How PV module supply has now become a marketing and trade-show related game of numbers; what is driving this, and why is it perhaps causing more concern to the very grouping it is meant to impress – the end-user.
Major polysilicon producer Wacker Chemie has warned its overall group profitability for 2019 would be around 30% lower than the prior year, due to continued weak demand from the solar industry in China and continued polysilicon prices declines to industry record lows.
LONGi Green Energy Technology Co, the largest monocrystalline wafer producer, has approved future PV module and solar cell manufacturing plans of 10GW and 5GW, respectively.
REC Group has officially started volume production of heterojunction solar cells and modules at its manufacturing complex in Singapore that will provide 600MW of annual capacity, when fully ramped.
‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member, JA Solar has licensed a number of patents from Shin-Etsu Chemical on doping Ga in silicon crystals and using the Ga-doped p-type crystalline silicon wafers for making solar cells to mitigate the impact of Light Induced Degradation (LID).
Leading CdTe thin-film PV module maker expects to start volume production at second US facility in early 2020, restoring spot as largest PV module manufacturer in US and western hemisphere.
Leading ‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member, JinkoSolar has sourced a further two-year supply of high-purity polysilicon from Daqo New Energy to meet its material requirements under current in-house mono-wafer capacity expansions.
Major PV materials supplier Heraeus Photovoltaics has collaborated with German company, Cell Engineering to develop metallisation pastes for its ‘LECO’ (Laser Enhanced Contact Optimization) technology that can increase multiple solar cell architectures conversion efficiencies by up to 0.15%.
Jiangsu Seraphim Solar System Co has recently rolled out an innovative bifacial solar panel, ‘Blade Bifacial’, integrating half-cell technology with latest bifacial PERC cell capabilities.
Specialist automation and PV module assembly solutions provider, Mondragon Assembly has struck a deal with Korean equipment supplier, STiN for its ‘continuous stringing’ intellectual property (IP).
