Magazine Archive 03-2020

The competition between central and string inverters shows no signs of abating. Ingeteam believes its new Ingecon SUN “C Series” central inverters will push the balance back in its favor. The CEO of Ingeteam’s Italian subsidiary and the company’s VP of solar PV, Stefano Domenicali, says that as tariffs fall, capex is king.

Contracts to build solar PV plants usually contain a performance warranty to ensure that the owner receives an asset that delivers the agreed-upon minimum performance level. But can warranties and assessment methodologies guarantee that plant performance is being correctly assessed? The answer is not entirely straightforward, writes Felipe Canto Teixeira, a partner at Everoze.

Given its rapid deployment, large-scale solar can play an important role in alleviating the crippling load shedding gripping South Africa. That’s, of course, if the solar projects perform as expected. Reported module failure at one of the country’s REIPPP projects is a cause for concern.

As the installed PV base grows and digital technology continues to expand in its complexity and capabilities, providers of monitoring solutions to the solar industry become increasingly important. The ability to monitor, aggregate and control distributed-generation assets is also creating opportunities and challenges. pv magazine surveyed four monitoring providers – AlsoEnergy, Gantner Instruments, Meteocontrol, and Solar-Log – for the latest developments.

It has become a tradition in recent years for pv magazine to take an annual road trip across China for some hands-on experience in the world’s largest PV market. Publisher Eckhart K. Gouras and China representative Calvin Chong hit the road in December 2019 to meet with leading PV manufacturers to review the year that was and to assess developments and prospects for the year ahead.

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.

With its supply of monocrystalline wafers towering over all rivals, Longi’s continuing expansion into PV cell and module production could be seen as cannibalizing some of its customers. Not so, argues Longi founder and president Li Zhenguo, who says that competition and cooperation should work in tandem.

Solar manufacturing’s recent move toward larger wafer/cells throws into focus the need for effective cell-cutting techniques to handle the processing of these cells into half cut or even smaller formats. pv magazine looks at the landscape for cell cutting, as the technology reaches maturity and moves into the mainstream of cell/module production.

The outdoor stage of pv magazine test is designed to compare the outdoor performance of different suppliers’ products, analyze performance in different environments and conditions, and observe how different PV technologies perform in the real world. Here we summarize the major activities and test results from 2019, with key findings and analysis of the annual results provided by Chi Zhang, technology and quality engineer at CEA.

While Turkish policymakers are taking steps to foster the adoption of battery storage systems, they have yet to put a comprehensive regime in place. But the opportunity is there if the sizable uninterrupted power supply market is any indication, reports KRC Consulting Group’s Hakki Karacaoglan.