Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

Bluebolt Outdoor has supplied benches powered by off-grid solar to a university in California.

Scientists in Australia claim to have achieved the highest efficiency ever reported to date for a perovskite-CIGS tandem solar cell built on a flexible steel substrate. In the proposed cell configuration, steel can act as both a substrate and an electrode.

By adding an ionic pair stabilizer to perovskite cells enables coating to take place in ambient air, simplifying the manufacturing process.

Astronergy has announced a 1 GW solar module deal with China National Petroleum Corp. The order is for its ASTRO N-Series modules, which feature its tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) 4.0 cell technology.

Turkey’s total installed PV capacity reached 12.4 GW at the end of February. Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Alparslan Bayraktar says the country aims to add 3.5 GW of PV every year through to 2035.

The Chinese Academy of Science has developed a new technique that uses non-toxic lemonene as a reagent to control the degree of EVA expansion during the decapsulation process of end-of-life photovoltaic modules. The proposed approach reportedly achieves the complete delamination of glass and backsheet without excessive damage to the solar cells

Australian PV manufacturer Tindo Solar is expected to be among the first applicants for a grant from the federal government’s AUD 1 billion ($648.7 million) Solar Sunshot program, as it looks to scale up its production capacity to compete in a growing domestic market dominated by imports.

Researchers in China claim to have achieved the highest efficiency ever reported for perovskite solar cells based on “alternative” hole transport materials. The device reportedly offers improved hole extraction and significantly reduced charge recombination at the interface between the perovskite layer and the hole transport layer.

Mercom says in a new report that India installed 20.8 GW of solar module manufacturing capacity and 3.2 GW of new PV cell production lines in 2023. The nation’s cumulative solar module manufacturing capacity stood at 64.5 GW on Dec. 31, 2023, while its solar cell capacity reached 5.8 GW, according to the research firm.

Feedback from stakeholders involved in Germany’s end-of-life PV modules treatment chain found more needs to be done around the transparency of PV module waste volume, the take-back and collection process and module recycling, as the country prepares for significantly larger volumes by the end of the decade.