Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

Encouraged by lab results and a feasibility study, Swedish startup, Green14, in collaboration with Sweden’s Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) plans to build a pilot-scale reactor to make solar grade silicon with a hydrogen plasma process. The company sees the pilot as a step towards using a more sustainable method to produce solar grade silicon for the PV industry at its own gigawatt-scale plant.

SolarPower Europe’s board members have issued a joint statement calling for three measures to safeguard the European solar industry, as they claim that tariffs and trade barriers are not viable solutions.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers have developed a solar desalinator with high water output, via a multi-stage system of evaporators and condensers. It offers cost-effective solar desalination, making solar-produced drinking water cheaper than tap water for the first time.

A research team in Bangladesh has simulated a perovskite-CIGS PV device that can reportedly achieve a remarkable tandem cell voltage of 2.48 V. The proposed method is also applicable for tandem cells composed of other materials.

Tongwei Solar’s entry into the Australian solar market has triggered disruption in recent months, amplified by the ongoing global decline in panel prices, which solar analyst Warwick Johnston says has yet to fully affect the country.

BAJsolar has finished building a 10 GW solar cell factory in eastern China. It has invested CNY 2.6 billion ($355.75 million) in the new facility.

Plummeting module prices are weighing on European manufacturers, but the impact on wholesalers is differently, as warehouse conditions are showing signs of improvement.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that North and South America are set to experience an annular eclipse on October 14, which means that some regions could lose a significant portion of their daily solar energy production. The path of the eclipse tracks across the southwestern United States, from Oregon to Texas, before continuing through Mexico, Central America and ending in Brazil, though impacts will be seen across all of the contiguous US and the top of South America.

The current module oversupply market dynamic has coincided with efforts to bolster manufacturing outside of China by national governments and manufacturers alike. pv magazine consultant and contributor Götz Fischbeck was a part of discussions regarding made-in-Europe production, to find that protectionist measures are being called for by some.

TotalEnergies has become the sole shareholder of French agrivoltaics specialist Ombrea, in a transaction that builds upon the partnership they started in 2019.