An Australian engineer has been awarded £300,000 (US$493,000) by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) for his work on increasing the efficiency of solar PV whilst lowering costs.
Chinese state-owned PV manufacturer, CECEP Solar Energy Technology has used upgrades for Applied Materials ‘Baccini Esatto’ screen printers to produce average multicrystalline solar cell conversion efficiencies of 18.32%.
The Chinese government’s list of approved solar manufacturers, which threatened to leave three quarters of the country’s operators in the wilderness, will not spill over into the global PV market, according to industry analysts IHS.
Semiconductor technology group, Meyer Berger has announced an order from a European customer to provide CHF10 million (US$11 million) worth of components for a PV production line in South America.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) is making a US$13 million investment in five separate projects designed to improve manufacturing competitiveness in the domestic solar industry.
Restructuring and cost-cutting efforts at PV equipment and technology specialist, Amtech Systems helped limit fourth quarter financial year losses to US$1.7 million, a highlight in what has been another difficult year for the company.
Manufacturer of PV screen printing equipment, DEK Solar, has been sold as part of a deal between the owner of DEK, Dover Corporation, and ASM Pacific Technology (ASMPT), itself a part of Dutch-based semiconductor equipment supplier ASM International.
Fraunhofer ISE said it had developed a low-cost rear contact Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact ‘TOPCon’ n-Type solar cell that has achieved a conversion efficiency of 24%.
R&D centre, imec has implemented a laser doping process to its i-PERC solar cell that pushes conversion efficiencies to 20.2%, while claiming lower processing costs that could result in faster commercial adoption.
PV equipment supplier, BTU International, has reported third quarter net sales of US$12.0 million, down 15.7% compared to US$14.2 million in the preceding quarter as little sales activity was generated from the PV sector.
