News in brief: Enel Green Power provides PV modules to power a new surgery in a Ugandan hospital, California's LA Solar Group announces new rooftop solar programme, Borrego Solar completes a new commercial PV system in San Diego, California and Hannon Armstrong secures a new US$144 million investment for more than 690MW worth of new solar projects, and more.
US-based start-up WattGlass has secured a Series A round of funding led by material sciences firm, DSM that was said to support its efforts to commercialise its anti-reflective and anti-soiling coating for PV panels.
As part of the US Department Of Energy’s (DOE) Sunshot Initiative and led by SUNY Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly), the U.S. Photovoltaic Manufacturing Consortium have announced the launch of the Solar Energy Optimization Testkit, a new set of evaluation capabilities for photovoltaic systems.
Integrated PV manufacturer SolarWorld is to shift its production focus to monocrystalline PERC (Passivated Emitter Rear Contact) cells and modules and away from multicrystalline to build economies of scale with high-efficiency only products. With the realignment of production to mono PERC products, including bifacial modules, around 400 jobs would be lost by the end of 2019.
This week's Movers & Shakers segment features a company rebrand, a global expansion for India's Adani and good news for US solar, which has experienced 25% jobs growth year-on-year.
PV manufacturing equipment specialist M10 Industries said its new ‘Kubus MTS 5000’ stringer tool has been installed and commissioned at Emmvee's Bangalore module assembly plant, providing a 340MW increase in capacity at its existing facility.
A commercial partner RD&E program going back to 2012, between Fraunhofer ISE and Bystronic glass is being touted as serious candidate to be the future of high-volume and lower cost PV module assembly that overcomes current dual-glass frameless product offerings.
Yesterday on PV-Tech, we explained what to expect from p-type multi c-Si modules during 2017 and 2018, across various p-multi cell configurations. Today, we show a similar analysis, but for p-type mono.