Magazine Archive 12-2014

Solar finance: Third party-owned solar has been the dominant business model in the U.S. residential PV market for the last two years. However, there are signs that its popularity may be at its peak, as the introduction of new loan products threatens to revive the dominance of direct ownership.

Inverter after-sales service: Providing good customer care used to simply be a case of maintaining a 24-hour phone line and a local spare parts warehouse. But as inverter suppliers have globalized, how are after-sales service standards being maintained around the world, and what are the challenges associated with such growth?

Solar insurances: Some insurance solutions for solar panels are quite good, but in a different way than people suppose, explains Jan Willem Vos, an insurance specialist and independent risk mitigation specialist for solar PV projects.

Ozymandias folly: Political power grabs, irresolvable disputes, and a chronic misjudgment of the Middle East’s delicate but determined power base put paid to Desertec’s plans to harvest MENA’s solar resources for Europe.

Taiwan: The preliminary antidumping tariffs on solar exports to the United States were met with some degree of indignation by Taiwan’s solar industry. But the solar manufacturers presenting their products at PV Taiwan 2014 were confident that the country’s superior quality in PV cell making will eventually carry them through this rough patch.

It was never meant to be easy. Convincing the world that PV is a mainstream and affordable electricity source has proven to be a tricky business, and over the last three years many of us in PV have had friends and colleagues exit the industry and seen companies fall by the wayside. However, when looking […]

Solar cells: Passivated emitter and rear contact (PERC) technology is taking the solar industry by storm, with nearly 5 GW of installed capacity. What is the attraction of PERC, and what are its limitations?

Solar lighting in India: With many people living in remote areas, there is a lot of potential for solar lighting in India where companies like Tata Power Solar have been supplying this market for more than a decade. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is keen to fulfill his electoral promises to electrify India. But there are also concerns that a wider distribution of LED lights could cause problems for wildlife and spread insect-borne diseases. .

Flashing and cell testing: In part two of pv magazine’s spotlight on approaches to the flashing of high efficiency cells, the approaches of Berger Lichttechnik, Sinton Instruments, and Pasan are explored.