The past few weeks has seen some of the most dramatic knee-jerk, naïve and misinformed PV market reporting seen in recent times, with the headlines often resembling nothing more than tabloid sensationalism.
Researchers at EPFL’s Photovoltaics Laboratory and the CSEM PV-center have reported a record tandem junction solar cell with conversion efficiencies of 25.2%, using a standard monocrystalline cell and an evaporation and spin-on process to fully coat the structure.
Leading CdTe thin-film PV module manufacturer First Solar held a ground breaking ceremony on 8 June 2018 for the construction of its new 1.2GW manufacturing plant near its existing flagship facility in Perrysburg, Ohio.
The largest solar PV manufacturer in the world GCL Group has had its plans for a major 5GW manufacturing hub in Egypt approved by the National Authority for Military Production.
Move over pesky perovskites and old faithful intrinsic amorphous silicon as the preferred solutions for tandem-junction solar cell post crystalline-silicon PERC (passivated emitter rear cell) technology: A perennial conversion efficiency record holder and space-proven solution is back to gate-crash the party.
France-based specialist PV manufacturing equipment supplier Semco Technologies has announced at SNEC 2018 that its complete suite of PV manufacturing equipment would be spun-off and form a Joint Venture (JV) business in China with Ganshang Technology Group, a Suzhou City-based holding group combining smart economy with industrial investment.
Leading PV manufacturing equipment supplier Meyer Burger has said that the pioneer of heterojunction solar cell technology, Panasonic has decided to fast-track the evaluation of its ‘SmartWire Connection Technology’ (SWCT) in an effort to boost its cell and module performance.
China-based PV module materials and N-type mono and IBC (Interdigitated Back Contact) bifacial module manufacturer Jolywood is partnering with European research and innovation hub centre, imec to bring to market an industrialized bifacial solar cells with an average front-side conversion efficiency up to 21.9%.
Leading integrated high-efficiency monocrystalline module manufacturer and ‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member LONGi Green Energy Technology is believed to have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Saudi Arabia’s major commercial and industrial trading company, El Seif Group to establish a large-scale solar manufacturing infrastructure in the Kingdom.
Aurora Solar Technologies (AST) has launched the DM-121 and DM-321 measurement systems for heterojunction technology (HJT) cell TCO layer quality control.
