From the world’s largest project being commissioned to a possible downturn for solar manufacturers in 2024, and including the US Department of Treasure releasing guidance from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
Here, PV Tech runs down its top 10 stories of the past 12 months.
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10 – Why TBC will follow shortly after TOPCon
11 September 2023: In this guest blog for PV Tech, Radovan Kopecek et al., explore which technology will take the lead from tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) and why it will be TOPCon back contact (TBC).
9 – Masdar inaugurates ‘world’s-largest’ 2GW solar project in Abu Dhabi
17 November 2023: As the industry continues to grow, it is becoming more common to see gigawatt-scale projects being announced or completed, such as this one from UAE state-owned renewables developer Masdar with a 2GW PV project in Abu Dhabi, the world’s largest according to the company.
8 – ‘Massive increase’ in solar module defects poses ‘significant risk’ to PV industry – CEA
1 November 2023: A report from trade body Clean Energy Associates detected an increase of solar module ‘invisible’ defects, with the two most common defects being line cracks and soldering errors. The most eyebrow-raising result was a “massive increase” in micro-cracks between the start of 2022 and mid-2023. These module defects were posing a “significant risk” to the solar industry according to the report.
7 – Top 6 Chinese PV module manufacturers: Q1 shipment ranking
16 May 2023: In this Premium article, we looked at how the top six Chinese manufacturers – Jinko Solar, JA Solar, Trina Solar, LONGi, Risen Energy and Tongwei – fared during the first quarter of 2023, with some of them posting strong performance.
6 – First Solar could be the only profitable volume PV module supplier in 2024
20 November 2023: Finlay Colville, head of research at PV Tech, explores how cadmium telluride thin film manufacturer First Solar could be the only major PV manufacturer to escape a possible downturn for solar manufacturing in 2024.
5 – Can anything prevent a PV manufacturing downturn in 2024?
15 November 2023: Closely linked to the previous article and published a week before, Finlay Colville, explored the possible downturn of the solar PV manufacturing industry in 2024 and what might avert this situation which would be the first major downturn in the industry since 2013-2014.
4 – SunPower sued for alleged inaccurate accounting
1 November 2023: A class action lawsuit has been filed against the solar company SunPower for allegedly misleading investors by failing to disclose that it had inaccurately reported the cost of revenue and inventory metrics. According to a statement published by law firm Bragar Eagel & Squire at the time, SunPower would be restating certain previously issued financial statements for fiscal year 2022 and the first two quarters of 2023.
3 – Masdar to build 500MW of solar capacity in Ethiopia
23 August 2023: With a strong presence in Africa and the Middle East, state-owned UAE renewable energy company Masdar signed an agreement with Ethiopia to build 500MW of solar capacity in the Eastern African country. This agreement is part of the Etihad 7 programme, a project introduced by the UAE in January 2022 aiming to install 20GW of renewable energy capacity in Africa by 2035.
2 – US Treasury releases IRA guidance to widen net of tax credit recipients
19 June 2023: Even though the IRA was passed into law in August 2022, several guidance explaining how tax credits and other benefits from the IRA could be received were published throughout 2023. Among them is the US Department of Treasury and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) releasing guidance on tax credits, which allows state and local governments, nonprofits and other entities to benefit from renewable energy tax breaks.
1 – Top 10 PV module suppliers in 2022 shipped 245GW
1 February 2023: Finlay Colville highlighted how the top 10 module manufacturers fared in 2022, which had a massive growth in PV module production. The top 10 module suppliers alone accounted for over 75% of the global supply, and shipped 245GW of modules. LONGi remained in the first position in 2022, followed by JinkoSolar who climbed to the second position, ahead of Trina Solar and JA Solar. Each of these four companies shipped more than 40GW of modules in 2022.