Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

The Baofeng Group is building a 1 GW solar park which is hosting a goji berry plantation in the Binhe New District on the eastern banks of the Yellow River in the Ningxia Province. Around 640 MW have so far been grid-connected. Huawei is providing the inverters for the project.

A Chinese research group has developed a PERC cell on a commercial 180-μm-thick monocrystalline silicon wafer with a standard size of 156 × 156 mm2. The cell has an open-circuit voltage (VOC) of 0.677 V, a short short-circuit current (ISC) of 9.63 A, and a fill factor of 80.30%.

The South Korean government has released a new roadmap to support R&D activities in the solar sector. The document indicates the country’s solar manufacturing industry may be encouraged to opt for high-efficiency and expensive panels based on tandem solar cells.

The Senegalese government is aiming to increase access to solar power in rural areas by reducing VAT on PV panels, inverters, solar thermal collectors and other products in an effort to achieve universal electricity access in the country by 2025.

In the third article in a series, pv magazine editor Pilar Sánchez Molina and industry experts continue their discussion on the challenges and opportunities created by new panels with power output exceeding 500 W.

Scientists in China have developed an organic module with an area of 18 cm2 based on a non-fullerene acceptor called DTY6. The device has a certified efficiency of 13.98%, but when a non-halogen solvent was used, it even reached 16.1%.

Cybrid, a Shanghai-listed backsheet supplier, will open a new EVA encapsulant factory in Zhejiang province. Datang, meanwhile, has revealed plans to build 1.05 GW at 10 sites across three provinces.

In the second article in a series, pv magazine editor Pilar Sánchez Molina and industry experts keep discussing the challenges and opportunities created by new panels with power output exceeding 500 W.

A new study by the CEEW Centre for Energy Finance assesses China’s advantages over India, but presents ways for the South Asian nation to build a competitive PV manufacturing sector.

The US microinverter manufacturer has now brought its inverter solution for commercial and industrial solar to Australia and Europe. The device is suitable for modules with power output ranging from 295 to 450 W and has a European efficiency of 96.5%.