SPONSORED: Black Silicon offers the solar industry a bright future. Advanced Silicon Group's co-founders Marcie R. Black and William B. Rever, III offer some of their experiences after a decade of research on a material only now being produced at scale.
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.
Major metallisation paste producer Heraeus Photovoltaics is collaborating with PV ribbon product provider Ulbrich of Austria to develop products for PV module assembly and packaging technology.
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.
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.’
Major metallization paste producer Heraeus Photovoltaics said it had signed a major strategic partnership agreement with ‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) leader JinkoSolar that will focus on what the company said would be the development of a new generation of “Super PV Cells” with higher efficiencies and lower costs.
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.
‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member LONGi Green Energy Technology and the leading fully-integrated high-efficiency monocrystalline module manufacturer, reported first half 2017 revenue slightly down from the prior year period as a result of average selling price (ASP) declines, partially offset by product shipment growth.
Leading polysilicon and solar wafer producer GCL-Poly Energy Holdings reported lower revenue and profits than expected in the first half of 2017, primarily due to wafer price erosion, only partially offset by higher wafer production volumes and stable polysilicon prices.
