Awarding impactful innovators – 01-2020
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On the road with pv magazine
Where we’ve been: Energaia Forum 2019 The 14th edition of the Energaia Forum was held on De.c 11 and 12 in Montpellier, France. This year more than 215 companies from 40 countries came to exhibit and present their products and services. This marks a 33% increase over the previous edition, and attracted more than 7,500 […]
Jan 13, 2020
48 hours in… Abu Dhabi
Time: GMT +4 | Currency: United Arab Emirates Dirham (US$1 = AED 3.7) | Population: 1.2 million | Average temperature in January: 18.8 C° For some people, World Future Energy Summit 2020 will mark their first visit to the United Arab Emirates, and many will automatically think of visiting Dubai, as well as the capital, […]
Jan 13, 2020
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Broken promises: legal recourse for retroactive FIT cuts
Generous feed-in tariffs, a short-lived boom and retroactive cuts – the early stages of large-scale solar deployment in Europe followed a regrettable pattern. Project developers have increasingly turned to the legal system for restitution, and many have been successful, writes Daniel R. Meagher, a partner in Winston & Strawn’s international arbitration practice.
Jan 13, 2020
Ethical strategies for cobalt supply
Since 2016, Amnesty International has denounced cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo for human rights violations and the use of child labor. This has led LG Chem and other companies to insist on standards for battery cell suppliers, as a step toward improving the situation.
Jan 13, 2020
Is fair lithium from Chile possible?
Batteries, and the raw materials that make them, are a frequent target of public criticism. The high water consumption required for lithium extraction is speeding up the desertification process around the salt lakes of Latin America’s so-called “lithium triangle”, for example. The mining debate highlights general problems with the extraction of raw materials, including copper, crude oil, and lithium, but international companies can still influence extraction methods – and there are plenty of different approaches.
Jan 13, 2020
PERC potential
Though equipment suppliers in China have upped their game recently in terms of capabilities and cost structure, significant orders are still flowing through to European and U.S.-based suppliers in certain areas of manufacturing. Among these companies is RENA Technologies GmbH, which recently booked orders for 10 GW of wet chemical processing tools for PERC from three manufacturers in China. On the back of this deal, pv magazine spoke with RENA CEO Peter Schneidewind about the landscape for equipment suppliers and the future direction of technology.
Jan 13, 2020
The rise of M6
The shift to the larger M6 wafer format could occur faster than many have expected. Promoted heavily by mono giant Longi, the format is said to be a good fit for both cell and module production, while still allowing for relatively trouble-free integration into PV arrays. And it all began in China.
Jan 13, 2020
Gentle deposition for high-efficiency cells
With heterojunction and TOPCon currently competing as next-generation PV cell technologies, the production equipment landscape is maturing to meet the needs of manufacturers. Sebastian Gatz, the head of the crystalline silicon team at Germany’s Von Ardenne, says that the gentle deposition and high productivity achieved through platforms like its XEA|nova system are key.
Jan 13, 2020
pv magazine Annual Awards
The votes are in, jury deliberations have concluded, and the winners are… pv magazine’s revamped schedule of awards from 2019 has delivered a diverse pool of innovators spanning the entire PV supply chain. Eight products have been selected as being worthy of recognition as award winners, with nine entries being highly commended by our international […]
Jan 13, 2020
Quality management and our new robot overlords
When talking about processes to ensure quality in renewable energy – whether in the production of materials or the operation of a power plant – it can be a struggle to avoid excessive jargon and keep things simple enough to translate into effective improvements on the ground. Experienced project manager Nabeel Ismeer decrypts some of the geekspeak from the world of quality.
Jan 13, 2020
Stiff competition on the track
Stiffness – a lot more of it – could be the answer to single-axis tracker windy problems. The first batch of pioneering manufacturers have put forward revised designs that rely on stiffness more than on damping. Doing so has allowed them to create stable 2P designs, a configuration in which there is considerable interest as bifacial arrays proliferate.
Jan 13, 2020
All about albedo
With analyst predictions going as high as 40 GW for annual bifacial demand by 2023, it is imperative for stakeholders across the industry to understand the behavior of these modules in the field. Ground albedo and the way that diffuse and reflected light hits the rear side of the modules are the key concerns. A better understanding of these factors, gained from sophisticated yield-modeling simulations and bifacial test installations all over the world, has already helped to identify the challenges and opportunities in optimizing projects to maximize bifacial energy yield.
Jan 13, 2020
Back to the drawing board
The combined use of trackers and bifacial modules can result in significant power gains, but they are not distributed equally. For single-axis tracking R&D teams, the process of optimizing the output from arrays that use bifacial modules requires experimentation and a steep learning curve in terms of what is going on underneath the module.
Jan 13, 2020
The land of the low tender
Some of the world’s most cost-competitive solar arrays have been built among the rolling dunes of the vast Arabian Desert. While some government policies appear to be targeted at breaking records, nobody expects the oil-rich Gulf region to bring about truly sharp changes in pricing for solar PV plants.
Jan 13, 2020
Your guide to market growth in 2020
Some 15 countries are likely to be able to lay claim to the status of being members of solar’s “gigawatt club” in 2019, according to conservative projections from BloombergNEF. Nonetheless, PV suppliers, developers and service providers are always on the lookout for new pockets of growth. To kick off 2020, pv magazine’s global team of correspondents and editors have highlighted 10 “fast-growing” solar markets to evaluate where the opportunities, and potential risks, lie.
Jan 13, 2020
Transitioning to larger wafers
Since 2017, 156.75 mm M2 wafers have been the standard. However, improvements in cell efficiency appear to have hit a bottleneck, making wafer size a hot topic among manufacturers once again. In the second half of 2018, 158.75 mm G1 mono wafers were introduced to the market. Corrine Lin of PVInfoLink argues that while G1 will likely become the mainstream format over the next two years, 166 mm M6 wafers and 210 mm M12 wafers are presenting new options for manufacturers.
Jan 13, 2020
A new era of sustained growth
After several years of weak solar demand growth in Europe, compared to the historical highs of 2011, installations are expected to surge by 88% to reach a new installation record of 23 GW in 2019, writes Cormac Gilligan, research manager at IHS Markit. A range of favorable macro conditions have coalesced this year to reignite the market.
Jan 13, 2020
A year of change: Part 2
We can look back on an unusually quiet end to 2019, as the final weeks of the year lacked the usual hustle and bustle of the global PV market. As a result, there are no significant price cuts in sight for 2020. Martin Schachinger of pvXchange looks back over the second half of the past year, and what’s to come in the months ahead.
Jan 13, 2020
New markets, renewed strength
It has been an exciting year for solar stocks. The Guggenheim Solar ETF (TAN) increased by 64% versus the S&P 500 and Dow, which gained 27% and 21%, respectively. The top-performing sectors were the inverter and module/cell segments, which grew by 168% and 78%, respectively.
Jan 13, 2020
Hope beyond COP
The recent COP25 negotiations in Madrid were an ignominious way to close out a decade of climate change (in)action. And on a personal level, it was particularly disappointing to learn of my home country of Australia’s efforts to impede meaningful action. As if by divine climate intervention, a record-setting heat wave and devastating fires subsequently […]
Jan 13, 2020
