PV Tech’s preliminary analysis of global solar PV manufacturing capacity expansion announcements in the first quarter of 2017, show a strong rebound compared to the significantly subdued environment experienced in the second half of 2016.
Silicon Module Super League (SMSL) member JA Solar is continuing to expand manufacturing capacity in 2017 after guiding total shipments to be in the range of 6GW to 6.5GW, up from 5.2GW in 2016.
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.
While there is no shortage of leading indicators in the PV industry that can be used to predict future trends in manufacturing and across the various companies involved in this space, one of the most pertinent ones relates to capital expenditure (or capex).
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.
There are many key metrics worth listing at the end of each year in the solar industry. In terms of the upstream/manufacturing side, two jump out as leading indicators for the year ahead.
The first is to rank the top-10 producers of the solar cells during the year.
PV Tech can reveal the preliminary Top 5 solar module manufacturers in 2016, based as usual on final shipment guidance from third quarter financial results.
‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member JA Solar reported lower third quarter total shipments as the slowdown in the domestic China market hit. As a result full year shipment guidance was also lowered.