In the second half of 2018, monocrystalline silicon technology passed an important milestone: Quarterly production of monocrystalline ingots, wafers, cells, and modules overtook that of multicrystalline for the first time in the mainstream PV era. This milestone was tracked by PV technology and market forecasting firm exawatt. CEO Simon Price sets out how mono’s rapid growth could have been, and was, predicted.

With tenders coming in for large-scale projects, and decade-old generous FIT programs being phased out, new opportunities and challenges are facing Japan’s PV players. Izumi Kaizuka from Tokyo-based analyst RTS Corporation sets out the major market trends for 2019.

As data drifts in, 2018 is shaping up to have been a record-breaking year for battery energy storage, writes IHS Markit senior analyst Julian Jansen. Especially for front-of-the-meter projects, which experienced rapid growth. This growth was led by significant activity in South Korea, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, and China, which together accounted for 78% of battery energy storage projects commissioned in 2018, according to the Q4 2018 edition of the IHS Markit “Energy Storage Company and Project Database.”

Since the PV module market has already witnessed intense industrial concentration over the past few years, the top 10 manufacturers didn’t change significantly as 2018 unfolded, writes PV InfoLink Chief Analyst Corrine Lin. On the cell side, the decline of Taiwanese cell makers has Chinese cell makers filling the top three spots this year.

Situated in south-east India, the state of Andhra Pradesh is a leading producer of renewable energy with 7.2 GW of installed capacity as of December 2018. The state’s share of renewable energy as part of total capacity has trebled in the last four years from 11% in 2014 to 30% in 2018.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) have agreed to collaborate on the promotion of renewable energy sources such as solar.

Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners has invested $200 million in a new distributed solar company — Madison Energy Investments — focused on ground-mount, rooftop and carport projects ranging from 500 kw to 20 MW.

The power company has reportedly moved to expand its Iberian solar portfolio to a huge 1.7 GW with the latest deal, signed with Trina Solar and related to projects planned for the south and east of Spain.


The project was awarded under a 1 GW tender intended to install renewable generation capacity in former mining areas where subsidence and flooding have left huge basins of standing water.

With the legal squabble between Hanwha Q Cells and three rival solar manufacturers now encompassing three countries, equipment supplier Meyer Burger saw fit to refer to the dispute in its latest announcement of an Asian contract win.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Leading Asia’s Private Infrastructure Fund (LEAP) have agreed to provide an $18.7 million loan to support the development of a 15 MW solar project in Mongolia.

Canadian Solar has been acquiring utility-scale projects and signing module supply and EPC deals at a rapid pace in recent months. Shawn Qu, Canadian Solar’s founder and CEO, would prefer the market to continue at a stable level, rather than boom and bust. And he argues that the dual role of module maker and developer delivers valuable insights into pricing and technology trends — giving the company an advantage over rivals. 

Shunfeng International Clean Energy expects its annual losses to have widened to around $255 million last year, up from $125 million in the preceding 12-month period.

A 7.4 MW solar plant will start generating electricity next month in Rangamati, in Bangladesh’s Chittagong Division.

The heavily-indebted solar developer has sold off six solar projects to a U.K.-Irish renewables investment fund for £34 million, ensuring it will be able to settle the most immediate of its reported $3.1 billion commitments.

Indian company Amtronics CC has paid Quantum Materials Corp an initial $500,000 as part of an agreement securing the right to manufacture quantum dots and thin-film quantum dot solar cells based on QMC technology for commercial supply in India. Construction has already started on a manufacturing facility in the state of Assam.

On Saturday afternoon, utility-scale solar output on California’s grid peaked at 10,745 MW – its highest level since last summer. More importantly, California is wringing greater flexibility out of its imports, meaning more renewables with less curtailment.

In both Belgium and Chile, the planned mandatory installation of smart meters is raising concerns among consumers, residential PV system owners and the solar industry. Although seen as a positive, the early stages of smart meter deployment create issues related to the calculation of net metering tariffs and the management and ownership of consumption data, as well as additional costs for consumers.

The Swiss solar equipment maker has endorsed a claim by Chinese solar manufacturer Longi that the technology it uses differs from that at the center of Hanwha Q Cells’ patent infringement complaints.

A report commissioned by the European Climate Foundation suggests a fossil fuel-free energy system in Europe by 2050 should largely rely on smart electrification and energy efficiency. Green hydrogen deployment, the report finds, would require prohibitively expensive infrastructure investment.

Just three months after revealing that it had achieved a 28% conversion efficiency with its perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells, Oxford PV has closed the initial portion of a Series D funding round aimed at bringing its core technologies to market.

Things are hotting up in the tracker world as the desire to squeeze down the price per Watt of solar power intensifies. And the rise of the trackers is attracting some well-known businesses to buy their way into the field.

The deadline for the Solar Energy Corporation of India’s latest attempt to incentivize solar manufacturing, by offering generation capacity, has come and gone. The government body’s attempts to kick-start domestic production have thus far made little headway.

The new CEO of SolarPower Europe, Walburga Hemetsberger, explained her goals for the development of the European solar industry in the next 10 years when interviewed by pv magazine during the association’s SolarPower Summit in Brussels.

Real estate and logistics company owner Cheung Shun Lee is making a third attempt to relist a company whose shares have been suspended for five-and-a-half years, and whose corporate history during that time reads like a soap opera.

Against the backdrop of soaring demand, commodity prices for lithium and cobalt have come down 30% since the beginning of the year. This could have a profound effect on the EV industry, bringing price parity in comparison with conventional vehicles much earlier than previously thought.

Analysis released today by independent energy and consulting firm, Rystad Energy shows an incredible reserve of energy storage has been added to Australia’s ongoing boom in solar and wind projects during the first two months of 2019 — confidence, perhaps, that an energy-transition policy will finally triumph at the Federal polls!

The Solarville project, by Ikea’s Danish research and design laboratory, has seen the participation of blockchain companies such as Bloc, Blocktech, WeMoveIdeas India and Temporal. It was conceived to help create cooperative community micro-grids to enable homeowners to become clean energy traders.

Open-source blockchain platform Energy Web Foundation has revealed the number of its affiliates has risen from 37 to 100 in recent months. New members include EnBW, Total and a unit of the State Grid Corporation of China. The platform was conceived to create an energy-blockchain ecosystem and to accelerate the energy transition.

The utility could invest up to €7 billion in renewable energy projects up to 2022.