Price increases in polysilicon and other auxiliary solar module materials have exerted much pressure on manufacturers, JA Solar has said, impacting on profitability in the first half of 2021. Xinming Huang, senior vice president at JA Solar, tells PV Tech how the company is responding.
Soaring polysilicon costs have tipped the solar manufacturing industry to the brink of crisis and while only expected to be in the short-term, the ramifications in 2021 could be significant. On the sidelines of SNEC 2021, Carrie Xiao speaks to experts from across the value chain to determine how solar PV can tackle supply chain constraints.
The cost of insuring operational solar farms has skyrocketed over the course of the year, triggered by carriers rethinking their approaches to natural catastrophes and other extreme weather events. This has placed additional importance on mitigation strategies. Kevin Christy, COO for North America at Lightsource bp, details how the solar developer has adapted its strategy in the field.
As it matures, the solar industry is moving beyond the use of Performance Ratios (PR) as the go-to performance metric for operational sites. Christopher West, head of central engineering - solar PV delivery unit at Statkraft, argues the case for PRs to be replaced by alternative, more evolved methods of assessment.
Boris Farnung and Keith Punzalan of VDE and David Moser of EURAC’s Institute for Renewable Energy take a look at the positive impact comprehensive quality assurance measures can have on the early stage of a project’s lifespan, exploring yield assessments, LCOE projections and the critical need for high quality components.
Reforms in energy policy since the election of Andrés Manuel López Obrador have led to increased uncertainty for solar developers in Mexico, with renewables auctions cancelled and changes to power dispatch priorities proposed. Alice Grundy looks at how the market can move forward once again.
Not only will solar be the dominant source of new power generation in Europe by 2025, cementing its position as the third largest market for solar globally, but the continent has placed the asset class at the very heart of its COVID-19 recovery strategy. Liam Stoker, Edith Hancock and Jules Scully explore the drivers for solar in Europe, the key markets and the challenges that remain.
Spain’s PV sector has been boosted by a new auction mechanism that aims to support at least 10GW of capacity by 2025. José Donoso, general director of Spanish solar association UNEF, discusses what is driving growth and the various policies that the industry is asking for.
The holy grail of every solar cell producer is the creation of a lowcost interdigitated back-contact (IBC) solar cell with an efficiency greater than 25%, a goal that can be found in almost every roadmap presentation. In this paper it will be shown that we are not far away from achieving this target, since IBC devices, with different process complexities, are already in production at several companies.
This paper will accordingly outline the recent activities at CEA-INES concerning the development and understanding of the integration of such shingle cells.
