Industry Updates

Sharp Solar Solution Asia (SSSA) has concluded an agreement with the Fuyo General Lease Co. to establish a joint venture company, S-Solar Generation Thailand, which will sell electricity in the Thai market. This is the first time that the Sharp Corporation or one of its subsidiaries has entered the business of selling power to private companies. Under a PPA, companies signing a contract with the new joint venture will be able to have a solar power system installed with zero initial investment and subsequently use solar-generated power at a reduced rate.

LONGi has partnered with Solar Electric Vietnam (SEV) to provide a 5.4kWp rooftop system at the United Nations International School (UNIS) in Hanoi.

A 400MW agricultural photovoltaic solar plant in Nangong, China is currently over halfway through construction, with the project adopting Trina Solar's 210 Vertex 550W series modules with TrinaTracker Vanguard 2P trackers to further increase power generation and reduce LCOE.

Trina Solar has formally joined the global Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and signed the ‘Business Ambition’ for its 1.5°C pledge. This once again underlines the company's commitment to helping limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5°C through its own actions to reduce emissions.

On June 28, 2021, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued a final written decision on an inter partes review (IPR) proceeding, declaring all of the patent claims in Hanwha Q-Cells’ U.S. Patent 8,933,525B2 to be invalid.

JinkoSolar has announced that the first shipment of 1MW (out of 2.6MW) of high-efficiency PV modules has been delivered for SGCC’s first off-grid PV pilot project in Ethiopia, the first in the whole East African region. Being a part of the World Bank's "Lighting Africa" program, it has important strategic significance, as it is the opening project of the entire program and plays a demonstration role for other participants, showing how to provide solutions for better electricity services in Africa.

LONGi has announced that, as a result of its partnership with leading Thai project developers such as Gulf and Green Yellow, it has delivered over 250MW of its modules to Thailand in the first 6 months of 2021. Based on industry figures, the company now has a market share of over 31% in the country.

LONGi has supplied 1,224kWp of high-efficiency modules to the Crystal International Group in Hanoi. The project was executed by Solar Electric Vietnam, a leading EPC with extensive commercial and industrial PV experience.

Singapore is now home to one of the world's largest offshore floating photovoltaic farms, a 5 MW-peak project deployed in the Straits of Johor.

As a product operating for 25 or even 30 years, generating electricity continuously is essential for a PV module to maximize value for customers. Therefore, the module should be designed in consideration of its ability to resist extreme climatic conditions throughout its full life cycle. To verify the ability of a module to resist external mechanical stress, LONGi and TÜV NORD jointly carried out a wind tunnel test to measure its ability under a dynamic load, with LONGi also carrying out a static load test on a large-size module (LONGi Hi-MO 5, 2.26×1.13m) and an oversized module (2.38×1.30m), to simulate bearing capability under an outdoor snow load. The test results showed that the rigidity of both the monofacial and bifacial Hi-MO 5 is better than that of the oversized module and can pass the thresher test at a wind speed of 60 m/s. The static load test showed that the deformation of both the monofacial and bifacial Hi-MO 5 module was less than 45 mm, and their anti-crack abilities were excellent.