Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

The Jiangsu-based PV manufacturer follows peer JA Solar in de-listing in the U.S. to return to its homeland. The board will hope to gain access to more funding as a result, and will also face less public scrutiny.

Researchers from the United States have proposed a new electrode design for fractal solar panels that combines the typical aesthetic advantages of the technology with the efficiency of busbar design. The proposed pattern is based on the fractal tree structure known as H tree, or T-branching, which is a geometric shape consisting of a repeating pattern that resembles the letter H. The hybrid H-tree/busbar pattern showed power losses that are close to those of standard busbars.

The planned disposal of more than a third of the Chinese solar company’s project portfolio would take a significant chunk out of its debt mountain but trading in company stock was halted this morning, pending an announcement in relation to the project sale. Shunfeng sold off German PV project monitoring business meteocontrol to another operation owned by its main shareholder at the end of last year.

Valoe Corporation has extended its €3.5m convertible bonds issuance but with investors fleeing to safe havens and Lithuania yesterday announcing COVID-19 quarantine measures, hopes of getting cell manufacturing off the ground in Vilnius this month appear unrealistic.

Chinese solar manufacturer Talesun has announced plans to raise up to $226 million to expand PV cell and module production capacity by up to 2 GW, with a focus on heterojunction and TOPCon technologies.

A viral outbreak in the city of Wuhan, in China’s Hubei province, has become a nationwide health crisis with global implications. And with PV manufacturing concentrated in China, there are serious implications for all corners of the solar world, reports Vincent Shaw in Shanghai.

The Chinese manufacturer shipped 14.3 GW of PV modules last year, up 2.9 GW from 2018. In its 2020 outlook, it reiterated its initial shipment guidance and confirmed its plans to ramp up capacity.

Dutch scientists are producing mesoporous titanium dioxide thin films at room temperature by using the papain enzyme in a dip‐coating procedure. This fully organic process could facilitate the development of cheaper, more efficient dye‐sensitized solar cells.

South Korean scientists have produced an organic, hybrid-series tandem PV device that combines quantum dots and organic bulk heterojunction photoactive materials. They claim that the cell has the highest efficiency among all reported colloidal quantum dot cells, including single-junction devices and tandem devices.

Italian company Ecoprogetti will supply the production equipment to Bahrain-based module producer Solartecc. Output is set to begin in the third quarter.