The past few weeks has seen some of the most dramatic knee-jerk, naïve and misinformed PV market reporting seen in recent times, with the headlines often resembling nothing more than tabloid sensationalism.
‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member Trina Solar and building materials and PV systems developer China Singyes Solar Technologies Holdings have jointly secured a bid to build a 250MW ‘Top Runner’ PV power plant project in Tongchuan, Shaanxi province, China.
Leading CdTe thin-film PV module manufacturer First Solar held a ground breaking ceremony on 8 June 2018 for the construction of its new 1.2GW manufacturing plant near its existing flagship facility in Perrysburg, Ohio.
The largest solar PV manufacturer in the world GCL Group has had its plans for a major 5GW manufacturing hub in Egypt approved by the National Authority for Military Production.
Hanwha Q CELLS became the latest company to make a gigawatt-scale manufacturing commitment in the States but Trump has some way to go to make US solar manufacturing great again.
Leading PV manufacturing equipment supplier Meyer Burger has said that the pioneer of heterojunction solar cell technology, Panasonic has decided to fast-track the evaluation of its ‘SmartWire Connection Technology’ (SWCT) in an effort to boost its cell and module performance.
Major PV materials provider DuPont Photovoltaic Solutions has launched the first transparent PV module backsheet material, specifically for bifacial solar modules at SNEC International Photovoltaic Power Generation and Smart Energy Exhibition, being held in Shanghai, China this week.
‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member LONGi Solar, subsidiary of LONGi Green Energy, the leading integrated monocrystalline PV manufacturer has set a new P-type mono bifacial ‘shingled’ cell formatted module conversion efficiency record of 20.66%.
According to analysis by Taiwan-based market research firm, EnergyTrend, around 67% of Top Runner program bids in 2017 were won with P-type mono PERC modules and it expects an increasing percentage of project bids in 2018 will be securde by using P-type mono PERC bifacial modules.
