Acciona Energia has signed a renewable energy-based power purchase agreement (PPA) with Aguas Chañar, a water cycle management company in the region of Atacama, Chile.
PV capital expenditure (capex) in 2018, covering investments into ingot, wafer, cell and module capacity, will grow by almost 25% compared to 2017, passing through the US$10 billion mark, returning to levels last seen back in 2010 and 2011 when investments in turn-key thin-film fabs were a key contributor.
The planned merger of Taiwan-based PV manufacturers Gintech Energy, Neo Solar Power (NSP) and Solartech Energy to be called United Renewable Energy Co (UREC) is to receive an investment from the Taiwan government, according to reports.
Solar PV capital expenditure (capex) covering the midstream segments of the industry (c-Si ingot-to-module and thin-film) is now well into its second major upturn in spending, going into 2018, at a time when the industry is just about to move to a new phase in annual deployment levels of greater than 100GW.
Efficiency gains and productivity improvements are set to dominate the PV manufacturing landscape again in 2018, with strong investments continuing to flow into existing and new cell architectures, with gigawatt-level status now becoming the norm for the manufacturing segment, writes Finlay Colville.
When manufacturing capacities moved from megawatt to gigawatt ten years ago, the concept of having a fully-integrated and automated production site was widely accepted to be the most economical, Finlay Colville examines whether this is truly the case.
With many of the top-20 module suppliers to the solar industry now having multi-GW shipment volumes, attention has turned firmly to assessing metrics that companies can use to benchmark the quality and reliability of shipped products against their competitors.
Global environmental and industrial analysis firm Vaisala said it was expanding its solar sector operations in India due to demand with plans to double its workforce in the country by the end of 2017.
The solar industry is set to reach annual demand at the 100GW level much earlier than has been forecast by both third-party observers and the leading component suppliers. During 2018, the solar industry is shaping up to ship more than 100GW of solar modules during the calendar year, while 2017 alone will see the number exceed 90GW comfortably.
Mobisol has secured funding from Finnfund for its East Africa expansion, CEFC's investment commitments more than doubled last fiscal year, Acciona is supplying renewable energy to Latin America's largest retail store chain, Sungrow has supplied inverters and an energy storage system to the Bahamas.
