By Finlay Colville, Head of Market Intelligence, Solar Media
Solar photovoltaic manufacturing is benefiting today from increased allocations by leading producers for capex into new facilities and technologies. Capturing these trends in March 2016, the PVCellTech conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, hosted by Photovoltaics International’s publisher, Solar Media, provided a fascinating insight into what can be expected during the second half of 2016. Leading the drive to higher cell efficiencies and panel powers are efforts to increase the production of passivated emitter rear contact, or PERC, cells. This new trend can be seen to be driving the internal roadmaps of all silicon cell manufacturers, in addition to competing n-type and thin-film providers.