Global renewables industries are expectant as COP26 looms, however supply chain volatility has continued to dent deployment prospects going into a crucial decade. We discuss this and much more in this month's Solar Media Podcast.
The US Department of Energy (DOE) is to fund projects aiming to extend the operational lifetime of solar PV projects to 50 years and support the development of advanced materials such as perovskites.
Chinese power restrictions are likely to change in Q1 next year and will consider the power necessity and industrial demand of certain regions. Nonetheless, polysilicon prices will remain high well into next year and could rise even further. And, distributed solar is the future of solar PV generation in China.
Recent solar wafer and cell price increases from both LONGi Solar and Tongwei, which have seen prices rise by between 5.6 – 7.7%, have underscored heightened volatility in the solar supply chain.
China Silicon Industry, the country’s trade association for the nonferrous metals industry, has warned that pricing for polysilicon chips has soared 13.2% to highs of RMB273/kg (US$42.42/kg), placing further pricing pressure on the solar industry.
PV Evolution Labs (PVEL) has released a new hail test for its PV Module Product Qualification Programme (PQP) and has announced a move of headquarters to Napa, California that sees the independent test lab double its testing capacity.
Reliance New Energy Solar (RNES) has invested US$29 million in German wafer technology company NexWafe’s Series C financing round as it looks to establish wafer production facilities in India.
Sun and Steel Solar LLC began in 2017 and has developed a single axis tracker for PV solar farms to be the better mousetrap of trackers by leapfrogging the competition and their status quo.
The desire to invoke a solar manufacturing renaissance in Europe was one of the key points of discussion at Intersolar Europe 2021, with much talk of heightened demand for ‘Made in Europe’ products. But how far away is Europe from establishing a complete value chain on the continent, and what are the hurdles that remain? Liam Stoker reports.
