Highlights

A maturing PV market does not automatically deliver certainty in terms of technology roadmaps and industry dynamics. Crystalizing trends and anticipating developments is the business of analysts, so pv magazine assembled four of solar’s best to talk about prices, technology and market-defining policy developments.

Solibro GmbH is expected to make the move this month, according to a German media report. The company has yet to publicly confirm the move.

The opening pages of the first-half update published on the Hong Kong exchange made all the right noises with the company set to be acquired by a Chinese state-owned entity. But the balance sheet makes for shocking reading.

Two reports have described how the world’s largest renewable energy market is moving towards maturity. According to the Brookings Institution, the Chinese clean energy market could become more open to Western investors and tech. A report by Fitch claims projects are moving back to inland provinces from coastal regions.

The picture that Walmart is painting of Tesla/SolarCity installation and O&M practices in its U.S. lawsuit is not a pretty one.

The state-owned State Power Investment Corp Ltd has received a bid of 25 cents per watt for monocrystalline panels in a tender to procure 3.04 GW of PV module capacity.

The latest figures show the solar policy vacuum, and related dearth of demand in China earlier this year accelerated price reductions for cell makers. Although prices are expected to rebound in line with renewed thirst for solar in China, cell makers such as Tongwei are feeling the pain.

Women provide an invaluable perspective in the PV industry’s workforce. Studies have shown that the number of qualified women in leadership yields better performance, and that female representation leads to greater collaboration and fairness within the workplace. Yet there still exists a great divide and inadequate representation. This year’s In Conversation section in the August edition of pv magazine highlights the significant contributions of leading women in the solar industry across its many segments, geographies, backgrounds and professions. Watch out for the interviews, which will be published over the coming Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

The utility has revealed plans to invest roughly $3 billion in the construction of a 5 GW solar park across two to three locations in the Kutch region of the Indian state of Gujarat. In a separate announcement, the New Delhi-based group opened global bidding to build 1.2 GW of grid-connected solar capacity throughout India.

In the early years of the 21st century, distributed generation systems in Latin America were mainly installed off-grid in remote rural areas, writes Maria Chea, solar analyst at IHS Markit. As the El Niño phenomenon and high oil prices continued to exacerbate high electricity prices and power shortages, governments began to turn their attention to distributed generation, including PV systems, to assuage strains on their national grid networks.