Henning Wicht, iSuppli's senior director and principal analyst for photovoltaics market research, has become increasingly bearish on the photovoltaics industry due to the severe overcapacity throughout the supply chain. In a new report, Wicht projects that PV module production--which is still expanding--will reach a capacity of 7.5GW in 2009, however installations will only reach 3.9GW. This means that nearly half of all solar panels produced in 2009 will remain unsold and a massive inventory build will persist until 2012.
Veeco Instruments announced its financial results for the second quarter and six months ended June 30. The company's orders rose 86% sequentially, driven mainly by results from its LED and solar equipment unit.
SunPower and Wells Fargo have joined together in a new collaborative effort to fund as much as $100 million in SunPower commercial-scale solar photovoltaic systems. Under the financing program, the partners say that SunPower will sign power purchase agreements (PPAs) with qualified customers, and the bank will finance the PV systems, which will be designed, built, operated, and maintained by the solar company.
String Ribbon solar cell manufacturer Evergreen Solar is planning future expansions in China, with the aim of reaching a manufacturing cost of US$1 per watt by the end of 2012. The aggressive goal is in tandem with ramping a new plant in China to 500MW in that time frame. This is being planned with another PV manufacturer, Jiawei Solar (Wuhan) Co., and the Wuhan Donghu New Technology Development Zone Management Committee, part of the Wuhan provincial government in Wuhan, China.
According to Japanese news reports, negotiations are under way between Hitachi and Showa Shell Sekiyu to enter the photovoltaics market. The partnership would see Hitachi sell an LCD plant to Showa, which would then be converted to PV module production. It was not clear whether the solar plant would produce conventional crystalline or thin-film modules. Apparently an agreement is expected to be announced soon, according to the reports.
Just over a month after Pacific Crest financial analyst, Mark Bachman revealed that First Solar had been selected for a massive extension to Sempra Generation’s 10MW solar power plant in Boulder City, Nevada, First Solar has announced the deal. First Solar is to design, engineer and construct a 48MW plant at the same location, with the project expected to be completed sometime in 2010, subject to Sempra obtaining a power purchase agreement (PPA) with a utility.
Applied Solar, Inc. announced the start-up of the Solar Communities program in San Diego. This program plans to increase the number of homes using clean solar energy by getting rid of cost by eliminating the most expensive Tier 3 and Tier 4 energy purchases, which usually is at least 60% of the typical San Diego Gas & Electric customer’s yearly bill.
SunPower teamed up with the Rancho California Water District (RCWD) for the development and construction of a 1.1-MW solar power system at the district's water treatment facility in Murrieta, which has now reached completion.
Electricity has been around for a long time and no doubt will be for the foreseeable future, but it is quickly changing its nature. Owing to evolutions in power electronics, sustainable electricity generation and consumption came to the fore and now it is nigh on impossible for photovoltaics to operate without this technology. This holds true for efficient consumption such as plug-in electric and hybrid vehicles or compact efficient lighting. Power electronics need to be taken into account in relation to grids, for example in novel voltage-source HVDC connections. Photovoltaic energy conversion requires power electronics in order to adapt the floating DC-output to a fixed DC-level and typically further to a grid-compatible AC electricity. These converter (mainly inverter) technologies have evolved considerably over the past few years, in much the same way as has PV cell technology, but in a much less apparent fashion. It is, however, expected and required that the technologies will evolve even further to meet the demands of the future market and the electricity grid to which they will be connected. This article intends to give an overview of the challenges ahead for power electronics in photovoltaic energy conversion.
Several of the most popular stories in the Power Generation section of PV-Tech were related to research on new technologies for the improvement of cell efficiencies. A very recent report by Greentech Media on First Solar’s apparent achievement of grid parity created ripples throughout the industry. Mark Bachman, a senior research analyst with Pacific Crest, presented his aggregated numbers via the report that claimed that First Solar has indeed reached the grid parity mecca.
