‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member Canadian Solar has made further revisions to its planned manufacturing capacity expansion plans for 2016, while reiterating previously guided PV module shipments for the year.
China-based polysilicon production Daqo New Energy Corp said polysilicon shipments to third-parties would continue to decline as in-house wafer production continued to expand and its polysilicon facilities running at full-capacity.
Crystal growth equipment supplier GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT) is re-entering the Directional Solidification System (DSS) furnace market for multicrystalline ingot production with the launch of a new product offering.
Sweden-based thin-film production equipment specialist Midsummer said it had secured a second ‘DUO’ flexible CIGS (copper, indium, gallium and selenium) thin-film solar cell sputtering tool order from an existing customer based in Asia.
R&D group Solliance, which includes ECN, imec, TNO, Holst Centre and industrial partners such as Nano-C, Solartek, DyeSol and Panasonic have succeeded in producing a record 10% aperture area power conversion efficiency for an ‘up-scaled’ thin-film perovskite photovoltaic module.
The world’s largest polysilicon producer, GCL-Poly Energy has cited technical issues with its planned ramp of FBR (Fluidized Bed Reactor) technology, according to reports.
LayTec has introduced the first commercially available system for simulation and monitoring of LID (Light Induced Degredation). ‘LID Scope’ is a table-top system that helps to quantify the expected performance loss of any solar cell directly at the production line or in the lab. The tool performs accelerated or real-life degradation tests fully automatically. It is claimed to deliver highly reproducible results and a permanent monitoring of Voc changes by integrated metrology.
The ‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) members in 2015, Trina Solar, Canadian Solar, JinkoSolar, JA Solar, Hanwha Q CELLS and Yingli Green may have the largest module shipments and manufacturing capacity significantly higher than any other c-Si manufacturer but still lag behind others when it comes to R&D spending.
REC Silicon said it would restart FBR polysilicon production at its Moses Lake facility in the US this month, with full-production planned to be resumed in June, 2016.
