Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

With the panel maker already installing 3 GW of cell and module capacity to double its output during the next quarter, Eging has now announced fresh, $370 million expansion plans.

The module can be used for residential and commercial PV projects. It is available in five versions with power outputs claimed by the company of 390-415 W and reported efficiencies of 20.0-21.3%.

Having picked up GBP 5.8 million ($8 million) in a series of investments, U.K.-based Power Roll is pushing ahead with pilot production of an innovative new thin film with which it can manufacture both solar modules and capacitors. In the future, the design could also bring the potential for solar generation and energy storage within a single lightweight device.

Solar and storage are developing at a relentless pace and pv magazine cannot cover all the interesting developments that are announced day by day. In this weekly Round-Up, we provide a quick review of all facts and deals that should not be off of our readers’ radar.

The US Energy Department set a goal of achieving 2 cents/kWh by 2030, and announced an initial $128 million in funding to support technology development.

A French-Lebanese research group has proposed a way to cool down PV modules by using air exhausted from heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. They showed that array performance improves when the cooling load rises.

Taiwanese researchers have added bathocuproine (BCP) molecules to three different kinds of solvents used in perovskite cells and have ascertained how this combination increases the carrier mobility and passivates the electron-poor defects. Furthermore, they utilized a polyelectrolyte (P3CT-Na) thin film as hole transporting material instead of commonly-used thin films based on PEDOT:PSS.

The bloc should accelerate investment into mining and processing within its shores, as well as ramping up recycling, according to European employers and trades unions, with coal workers already equipped with the necessary transferable skills.

Spanish PV product distributor Techno Sun has published a report analyzing the consequences of high-power modules for installers and distributors. The guide provides a method to calculate the additional costs of large solar panels from different points of view.

US scientists have made light-tracking, three-junction tandem PV cells with an active area of 650 × 650 square micrometers. They are based on indium gallium phosphide, gallium arsenide, and indium gallium arsenide antimony nitride and use photonic crystal film for maximum efficiency.