German-based trade association VDMA Photovoltaic Equipment said that manufacturing equipment orders received by around 100 members increased by 86% in the fourth quarter of 2015, marking a major rebound in purchase orders.
GCL Systems Integration (hereafter ‘GCL’) has now been officially inducted into PV Tech’s exclusive Silicon Module Super League (SMSL) for 2016, with our team having previously alluded to aggressive capacity additions by the company in 2015.
Despite being technically bankrupt, Yingli Green as a NYSE listed company has been in stealth mode over its future viability since reporting third quarter 2015 results at the beginning of December last year.
PV Tech’s preliminary analysis of global PV manufacturing capacity expansion announcements for March, 2016 has revealed over 7.3GW of planned future expansions of solar cell and module production.
In February, 2016 SolarCity, the largest residential solar PV installer in the US said in its fourth quarter 2015 earnings call that its ambitious 1GW Buffalo Riverbend manufacturing facility had been impacted by longer than expected equipment lead times, pushing some equipment installs into the second-half of 2016.
Sharp Corporation’s energy solutions business, which includes its activities in solar, will continue to operate as a brand in its own right, following the sale of a majority share in the group by Foxconn.
PV inverter manufacturer SMA Solar Technology has made a US$20 million investment in module-level power electronics (MLPE) firm, Tigo Energy for a 27% stake in the company.
First Solar has entered into a framework agreement with a subsidiary of Silicon Ranch, one of the US’ leading solar project developers, to supply 230MW worth of modules for future projects.
Gantner Instruments has launched a new solution for monitoring PV power plants at the string level. The ‘string.bloxx All-in-one’ system recognises design and production errors with high resolution down to the PV module level.
Integrated PV module manufacturer REC Solar has said that it would migrate all production at its manufacturing facility in Tuas, Singapore to its half-cut PERC cell technology, used for its ‘TwinPeak’ series modules.
