With limited cell capacities in the handful of countries exempt from the US Section 201 case, where could the US realistically source compliant modules from and who are the real c-Si winners and losers. Mark Osborne and John Parnell report.
Some of the industry is at loggerheads and many feel local manufacturing must be intrinsic to the 100GW by 2022 solar target, but the value of trade duties is under dispute.
PV Tech reached its own little milestone of having reported and analysed the R&D spending habits of the same 12 key PV module manufacturers for 10 years. The results have just been published in sister technical journal Photovoltaics International as part of the annual leaders and laggards of R&D spending for 2016.
The significance of PV-Tech’s forthcoming conference in Kuala Lumpur – PV ModuleTech 2017 – has just moved to a new level, with the key company executives from all members of the Silicon Module Super League (SMSL) giving presentations on stage about the quality, reliability, and performance of their solar modules.
China-based PV module manufacturer Sunport Power has officially started production at 1GW assembly plant using Eurotron’s MWT equipment for back-contact PV modules that reduce cell-to-module losses and boost module performance and reliability.
First Solar will wait for more clarity on the Section 201 case before deciding whether to extend production of its Series 4 modules, CEO Mark Widmar has told PV Tech.
Updated: With the solar industry transitioning to high-performance products backed with innovation, Solar Power International 2017 in Las Vegas is showcasing an ever increasing portfolio of solar modules exceeding 300 watts in the standard 60-cell format. However, 72-cell modules exceeding 360 watts are also entering the mainstream and 400 watts is just around the corner.
Driving the high-performance wave is PERC (Passivated Emitter Rear Cell), bifacial and the migration to 5 busbars and beyond, whether with multicrystalline or monocrystalline wafers. The growing use of half-cut and multi-cut cells that reduce cell to module losses, boosting overall performance are also becoming mainstream as well as heterojunction (HJ) modules.
Taiwan-based PV cell and module manufacturer Motech Industries plans to deploy 400MW of solar in Pingtung County in southern Taiwan, according to a company executive, while it is also in early talks with other cell makers about setting up a module factory.
Solar PV recycling firm, PV CYCLE has signed an agreement with solar panel refurbishment experts, Rinovasol to include their product offering to a new ‘Global Membership Certification.’
According to brief reports citing Tesla’s CTO, Panasonic has started making its high-efficiency HIT (Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin layer) solar cells at Gigafactory 2 in RiverBend, Buffalo, New York State.
