first solar inc

PV Tech reached its own little milestone of having reported and analysed the R&D spending habits of the same 12 key PV module manufacturers for 10 years. The results have just been published in sister technical journal Photovoltaics International as part of the annual leaders and laggards of R&D spending for 2016.

Leading CdTe thin-film module manufacturer First Solar has secured a 241MW module supply contract with Australian EPC firm, RCR Tomlinson. The latest contract is for two major PV power plant projects, bringing its contracted business in the country to over 500MW in the next 12 months.

Struggling US-headquartered solar PV encapsulant producer STR Holdings foray into recapturing market share by producing in China has come to an end with the closure of its manufacturing operations in the country.

US-headquartered PV manufacturers SunPower and First Solar are expected to collectively sell their stakes in their joint venture yieldco, 8point3 Energy Partners.

Leading thin-film PV manufacturer First Solar raised both shipments and revenue expectations for 2017 after reporting net sales of US$623 million in the second quarter of 2017, down from US$892 million in the previous quarter.

The production volume of solar PV panels based on thin-film deposition of semiconductor materials on large-area glass panels is set to hit a seven-year low in 2017, in spite of the end-market demand for solar panels increasing by a factor of three over the same time period.

Updated: The US solar trade body, Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) said it would spearhead the campaign against the trade petition by US-based bankrupt cell and module manufacturer, Suniva with the USITC (United States International Trade Commission) that threatens import duties on all crystalline solar cells and panels imported from anywhere across the world not produced in the US.

Vertically integrated PV power plant developers such as First Solar and SunPower are losing ground to dedicated PV tracker firms, according to the latest analysis from IHS Markit.

With the industry’s leading PV manufacturing event, PV CellTech 2017, just a few weeks away on 14-15 March 2017 in Penang, Malaysia, PV-Tech took the opportunity to speak with the Chairman of the Technical Advisory Board, Finlay Colville, on what we can expect to learn from the event this year.

Yesterday, we exclusively revealed the top-10 solar cell producers for 2016. In the second part of our top-10 series, we can now reveal for the first time the top-10 module suppliers to the solar industry for 2016.