Asia & Oceania

Manz, supplier of manufacturing equipment to the solar, energy storage and electronics industries has been forced to lay off 174 members of staff.

Indian integrated solar firm Tata Power Solar has commissioned one of the world’s largest rooftop PV projects standing at 12MW in Punjab.

Concrete action in the Indian solar sector this year has countered scepticism over the 266GW of clean energy pledges made earlier this year, according to a new report.

Indian conglomerate Aditya Birla Nuvo has won all 150MW in a solar auction held by the Indian state of Haryana at a tariff of INR5.08 (US$0.076)/kWh.

The Clean Energy Council (CEC), a body representing the renewables industry in Australia, has written to federal and state government ministers citing various barriers to the progress of clean energy in the country.

Solar Frontier has broken a conversion efficiency record for CIS thin-film solar cells that has stood for over a year, achieving 22.3% efficiency on a 0.5cm² PV cell.

India’s government has now approved 27 solar parks, bringing the aggregate capacity to 18,418MW across 21 states and union territories.

Brazil’s Development Bank (BNDES) has raised US$100 million from three Japanese banks in order to invest in clean energy projects.

Leading cell technologists from all of the big-six Silicon Module Super League (SMSL) suppliers (Canadian Solar, Hanwha Q-Cells, JA Solar, JinkoSolar, Trina Solar and Yingli Green) have now been confirmed as speakers at PV Tech’s inaugural solar cell conference, PVCellTech, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 16-17 March 2016.

Homeowners with solar installations in Western Australia have labelled proposals from the state-owned utility Synergy to charge solar rooftop owners an extra fixed fee as an unfair “sun tax”.