The weekend read: Making solar sizzle
What is circular manufacturing, why is it important, and how is it being applied in the solar and storage industries? pv magazine’s UP initiative investigates.
German customs bureau launches another probe into illegal PV module imports
The German authorities have issued 14 search warrants in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Schleswig-Holstein, and Berlin. The probe is related to imports of 480,000 solar panels in 2014 and 2015, when the European Union had anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on Chinese solar products.
ET Solar unveils new 525/545 W bifacial module series
The Elite Plus module series has a front-side efficiency ranging from 20.0% to 20.7%. The half-cut panel features a transparent backsheet.
Another solar module factory in North Africa
Teriak Industrial Group, a private Egyptian company that specializes in the production of automotive components, owns and operates the new 100 MW manufacturing facility. Spain’s Mondragon Assembly supplied the production line.
LG Electronics launches 370 W ‘paving’ panel with 21.4% efficiency
The PV manufacturer wants to modernize its production operations in South Korea to expand premium module output. It has also announced a new 400 W+ panel.
Pushing the boundaries of PV cell sensitivity
Scientists in Australia and the United States have managed to ‘upconvert’ light from below the silicon bandgap into high-energy light that can be captured by silicon solar cells.
India installed 7.6 GW of solar in the last fiscal year, and plans another 8 GW by April
Some 5.9 GW of utility scale PV generation capacity was added in 2019-20, plus 1.7 GW of rooftop solar, with domestic module manufacturers enjoying around 40% of the market.
Covid-19 weekly round-up: Biden’s $2tn green recovery program as Germany prepares to return to normality
Plus, even stay-at-home orders and plunging commercial energy demand failed to take the sting out of Australia’s solar duck curve and China’s GCL System counts the first-half cost of the public health crisis.
Tandem solar modules vs commercial crystalline
Researchers in France have tried to predict the competitiveness of tandem PV modules against commercial crystalline products in 2030. Crystalline products will be 22-24% efficient in a decade, according to the researchers, possibly 25% if interdigitated back-contact heterojunction versions become mainstream. To compete, tandem devices will need to offer similar life spans and degradation rates, plus efficiencies of 30%.
Ukraine defines level of retroactive FIT cuts
Parliament has adopted Draft Law 3658 which can now be signed into law by the president. Payment reductions for solar have been further eased and curtailment will now be compensated but talk of extending the duration of the newly-reset FIT levels appears to have fallen by the wayside.
