ROTH Capital Partners has become increasingly bullish on a strong rebound in global solar demand in 2019, led by competitive pricing dynamics with other energy sources and increasing optimism that China will provide good subsidy support for solar in 2019 and onwards.
Solar Frontier has achieved a conversion efficiency of 23.35% on a 1cm² CIS solar PV cell, the highest verified figure for a cell of this type.
Hanergy Thin Film Power Group has claimed a new conversion efficiency record for an N-type monocrystalline heterojunction solar cell with a conversion efficiency of 24.23%.
According to provisional data from BloombergNEF (BNEF), global solar PV installations reached 109GW in 2018 as the cost of installing a megawatt of photovoltaic capacity fell 12%, which spurred markets outside China to increase installations.
PV research institute Fraunhofer ISE has reported a new efficiency record of 22.3% for a multi-junction solar cell made of silicon and III-V semiconductor materials using a direct epitaxy process developed with tool supplier AIXTRON.
Having acquired PV Evolution Labs (PVEL) in early 2014 by DNV GL the lab has become a separate legal entity again under the ownership of PVEL’s former founder, Jenya Meydbray.
Sweden-based flexible CIGS thin-film solar cell equipment supplier Midsummer has recently said it had secured a U$7 million order from US start-up, Sunflare, which has developed a new solar roof tile system that was displayed at SPI 2018.
European solar industry trade body SolarPower Europe has said it has started a major campaign to bring back at least 5GW of large-scale PV manufacturing in the region, including the complete supply chain required to support the scheme.
Leading CdTe thin-film module manufacturer First Solar is building a 58MW (AC) PV power plant using its next-generation large-area Series 6 modules and single-axis trackers for Facebook’s Prineville Data Center located in Oregon.
A new organisation aimed at representing the entire PV manufacturing value chain in Europe, from materials and module manufacturers to equipment providers and institutions, is being planned for launch in 2019.
Hanergy Thin Film Power Group has signed a US$130 million, 100MW supply deal with Japanese firm, Forest Group to supply its ‘HanTile’ thin-film solar roof tile systems in the Japanese market.
Perovskite solar cell developer Oxford Photovoltaics (PV) has been awarded a €2.8 million grant from the German Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy to prepare perovskite-silicon solar cells for high-volume manufacturing.
PV and electronics equipment manufacturing and automation specialist Manz AG has secured another advanced payment for CIGS (Copper, Indium, Gallium, DiSelenide) thin-film manufacturing equipment, which is part of a major production order with Chinese partners, the Shanghai Electric Group and the Shenhua Group.
The US subsidiary of Enel Green Power has teamed with start-up Raptor Maps, Inc., to integrate the use of drones in inspecting PV power plants, while providing immediate data through an AI (artificial intelligence) machine learning algorithm to improve O&M (Operations and Management).
PV inverter manufacturer KACO new energy said it has supplied its string inverters to a 10.2MW solar carport in Turkey as part of a new amusement park near completion in Ankara, Turkey.
