Australia-based perovskite solar cell developer GreatCell Solar, formerly Dyesol has recently secured European Union (EU) funding of €500,000 (approximately A$800K) through the Horizon 2020 project.
US-based PV installer RGS Energy (RGSE), which acquired exclusive rights to Dow Chemical’s third generation (3.0) solar shingles under the ‘POWERHOUSE’ brand, but using conventional crystalline silicon solar cells rather than the original CIGS (Copper, Indium, Gallium, Selenide) thin-film substrates, has included China-based PV manufacturer, Risen Energy as a key supplier.
The Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has set a new R&D goal to develop a commercially viable thin-film-on-silicon tandem solar cell with 30% conversion efficiencies.
Leading integrated high-efficiency monocrystalline module manufacturer and ‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member LONGi Green Energy Technology set a new solar industry R&D expenditure record in 2017, not only surpassing the two historical leaders, First Solar and SunPower, but also spending more in one year than any PV manufacturer to date.
PV CellTech 2018 saw Chief Technology Officers and senior executives from the world's top solar cell manufacturers and equipment suppliers give key indications of which cell technologies will be driving the industry in the coming years.
Inline solar cell measurement equipment specialist Aurora Solar Technologies (AST) has secured a new Collaborative Research Agreement (CRA) with the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS), which includes the previous work planned on heterojunction (HJ) cells but also creates opportunities in the growing R&D market for solar cell design and qualification.
‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member LONGi Solar, subsidiary of LONGi Green Energy, the leading integrated monocrystalline PV manufacturer has received for the second year in a row an award from testing services firm TUV Rheinland for "PV Module Energy Yield Simulation (Mono Group)," part of the "All Quality Matters" awards.
Sharp Solar, a subsidiary of Taiwan-based contract electronics giant Foxconn has reported a verified heterojunction back contact (HBC) solar cell on a large-area (6-inch) N-type monocrystalline wafer with a conversion efficiency of 25.09%.
As previously reported there was a significant slowdown in global solar PV manufacturing capacity expansion announcements in the third quarter of 2017, which we highlighted was hardly surprising due to significant level of expansions plans announced in the first half of the year. However, despite increased concerns over the potential imposition of restrictive trade practices in the US and India in the fourth quarter of 2017, there was a significant rebound over the previous quarter, leading to the highest recorded gigawatts of new expansion announcements.
Driving p- and n-type solar cell manufacturing beyond current limitations was a key topic at PV CellTech last week. We caught up with the CTO of leading PV equipment supplier Meyer Burger, Dr. Gunter Erfurt, during the conference, to discuss just how fast the industry is moving.
