The first wave of public listed China-based, China centric PV manufacturers reporting first half year financial results offers insight into the impact on companies after the Chinese Government capped utility-scale and distributed generation (DG) PV power plant projects at the end of May, 2018.
‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member GCL System Integrated Technology (GCL-SI) reported a significant shift of its sales to outside China in the first half of 2018, accounting for 45.80% of total sales in the reporting period that also helped return the company to profitability.
In the hotly contested Californian residential solar market, new data compiled by ROTH Capital Partners highlights, amongst many data points, that Tesla’s solar panel supply base and suppliers is undergoing a major transition and that it has been changing for several years.
Building product manufacturer and distributor Gibraltar Industries has signed off on a deal to acquire SolarBOS, a California-based, privately-held provider of electrical balance of systems products for the US PV market.
Smaller companies are finding it increasingly difficult to enter the Indian large-scale solar market and partake in the multi-gigawatts of competitive auctions for PV capacity.
Major PV inverter manufacturer Sungrow Power Supply Co, recently reported a relatively strong rebound in revenue (up 10%) in the first half of 2018 but on a quarterly basis the second quarter sales increased 29% from the previous quarter, indicating that greater dependence on China and the utility-scale market with central inverters, creates a ‘solarcoaster’ ride.
PV and electronics equipment manufacturing and automation specialist Manz AG has secured another advanced payment for CIGS (Copper, Indium, Gallium, DiSelenide) thin-film manufacturing equipment, which is part of a major production order with Chinese partners, the Shanghai Electric Group and the Shenhua Group.
Three more vast projects pairing battery energy storage with utility-scale renewable energy installations are in the pipeline in New South Wales, Australia, through developer CWP Renewables.
