‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member Canadian Solar has made further revisions to its planned manufacturing capacity expansion plans for 2016, while reiterating previously guided PV module shipments for the year.
Specialist PV manufacturing equipment supplier Amtech Systems reported continued success in securing new solar equipment orders in its second fiscal quarter of 2016, the highest bookings since the March quarter of 2011.
LayTec has introduced the first commercially available system for simulation and monitoring of LID (Light Induced Degredation). ‘LID Scope’ is a table-top system that helps to quantify the expected performance loss of any solar cell directly at the production line or in the lab. The tool performs accelerated or real-life degradation tests fully automatically. It is claimed to deliver highly reproducible results and a permanent monitoring of Voc changes by integrated metrology.
Leading ‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member Trina Solar said it had achieved a new world record for a large-area Interdigitated Back Contact (IBC) solar cell.
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.
Nanoelectronics research center imec and kerfless epitaxial wafer start-up, Crystal Solar have demonstrated a homojunction solar cell with a record 22.5% conversion efficiency said to pave the way to low-cost solar wafer commercialisation.
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.
Leading PV manufacturing equipment supplier Meyer Burger has received a major PERC (Passivated Emitter Rear Cell) upgrade order from ‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL) member JA Solar.
Atomic layer deposition (ALD) equipment specialist SoLayTec, a subsidiary of Amtech Systems has received a number of new tool orders from a range of customers planning p-type PERC, n-type IBC and bi-facial solar cell production in 2016.
