When manufacturing capacities moved from megawatt to gigawatt ten years ago, the concept of having a fully-integrated and automated production site was widely accepted to be the most economical, Finlay Colville examines whether this is truly the case.
PV Tech talked with PV Lighthouse’s Malcolm Abbot ahead of PV ModuleTech 2017, being held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 7-8 November 2017. Malcolm will be a guest speaker at the event.
GCL System Integration Technology (GCL-SI) has launched its first modular PV power plant system. The ‘Super 2.5 MW Solar Block’ system utilizes GCL-SI’s 96-cell modules with a specially developed horizontal single axis tracker to accommodate the large-area modules as well as an all-in-one Inverter Power Container for 1500V DC system voltage.
Leading Taiwanese solar cell and module manufacturer Motech Industries said it was entering into a Joint Venture (JV) with metallisation paste supplier, Giga Solar Materials Corp to establish a solar module assembly plant in Taiwan to meet future domestic demand.
PV manufacturer and EPC firm Jiangsu Zhongli Group Co., Ltd has recently secured a number of ‘Poverty Alleviation’ projects in China totalling around 606MW, bringing its total to almost 930MW.
Swiss-based solar simulator equipment supplier Alfartec has had its new generation of module tester, BlueSky MT240 certified by China’s 3rd party lab, NIM at a ‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member at a c-Si module manufacturing plant in China.
As expected, three of Taiwan’s merchant solar cell and module producers, Gintech Energy Corp, Neo Solar Power (NSP) and Solartech Energy have officially announced plans to merge and exit the ‘foundry’ business model they were founded on.
Things can change very quickly in the solar industry, and no more so than when new trade-related cases are introduced or existing ones are amended in scope. Often companies – and in particular module suppliers relying on export revenues – suddenly find themselves with a golden opportunity that was previously not in their strategies, or have barriers unlocked that remove competitors based in other countries.
Three of Taiwan’s merchant solar cell and module producers, Gintech Energy Corp, Neo Solar Power (NSP) and SolarTech Energy have separately announced the suspension of trading of their stocks on the Taiwan Stock Exchange beginning on October 16.
US-headquartered high-efficiency PV cell and module producer SunPower Corp has surpassed 500MW of solar module orders through several rounds of government tenders in France.
