Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

Georgia Tech researchers have discovered that isolated water or oxygen exposure does not degrade cells, as it is the interplay of the molecules that causes rapid degradation.

RES4Africa Foundation brings attention to the role of solar PV in addressing the water, energy and food crisis in the southern and eastern Mediterranean countries. The region is characterised by abundance of sunlight, coupled with scarce availability of agricultural land and freshwater resources to feed its fast-growing populations.

Longi has announced the achievement of 27.09% efficiency for its heterojunction back contact (HBC) solar cell, a result that has been confirmed by Germany’s Institute for Solar Energy Research (ISFH).

Belgian PV product distributor Ecostal has acquired Project Zero, a business-to-business specialist in Flanders, Belgium. It did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.

A Spanish research team aims to bring concentrating photovoltaics closer to commercial viability by miniaturizing its components. The scientists claim that smaller CPV cells may reduce production costs and enable better CPV module assembly.

GCL Group has announced plans to build China’s first gigawatt-scale perovskite solar module factory in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. It said in November that its 1 m x 2 m perovskite single-junction modules had reached a power conversion efficiency of 18.04%.

As solar module prices continue to fall, pvXchange.com founder Martin Schachinger explains the difficulties of rebuilding a solar supply chain from scratch in Europe.

A team of scientists at Germany’s Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen Nürnberg has set an efficiency record of 14.46% for an organic PV module. The performance was certified by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institue for Solar Energy’s PV calibration laboratory (CalLab).

CEA-INES researchers and Enel have developed a new solar cell with an active area of 9 cm² and an open-circuit voltage above 1,900 mV. Their results improve on the 27.1% efficiency they achieved for the same kind of cell in June.

Prices for p-type PERC solar panels could cross the €0.10 ($0.1093)/W threshold in the first quarter of 2024, says Leen van Bellen, business development manager Europe for Search4Solar, a Dutch purchasing platform for PV products. He told pv magazine that European stocks are expected to shrink, and that prices should recover in the middle of the second quarter of 2024.