Quality

The Singapore research institute will cooperate with China’s Ruxing Technology to increase the efficiency of its monoPoly™ technology. Through this cooperation, SERIS believes its solar cell efficiency could be raised to 24%, and module power beyond 345 W.

Projects not encompassed by the new, central-subsidy-free, ‘grid-parity’ regime will be eligible to bid for a government subsidy. But, at a reported $446 million, the pot is not very big.

PI Berlin analysis has suggested the quality of modules is particularly high in Asian factories with a large throughput. However, just 2% of the 67 GW of production capacity audited for the study originated in Europe. The audits for the white paper were mostly carried out by Solarbuyer between 2012 and 2018.

The region’s climate, developing economies and demographic growth are driving increased electricity demand in the Middle East and North Africa. However, as a hub of conventional energy supply, the region has been slow to embrace PV. To capture more of the value chain and deliver the full potential of solar, there are increasing calls for distributed generation deployment to play a bigger role.

Chinese solar giant JinkoSolar says it has put its products through a new set of standards testing for light-elevated temperature induced degradation, with the new examination regime set to be adopted as an industry standard.

Having quickly proven their performance-boosting potential and durability, anti-reflective coatings are now found on the majority of modules rolling off the world’s production lines. Today, coating suppliers are looking to tackle losses from soiling as well as reflection, and working to keep up with cost reductions and extended lifetime expectations at module level. Older modules, installed without a coating, could also be set to benefit from the latest innovations.

Quality assurance provider PI Berlin has found the solar industry has made significant improvements to module quality in the past six years and that, perhaps surprisingly, manufacturers in China and South East Asia are setting the standard by producing higher quality modules, on average, than other regions.

The method could be an effective tool to measure the performance of solar modules, according to research, due to its ability to speed up the inspection process, preventing further damage and hastening repairs.

The PV panel testing company has left the fold four years after being acquired by DNV GL. Insiders have stressed the move should not be problematic as PVEL was allowed a degree of independence after it was acquired.

PI Berlin plans to open a headquarters in Spain next year. pv magazine has spoken with Senior Consultant Asier Ukar about market expectations, the most recurrent quality failures in Spain, risks, certification and protectionism. “After 10 years, we return to Spain with much enthusiasm,” he told us.