Solar manufacturer Maxeon Solar Technologies will lay off about 22% of its global workforce as it decided to entirely phase out its Maxeon 6 interdigitated back contact (IBC) modules as well as other operational realignment.
Developing, sourcing, building and maintaining solar PV projects routinely runs into the millions of dollars of long-term investment, and the impacts of serious theft on a solar asset owner can result in lost revenues, lost energy generation and sometimes lost insurance and ability to operate.
Everything seems to be pointing to the solar PV manufacturing sector going into a downturn in 2024, with loss-making potentially rife across much of the upstream sector.
Solar project developer and asset owner Photon Energy Group has posted reduced revenues and EBITDA in its financial results for the first nine months of 2023, which the company attributed to “lower realised electricity prices and a slow-down in PV components trading”.
In October, Turkish energy minister Alparslan Bayraktar said Turkey will need to install 5GW of solar and wind capacity every year until 2035, as renewables have great potential to meet the 2035 target of ‘supplying reliable and affordable energy in an environmentally friendly manner’.
Poland boasted 18GW of solar PV projects with grid connection approvals issued as of the end of the third quarter of 2023, according to Polish research group Institute for Renewable Energy (IEO).
