GCL New Energy Holdings has guided plans to build 2GW of PV power plant projects in China in 2015, increasing by 500MW per annum to reach planned installations of 3GW in 2017.
Despite the lack of current capital expenditure (capex) across the PV industry value chain, market research firm NPD Solarbuzz expects a major shift to higher efficiency cells and modules to finally dominate the sector by the end of 2018.
Previously confined to the R&D labs and academic solar PV roadmaps, PERC based c-Si cell capacity upgrades are starting to have a tangible impact on the PV industry. Finlay Colville investigates the drivers, myths, opportunities and the impact of PERC on PV capex and module performance.
Italian energy and waste management company TerniEnergia has signed a deal to develop two solar power plants with a total installed capacity of 148.5MWp in South Africa.
Silver is a key raw material in PV manufacturing. But as Chris Berry writes, a deficit in global silver supply and the prospect of future price increases are both sources of concern for the solar industry.
A key conference session at SNEC 2014, the APVIA Solar Leaders Dialogue session, held a day ahead of the start of the main SNEC exhibition, was dominated by past, present and possible future trade wars against and within the PV industry.
The investment case for the establishment of PV manufacturing hubs in emerging regions became bleak as c-Si PV manufacturing capacities in China ballooned from 2004 to 2011/12. The resulting supply overhang, with dramatic price decreases throughout the PV value chain, led to severe margin compressions and ultimately to closures, insolvencies and postponement of expansion plans by incumbents across the board. A common misperception by private and public decision makers alike – reflected in the recent escalation in global trade disputes – is that products made outside China are, per se, not competitive. In contrast to this mind-set, and on the basis of experience in numerous development projects, the author argues that new entrants have multiple instruments available that can make local PV manufacturing plants commercially viable in many regions of the world.
GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT) has secured a major US$336 million polysilicon equipment and technology deal with Cosmos Chemicals Berhad as part of plans to build a 25,000MT integrated polysilicon plant in Sarawak, Malaysia.
The compromised solution agreed between Brussels and Beijing for the supply of Chinese solar PV components to Europe is approaching its anniversary. Finlay Colville looks at how the deal has panned out.
