Manufacturing

Saudi Arabia’s energy minister has said he believes it will be impossible to keep fossil fuel resources “in the ground” even in the next 50 years but nonetheless sees his country as an ideal potential manufacturer-exporter of PV panels.

PV manufacturing capacity expansions planned this year are expected to push production levels beyond anticipated demand in 2016, creating further cost pressures for suppliers.

PV tool maker Amtech Systems has received US$27 million of new solar orders since the turn of the year.

A solar auction in the Indian state of Rajasthan has seen the lowest bids so far in the Domestic Content Requirement (DCR) category, which requires project developers to source solar equipment from local manufacturers.

SolarWorld has attributed a “low” probability to a negative outcome in its ongoing lawsuit with Hemlock Semiconductor in its 2015 annual report. Its release comes one day after Hemlock filed for summary judgement in the case.

Panasonic has joined a perovskite research project looking to develop a manufacturing-scale roll-to-roll process.

Imec's Bart Onsia outlines some of the research efforts underway to tackle the issue of cell-to-module losses, including a new tool for calculating the output of a variety of module configurations in different conditions.

Solar developer and private asset manager Capital Dynamics has selected module manufacturer ET Solar to provide modules for 14 solar projects in North Carolina in the US with a combined capacity of 84.4MW.

A video purporting to show a North Korean solar panel factory has been circulated by authorities in the country.

CPV start-up Banyan Energy believes it has the right technology and business model to succeed where others have failed, writes Mark Osborne.