Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

A group of researchers from the University of Lisboa and the Military Academy reported on the viability of agrivoltaics in Portugal. It found that spaced rows of PV modules combined with shadow-friendly crops had the most promising return and a payback period of less than five years.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.

REC Advanced Silicon Material LLC is shutting down one of its two polysilicon production facilities in the United States. It says the decision is primarily due to regional structural imbalances in supply and demand for electricity.

Feedgy’s new modules feature 96 heterojunction (HJT) cells and are available in five power ratings, from 300 Wp to 320 Wp, with a transparency of 39%. The panels can be used for gardening, arboriculture and floriculture.

The PairTree off-grid solar charging system for electric vehicles (EVs) combines bifacial solar panels ranging from 4.6 kW to 5 kW, a 42.4 kWh capacity storage system, and one or two AC “Level 2” EV chargers.

The rebound effect consists of a reduction in expected gains from a more resource-efficient technology as a result of behavioral or systemic change. An international research team has investigated this phenomenon in the residential PV segment in Vietnam and has found that it could happen in any country where the policy supporting solar power is not fully and scientifically explained.

Netherlands-based Taylor, a spinoff of Eindhoven University of Technology, has raised €8 million ($8.6 million) to expand sales of its cells string optimizers that the company claims improves PV rooftop system performance and safety.

A Dutch-German research team has built an interdigitated back contact PV device with a new patterning approach based on the enhanced oxidation rates under the local laser-doped n++ BSF regions. The cell achieved an open-circuit voltage of 656.6 mV, a short-circuit current density of 40.38 A/mAcm2, and a fill factor of 77.39%.

The trilogue negotiations on the Net-Zero Industry Act have concluded. The European Council and Parliament reached a provisional agreement on Feb. 6, following discussions on Article 20 Market Access, which set out the rules for resilience auctions.

Several containers with fake glass-glass module are said to be in circulation in Europe. Germany’s Bauer Solar has taken legal action against the counterfeiters, who are suspected to be based in China. It said the fake panels can be identified by the packaging and a lack of wooden reinforcements for the pallets.