Fast track to high power – 05-2021
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Excerpt from the magazine
Final thought: Europe’s PV ‘moonshot’
In 1962, John F. Kennedy may have said: “We’re catching the sun! Why? Because it’s challenging!” While not his precise words, the sentiment stands. Kennedy created a vision of going to the moon in the early 1960s. He did not mention all the details about thrust and fuel, the rocket type or construction techniques. He focused on the idea of something bigger.
May 04, 2021
Supply chain challenges during Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought many challenges for people working in supply chain management, writes Torsten Nimtz, the regional director of renewables for Hellmann Worldwide Logistics. The two most significant of these challenges are rising prices and declining reliability.
May 04, 2021
The ‘other side’ of batteries
Graphite’s pivotal role in electric-vehicle battery technology is coming under increasing scrutiny. Graphite is almost exclusively produced in China, and while the processing of the mineral poses serious environmental issues, the alternatives appear costly. Ian Morse looks at what’s next for critical graphite supplies.
May 04, 2021
Age of green hydrogen causes co-location rethink
The regions where the desert meets the sea have long been thought the most desolate and unproductive areas of the world, fruitful solely for those clever cultures who call them home. However, in the 21st century, that fiscal notion is turning on its head, and turning as rapidly as a wind turbine in a tornado.
May 04, 2021
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pv magazine test: Three years in operation
The pv magazine test array in Xi’an, China, is being dismantled and upgraded this month. CEA director of technology and quality George Touloupas, senior technology and quality manager Huatian Xu, and Ryan Li, junior engineer for technology and quality, have taken the opportunity to analyze three years of performance data, in addition to running modules from the array through another series of lab measurements.
May 04, 2021
Getting on the front foot
For the effective rollout of the global energy transition we urgently need, the time has come to ensure that all aspects of solar and energy storage supply chains are transparent, sustainable, and just. But how can this be achieved? And are there tangible business advantages to be reaped? As part of our Q2 UP Initiative focus on workers’ rights, pv magazine has compiled a five-step guide for best practice in supply chain management.
May 04, 2021
Toward traceability
Supply chain auditing has long played an important role in the PV industry, ensuring contracted standards are met and quality is maintained in manufacturing. And with a growing movement calling for ethical and sustainable practices across the solar supply chain, the process could soon take on a new dimension. pv magazine examines the current role of supply chain audits in solar manufacturing, and their adaptability in ensuring that standards beyond product quality are upheld with equal importance.
May 04, 2021
Manufacturing meets big data
As PV manufacturing lines continue to get larger, keeping track of the measurement data that’s vital for quality and process control becomes an ever more herculean task. Flashing equipment supplier h.a.l.m. has developed a software solution that keeps all of this data in one place and provides operators with a real-time view of production line performance and quality. pv magazine caught up with Managing Director Michael Meixner to discuss the latest on big data in PV manufacturing.
May 04, 2021
Cost-effective scaling up
While high-efficiency PV cells may capture headlines, the upsizing of mono-PERC is continuing to deliver powerful outcomes – and some unexpected savings. Ulrich Jäger heads up German wet-chemistry equipment supplier RENA’s solar sales and reports on the big orders, and tools that are currently defining the cell production segment.
May 04, 2021
All that glitters is HJT
The devil is in the details, as they say, and when it comes to the next generation of mass-produced, high-efficiency PV cells, silver costs may be devilishly hard to reduce. Making things worse, prices for the precious metal are now heading in the wrong direction.
May 04, 2021
Too big to handle
There has been a flurry of activity within the PV cell manufacturer landscape over the past 12 to 18 months, and it’s largely been in one direction: bigger. But as large-format modules arrive on the market, questions are being raised as to how long the trend can continue and when bigger becomes, quite simply, too big.
May 04, 2021
Rewarding performance, durability
Developing PV cells and modules that can achieve high performance and durability can be challenging – particularly in the cost-competitive solar marketplace. Officials in Taiwan have sought to promote both goals through its Taiwan Excellence PV Award, which in its eighth year continues to attract the cream of the country’s solar manufacturers.
