Liam Stoker reflects on the worsening crisis affecting solar module manufacturing and supply, with five of the industry's largest manufacturers calling for industry-wide collaborative efforts to resolve it.
As prices rise and component availability remains tight, both solar’s upstream and downstream are rallying behind the common cause of ensuring which projects can go ahead, do go ahead in a timely fashion. Liam Stoker assesses the industry’s efforts to keep the supply chain moving forward.
The US’ transition to a carbon pollution-free power sector could see solar provide more than 40% of the country’s electricity by 2035, up from the current 3% level, according to a memo from the Department of Energy (DOE).
Meyer Burger has been hit by supply chain bottlenecks that have slowed the ramp-up of manufacturing capacity at its new cell and module plants in Germany.
It is “unhealthy” for China to dominate solar manufacturing and production bases outside of the country are necessary to reduce the risk of supply chain disruptions, an Indian government official has said.
Risen Energy has announced that its US subsidiary, Risen Energy America Inc, and Global Energy Generation LLC (Doral LLC), a leading developer of renewable energy projects, primarily in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions, have signed a 480MW high-efficiency bi-facial module supply agreement for the first phase of the Mammoth Solar project in Indiana.
‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) members JinkoSolar and JA Solar are to invest in polysilicon provider Xinte Energy’s 100,000 ton facility in Inner Mongolia, receiving priority access to the polysilicon produced as a result.
The high power 600W+ PV industry will play a critical role in helping China achieve its goals of achieving a CO2 emissions peak by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2060, says Gao Jifan, honorary president of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association.
The US installed more than 5GWdc of solar capacity in Q1 2021, taking its cumulative capacity past the 100GW barrier, but supply chain constraints could pose a major barrier to further growth.
