China-based integrated polysilicon and merchant cell manufacturer Tongwei Group has guided net profit in 2018 to be flat to slightly up on the previous year, despite rapid solar cell capacity expansions.
Annual global PV installations in 2019 are expected to rise by 18%, reaching a generation capacity of 123GW on the year, according to the latest report released by IHS Markit.
‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member GCL System Integrated Technology (GCL-SI) has agreed to take full control of Huajun International Group’s PV manufacturing operations (Huajun Power Technology (Jiangsu) Co), as part of a cooperation framework agreement that would last for three years.
PV Tech caught up with Bohan Chen, CEO of China-based PV manufacturer Talesun Solar, to discuss global solar market demand and keeping up with module trends through US$1 billion of R&D spending in the last five years.
A consortium of Saudi-based developer ACWA Power and contractor AlGihaz have closed financing of the SAR1.2 billion (US$319 million) Sakaka solar project standing at 300MW in Al Jouf, Saudi Arabia, a project that attracted headlines across the world last year after the government chose ACWA Power despite Masdar putting in the lowest ever solar bid.
Dual function residential roof tiles or shingles that incorporate solar PV (photovoltaic) cells into an integrated PV system for new build and retrofit homes have already received the ‘hype’ from Tesla’s Elon Musk but a new kid on the blog is set to go head to head with Tesla for this niche US market both from a manufacturing and installation perspective.
The Chinese government’s decision (531 New Deal) to curtail utility-scale and distributed generation (DG) PV deployments just after the SNEC trade show at the end of May, not only surprised the industry but has since fuelled a significant ASP decline of modules and inverters.
An agreement to buy 75% of Korean battery manufacturer Kokam gives SolarEdge a level of vertical integration that could make the PV company a ‘one-stop-shop’ for customers, while SolarEdge could diversify into areas outside solar energy.
Following-on from our recent analysis of Tesla’s solar panel supply base changing rapidly, the same is true of leading public listed US residential installer, Sunrun.
We have tracked the annual R&D spending of 12 key publicly listed PV module manufacturers over the last 10 years. We present our new methodology with a broader scope which reveals record levels of investment in solar innovation.
