Highlights

Since 2017, 156.75 mm M2 wafers have been the standard. However, improvements in cell efficiency appear to have hit a bottleneck, making wafer size a hot topic among manufacturers once again. In the second half of 2018, 158.75 mm G1 mono wafers were introduced to the market. Corrine Lin of PVInfoLink argues that while G1 will likely become the mainstream format over the next two years, 166 mm M6 wafers and 210 mm M12 wafers are presenting new options for manufacturers.

An insider at the China Photovoltaic Industry Association has told pv magazine there was an end-of-year rally after less than 18 GW of new capacity was installed to the end of November.

The Chinese government will extend duties on U.S. and South Korean polysilicon for another five years from today despite committing to buy $200 billion more American goods and services in the trade deal signed on Wednesday. Poly manufacturer REC Silicon says it expects polysilicon to form part of that trade agreement.

The resulting project will sell power to Qatar General Electricity and Water Corp under a 25-year power supply deal. French oil and gas giant Total and Japanese conglomerate Marubeni will hold a combined 40% stake in the power plant, which will be built near Doha, the Qatari capital.

Some 15 countries are likely to be able to lay claim to the status of being members of solar’s “gigawatt club” in 2019, according to conservative projections from BloombergNEF. Nonetheless, PV suppliers, developers and service providers are always on the lookout for new pockets of growth. To kick off 2020, pv magazine’s global team of correspondents and editors have highlighted 10 “fast-growing” solar markets to evaluate where the opportunities, and potential risks, lie.

The minister of environment and energy transition has told parliament two auctions for large scale solar will be held this year, with a new procurement round now planned. The minister revealed energy storage may play a part in the capacity tenders.

Lobby group CEO Walburga Hemetsberger says the plans announced by commission president Ursula von der Leyen this week should place the European solar industry front and center.

The U.S. asset management fund’s plan to cut future investment in coal is reportedly part of a climate-focused initiative to establish sustainability at the center of its business approach. The announcement comes weeks after the investor closed $1 billion of a record $2.5 billion fund focused on PV, wind and energy storage projects.

After several years of weak solar demand growth in Europe, compared to the historical highs of 2011, installations are expected to surge by 88% to reach a new installation record of 23 GW in 2019, writes Cormac Gilligan, research manager at IHS Markit. A range of favorable macro conditions have coalesced this year to reignite the market.

A Department of Energy agency expects 17.4 GW (DC) of utility scale solar power generation capacity plus 6.6 GW of small scale PV will be installed in 2020. That volume would be 60% higher than the record, set in 2016.