May 04, 2021
Pure perovskites in play
Companies working to bring perovskite cell technology to commercial viability face a dilemma: Should perovskites complement their silicon-based rivals or compete head-on with the dominant cell technology? For one U.S. perovskite developer, it believes the technology must find a space of its own, reports David Wagman, senior editor of pv magazine USA.
May 04, 2021
New era of thin films calls for PVD
A rethink is required for the mass production of high-efficiency solar cells, says German PV cell production equipment supplier Von Ardenne. And it’s not just TOPCon and heterojunction PV where physical vapor deposition (PVD) processes can be applied in production, but also in perovskite-crystalline silicon cell manufacturing, says Sebastian Gatz, the business head for photovoltaics at Von Ardenne.
May 04, 2021
Life after PERC
The pursuit of higher conversion efficiencies is an eternal theme in the PV industry. Among all the links in the chain, cell technology is the most fundamental and decisive element. As we look beyond the established PERC technology, whether heterojunction or TOPCon will become the dominant “next-gen” solar cell among China’s manufacturing giants is emerging as a balancing act between incumbent and upstart, reports Vincent Shaw from Shanghai.
May 04, 2021
Sponsored: A five-step quality gatekeeper
Inverter manufacturer Growatt just celebrated its 10th anniversary and gifted itself a brand new 20 GW production facility. pv magazine recently caught up with Growatt Marketing Director Lisa Zhang to learn how the company’s five-step quality assurance program found its way into the new production line.
May 04, 2021
Tracking the load
Over the past two years, larger wafer formats have quickly emerged to displace the previous 156.75 mm standard, which represented more than 90% of the monocrystalline market up until 2018. The largest of these, at 210 mm, offers key advantages in output that have allowed module power ratings to exceed 600 W from a 60-cell PERC solar module.
May 04, 2021
The impact of the second Covid-19 wave
Time and cost overrun risks are increasing for solar project developers, as India goes into partial lockdowns to battle the next Covid-19 wave. Still, analysts say there will not be much of an impact on annual capacity installations, given the upcoming no-duty window.
May 04, 2021
New applications, surging demand
China’s project development segment is dynamic, to say the least. Having undergone significant changes toward a “subsidy-free” footing, developers are now facing requirements to integrate storage, deploy hybrid arrays, and pursue self consumption through BIPV and agrivoltaics applications, writes Frank Haugwitz, the director of the Asia Europe Clean Energy (Solar) Advisory (AECEA).
May 04, 2021
Price trends amid polysilicon shortage
Recent financial statements from the big module manufacturers indicate that higher prices for polysilicon and PV glass since the third quarter of 2020 have dealt a severe blow to profits in the module business. Module manufacturers have gradually scaled down capacity utilization since the Lunar New Year, as demand has been weaker than expected, given the absence of China’s usual June 30 installation rush, as in past years. In April, Tier-1 module makers further cut utilization rates to 55-70%. PV InfoLink’s Corrine Lin examines the price trends that are developing in 2021.
May 04, 2021
China reaches a tipping point in 2021
This year will be a key period in the development of China’s solar PV market. It is the first year of the 14th five-year plan, the first calendar year after President Xi Jinping announced the 2030-60 carbon emissions commitment, and the first year for utility and commercial unsubsidized projects. IHS Markit expects the solar industry in China to reach another milestone with more than 60 GW of installations this year, advancing the ground for the energy transition and the displacement of traditional energy sources to fulfill the goal of a net carbon future over the next four decades to come.
May 04, 2021
Is sustainable market development possible?
Module manufacturers have once again adjusted their prices upwards. This is already the third or fourth price increase in the last six months, and there is no end in sight, writes Martin Schachinger of pvXchange. But why is it so hard to achieve long-term, sustainable development in the global solar market, at least on the part of manufacturers? Few other industries are so turbulent, with constant swings between excess supply and bottlenecks, between price collapses and price rises – and always to the breaking point of the market. Yet again, planning security is out the window.
May 04, 2021
Growing pains
The switch to large-format PV cells and modules has pushed the boundaries of what many in the solar industry thought possible. And it caught the rest by surprise. But the logic behind the change makes sense – getting more throughput in terms of watt-peak through cell and module lines, and allowing for longer module rows in PV projects, delivering BOS savings and lower LCOE.
May 04, 2021
