Materials

A round-up of solar news from throughout the holiday period including SunEdison deals, Qatar's next solar steps and the verdict in Heraeus' patent case.

The Government of India is considering supporting polysilicon, ingot and wafer production in India as part of prime minister Narendra Modi’s ‘Make in India’ programme, that was launched last year.

Industrial materials manufacturers Dow and DuPont are to merge creating a new company with a market capitalisation of US$130 billion.

Leading cell technologists from all of the big-six Silicon Module Super League (SMSL) suppliers (Canadian Solar, Hanwha Q-Cells, JA Solar, JinkoSolar, Trina Solar and Yingli Green) have now been confirmed as speakers at PV Tech’s inaugural solar cell conference, PVCellTech, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 16-17 March 2016.

November was a bumper month for PV capacity expansion announcements, with the big-six Silicon Module Super League players once again in the headlines, writes Mark Osborne.

PV Nano Cell announced its plans to enter the US solar market with its ‘Sicrys’ silver and copper inks. The inks are expected to accelerate the adoption of solar photovoltaics (PV) by reducing the cost of silicon solar cell production, using an efficient process that produces sustainable inks without the use of hazardous wastes, and by increasing solar cell efficiencies at a mass production scale.

Germany’s Fraunhofer ISE has made a modest, 70-panel installation of new crystalline PV cell and module technologies produced by the institute on the outside of one of its laboratories.

The big-six Silicon Module Super League (SMSL) members face manufacturing pressures over technology migration meaning big advances may not happen in 2016, writes Finlay Colville.

India-based conglomerate Lanco Infratech is planning to build a 100MW solar cell production facility at new dedicated Solar SEZ in Rajnandgaon district of Chhattisgarh, India.

US-listed Industrial adhesives supplier H.B. Fuller has said that after the acquisition of China-based adhesives specialist, TONSAN Adhesive, earlier in the year, it was working to develop new technologies for PV manufacturers.