News Thin-Film

Perovskite solar cell developer Oxford Photovoltaics (PV) has undertaken a new funding round, led by key investors, Statoil and Legal & General Capital.

Australia-based perovskite solar cell developer GreatCell Solar, formerly Dyesol has recently secured European Union (EU) funding of €500,000 (approximately A$800K) through the Horizon 2020 project.

Nanoelectronics R&D organisation imec has been appointed as the lead to a three-year €5 million EU funded R&D program on perovskite solar cells that brings together a number of European research and commercial partners.

The Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has set a new R&D goal to develop a commercially viable thin-film-on-silicon tandem solar cell with 30% conversion efficiencies.

German-based CdTe thin-film module manufacturer Calyxo GmbH has entered insolvency proceedings in Thalheim, Germany.

Leading integrated high-efficiency monocrystalline module manufacturer and ‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member LONGi Green Energy Technology set a new solar industry R&D expenditure record in 2017, not only surpassing the two historical leaders, First Solar and SunPower, but also spending more in one year than any PV manufacturer to date.

Struggling flexible CIGS thin-film producer Ascent Solar Technologies has shipped a US$300,000 ‘Ultralight’ PV laminate order to a European airship manufacturer that is just short of being half the company’s annual revenue in 2017, which declined over 63% in 2017.

China headquartered PV thin-film equipment and module producer Hanergy Thin Film Power Group (Hanergy TF) has created a completely new business model in 2017 that provides new industrial parks a selection from a portfolio of a-Si, CIGS, GaAs and c-Si heterojunction (HJ) turnkey production lines to provide local governments access to solar technology and attract other hi-tech companies to new industrial parks.

PV and electronics equipment manufacturing and automation specialist Manz AG has dismissed its CFO, Gunnar Voss von Dahlen with immediate effect.

After several years of losses and restructuring activities PV and electronics equipment manufacturing and automation specialist Manz AG posted record revenue and returned to profitability in 2017.

Leading CdTe thin-film module manufacturer First Solar is increasing its shipment guidance for 2018, due to plans to bring back online 180MW of mothballed Series 4 module capacity at its Perrysburg, Ohio manufacturing facility.

First Solar could establish new US-based manufacturing capacity citing President Donald Trump’s corporate tax reforms as the key enabler.

Leading solar thin-film manufacturer First Solar is to build a 200MW (AC) PV power plant for Georgia Power’s REDI Program, using over half a million CdTe modules.

Vertically-integrated solar energy company First Solar will be involved in the first megawatt-scale battery system announced in Arizona since it was revealed the state could put a 3,000MW energy storage deployment target in place.

Asset management firm Capital Dynamics, which has just acquired the First Solar and SunPower solar yieldco firm, 8point3 Energy Partners is to own and operate a planned 1GW PV power plant in Nevada, which includes technology infrastructure firm Switch as a major customer for the renewable energy and is based in the state.