from bifacial module deployment.
Finlay Colville summarises the updated analysis by our in-house research team at PV-Tech, where we have adjusted our models and forecasts for the 20 companies active in Taiwan today producing ingots, wafers, cells and modules.
While India’s solar market is still heavily weighted on the lowest possible costs, the price difference between monocrystalline and polycrystalline PV module technologies is beginning to fade. PV Tech caught up with major module suppliers at the REI Expo in Greater Noida, India, to discuss the future of Mono in this heavyweight global market.
India's government has made clear its intentions to cultivate a solar PV manufacturing base at home, but interest from foreign players has yet to be translated into major capacity expansions. PV Tech gathered views from various players - both foreign and domestic - about what steps need to be taken, while at the REI Expo 2018 exhibition in Greater Noida, India.
Much has been written and voiced over the past couple of months in the PV industry, following the so-called China-531 policy announcement that finally provided a wake-up call to Chinese manufacturers that their domestic end-market was not going to be allowed to maintain its near-exponential growth characteristics.
The top-5 module suppliers to the PV industry shipped more than 20GW of modules during the first half of 2018, representing Y/Y growth of 10%.
‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) members JinkoSolar and Hanwha Q CELLS have both updated plans to start solar module assembly manufacturing in the US, post the US Section 201 trade case.
At Intersolar Europe 2018, PV Tech talked at length with Aiko Solar’s vice general manager Michael Ho, to gain an update on capacity expansions and strategy with its expanding range of PERC-based cells vis-a-vis the European market.
Chemicals firm Wacker Chemie has painted a rosier picture of polysilicon supply and demand in 2018 than most when reporting a small second quarter decline in polysilicon revenue.
Since Chinese investments into major cell and module facilities started - more than 10 years ago - success ultimately has been driven by overseas market-share gains, above other technical or financial benchmarks that otherwise would be expected.
