China-based PV and glass manufacturer, Changzhou Almaden Stock Co Ltd was recently forced to declare that it was supplying Tesla with glass encapsulated solar roof tiles, due to abnormal fluctuations in its stock traded on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
Tesla reported as expected lower solar system installations for the fourth quarter of 2018, while citing continued testing of its roof tile system for a still vague roll-out timetable for mass production and deployments.
Sweden-based flexible CIGS thin-film solar cell equipment supplier Midsummer has recently said it had secured a U$7 million order from US start-up, Sunflare, which has developed a new solar roof tile system that was displayed at SPI 2018.
Hanergy Thin Film Power Group has signed a US$130 million, 100MW supply deal with Japanese firm, Forest Group to supply its ‘HanTile’ thin-film solar roof tile systems in the Japanese market.
Tesla reported another major decline in its residential solar installations for the fourth quarter of 2017, while a supply shortage in its energy storage system ‘Powerwall’ has created a customer backlog of solar and storage installs of more than one year.
According to brief reports citing Tesla’s CTO, Panasonic has started making its high-efficiency HIT (Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin layer) solar cells at Gigafactory 2 in RiverBend, Buffalo, New York State.
Having just completed its first ‘Solar Roof’ tile system installations in the US, Tesla said in reporting second quarter 2017 financial results that production of the roofing tiles would not enter mass production at its Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, New York until the end of 2017.
Lyndon Rive, founder and former chief executive of SolarCity has announced that he is leaving Tesla, the residential solar giant’s new owners since November.