German-based monocrystalline PERC (Passivated Emitter Rear Cell) PV module manufacturer SolarWorld Industries has filed for bankruptcy a second time in less than a year.
‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member LONGi Solar, subsidiary of LONGi Green Energy, the leading integrated monocrystalline PV manufacturer has received for the second year in a row an award from testing services firm TUV Rheinland for "PV Module Energy Yield Simulation (Mono Group)," part of the "All Quality Matters" awards.
Sharp Solar, a subsidiary of Taiwan-based contract electronics giant Foxconn has reported a verified heterojunction back contact (HBC) solar cell on a large-area (6-inch) N-type monocrystalline wafer with a conversion efficiency of 25.09%.
The evolution of metallization paste and its impact on cell technology development was a key topic at PV CellTech 2018. During the conference, we caught up with Guangyao Jin, chief scientist, DuPont Solamet photovoltaic metallization pastes, to discuss industry trends.
Researchers at Solliance and ECN have fabricated a 6 inch industrially processed c-Si cell with a perovskite top layer that is mechanically stacked using ECN’s MWT-SHJ (metal-wrap-through silicon heterojunction) design that has achieved conversion efficiencies of 26.3%. The work was published during the Silicon PV/nPV conference, in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Researchers at the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have announced the development of a significantly low-cost technique to texture nanoscale features on multicrystalline silicon (mc-Si) wafers after diamond-wire wafer cutting.
Enhancing quality control in PV cell production was a key topic at PV CellTech 2018. After the conference, we caught up with Gordon Deans, founder and chief operating officer of inline solar cell measurement equipment specialist Aurora Solar Technologies to discuss some of the requirements when moving towards smart factories.
As previously reported there was a significant slowdown in global solar PV manufacturing capacity expansion announcements in the third quarter of 2017, which we highlighted was hardly surprising due to significant level of expansions plans announced in the first half of the year. However, despite increased concerns over the potential imposition of restrictive trade practices in the US and India in the fourth quarter of 2017, there was a significant rebound over the previous quarter, leading to the highest recorded gigawatts of new expansion announcements.
Driving p- and n-type solar cell manufacturing beyond current limitations was a key topic at PV CellTech last week. We caught up with the CTO of leading PV equipment supplier Meyer Burger, Dr. Gunter Erfurt, during the conference, to discuss just how fast the industry is moving.
