Record Q3 revenue has helped major merchant solar cell producer Aiko Solar report nine-month revenue growth of 49.45%, compared to the prior year period, exceeding the company's full-year 2019 revenue figure.
Ahead of the forthcoming PV CellTech 2020 Online conference on 27-29 October 2020, our head of research and Chair of the CellTech events, Dr. Finlay Colville, undertook an interview with one of the keynote speakers planned for the event, Dr. Sebastian Gatz, the Vice President of Crystalline Photovoltaics at leading equipment manufacturer Von Ardenne.
PV CellTech 2020 is taking place online this year, with 27 invited keynote presentations from the leading PV technology stakeholders, during 27-29 October 2020. The scope of the 9 sessions across the 3 days of the online event have been configured to allow the global PV community to assess fully the plethora of new-capacity and new-technology announcements from the past 12-18 months.
‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member JA Solar has started the volume production ramp at its 10GW Yiwu Information Optoelectronic High-tech Industrial Park manufacturing hub that was officially announced at the start of 2020.
PV Tech’s analysis of ‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member JA Solar’s capacity expansion announcements in the first nine months of 2020 have revealed the company has already announced a total of over 104GW of combined plans, including ingot/wafer, solar cell and module assembly.
Leading ‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member JinkoSolar has made a major revision to its PV module assembly capacity expansion plans for 2020, intending to nearly double its nameplate assembly capacity to a new goal of 30GW by the end of 2020.
The rapid transition in the upstream manufacturing solar sector to significantly larger p-type and n-type monocrystalline wafers, cells and modules may be hailed as a new era for the industry in higher module performance and a leap in reducing PV power plants LCOE (Levelized Cost of Electricity) in a rapidly changing downstream market that becomes subsidy free, bidding orientated and targeting grid parity and beyond. But issues such as reliability lurk just below the surface.
Major integrated PV module manufacturer, Suntech has started ramping up a 1GW integrated cell and module assembly plant in Indonesia, predominantly to serve the US market that takes its nameplate module assembly capacity above 10GW.
Major polysilicon and merchant cell producer, Tongwei has secured a monocrystalline wafer supply deal from LONGi Green Energy (LONGi Group) that increases its wafer needs by 1 billion wafers to 2.6 billion as the cell producer plans to have more than 40GW of solar cell capacity in 2021.
Major merchant solar cell producer Aiko Solar may have increased first half year revenue 30% compared to the prior year period, but COVID-19 and solar cell average price declines, triggered by weak demand, sent net profits falling by 68% year-on-year.
