Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

Several black swans have been circling over this year’s solar PV industry: rising raw material and product prices; supply chain issues and international logistics holdups; and power shortages in China, to name but the most disruptive. How is it possible for solar companies to survive under these conditions? According to Dong Shuguang, a PV veteran and President of Talesun Solar, they must focus on solar technologies like PERC, TOPCon and HJT, and product innovations that provide customer value.

The production equipment for the factory was provided by Spain’s Mondragon Assembly. The facility is currently the largest module factory in the Middle East.

Scientists at Germany’s Fraunhofer Insititute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) evaluated the performance of its newly introduced ‘Matrix’ approach to interconnecting shingled solar cells. The institute finds that, thanks to optimized current flows, energy yield of the Matrix approach could almost double that of standard shingled cell interconnection under random shading conditions.

While the Sino-Canadian business expects high polysilicon and shipping costs to be a temporary problem, CEO Shawn Qu has acknowledged the company will have overcapacity in cell and wafer production lines by the end of the year.

Developed by a U.S.-based start-up, the new manufacturing process is claimed to reduce silver consumption and improve solar module performance by up to 3 W. It consists of connecting sub-cells in series within a single cell in order to increase the device voltage and without requiring cells to be physically broken and rewired.

Tested in an off-grid location in India, the proposed approach includes the use of thermal storage from PV modules’ excess heat for space and water heating. The optimum configuration for the system was given by the combination of a 224 kW PV system equipped with a phase change material, a 206 kW wind turbine, a 420 kW biogas generator, a 633 Ah battery, and a 170 kW converter.

While the adoption of large-format wafers has driven a wave of capacity expansion for PERC, existing manufacturers and new entrants continue to evaluate TOPCon and HJT. An increasing number of HJT pilot lines and gigawatt-scale capacity expansion projects are appearing, as manufacturers see the advantages of fewer process steps, higher efficiency ratings, and better yield rates. The localization of equipment is also a driving factor. PV InfoLink’s Derek Zhao offers an update on the latest developments and process routes for HJT.

First, the bad news: PV modules will be caught up in the global wave of inflation. After a very brief respite, prices are picking up again for almost all module technologies. But the changes recorded for early October are paltry compared to the price increases still to come, writes Martin Schachinger of pvXchange. As of the cutoff date for this market survey, some manufacturers had already announced even more significant upward corrections for future deliveries. The price adjustments shown in the October index are thus only a tentative start to rises of no less than 15-20% over the price levels that prevailed just a few weeks ago. However, this will probably be the last price correction we can expect at the manufacturer level until the end of the year.

The investment made by the South Korean group should help REC Silicon restart polysilicon production at its US factory in Moses Lake in 2023.

An unspecified sum is being provided by the European Union to help Enel become a large-scale PV panel manufacturer. The Italian company secured the funds through the Innovation Fund