As simple as IBC – 03-2023
Already a subscriber?
Login
Excerpt from the magazine
Solar trends to watch in 2023
Solar grew more than any other renewable energy technology in 2022, driven by the energy crisis and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. InfoLink Consulting says that global solar demand reached 278 GW last year, up 56%, or roughly 100 GW, from 178 GW in 2021, with bigger changes in supply and demand expected in 2023. InfoLink Chief Analyst Corrine Lin predicts three major trends for the year ahead.
Mar 09, 2023
Perovskite progress
In December 2022, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) set a new efficiency record for a perovskite-silicon tandem cell, at 32.5%. Scientists at the institute continue to investigate the long-term stability improvements and large scale processes needed to make this technology a commercial reality, as pv magazine found out when it caught up with Steve Albrecht, TU Berlin professor and HZB’s head of department for perovskite tandem solar cells, and Antonio Abate, who heads the institute’s department for active materials and interfaces for stable perovskite solar cells.
Mar 09, 2023
Forging a Euro supply chain
The huge effort needed to build a PV sector to compete with China is daunting but not without hope, thanks to initial carbon footprint advantages. McKinsey & Company analysts explain how a European solar manufacturing renaissance need not remain an impossible dream.
Mar 09, 2023
Subscribe now for instant access to this issue and every published issue since 2016.
Subscribe
More power to the grid
Though a late starter compared to some regions of Europe, Poland has introduced policies supportive of PV growth and has steadily added to its solar capacity in the last few years. In 2023, aging grid infrastructure and other challenges threaten to slow progress but there’s still plenty to be optimistic about, as Spiros Martinis, executive strategy and investment officer at project developer Greenvolt, recently told pv magazine.
Mar 09, 2023
Fortune favors the brave
The renewables industry fears that the new energy bill that the French government is preparing could make clean power generation even tougher. However, solar analyst Xavier Daval says that betting everything on the nation’s nuclear power fleet is a risky strategy.
Mar 09, 2023
Keeping the energy transition afloat
With strict limits in place on the volume of Israeli land which can host solar panels – at least for now – installing modules on the nation’s reservoirs, as well as rooftops, is offering a lifeline to the PV industry, as Michael Fuhs reports from Ashdot Ya’akov Ihud.
Mar 09, 2023
Shingle all the way
While shingled cells have been around for a while, Tongwei’s adoption of the technology is notable as it is a manufacturer with considerable scale. If shingling can overcome some hurdles, it could prove a welcome solution as unshaded sites for PV become elusive in mature solar markets.
Mar 09, 2023
Breaching the 25% barrier
The stuff of fantasy and research institutes just a handful of years ago, 25%-plus efficient PV cells are now a commercial reality, which Chinese heterojunction (HJT) solar company Huasun proved by securing the 2022 pv magazine Award for modules. Huasun R&D technical specialist Zhou Su sat down with pv magazine to discuss the achievement.
Mar 09, 2023
Out of the starting blocks
The EU is finally pulling together a response to US President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and the financial support promised – plus a mooted premium-quality label for European solar products – might just get Europe back in the race, as SolarPower Europe’s Dries Acke reports.
Mar 09, 2023
Sense and sensor-ability
EKO Instruments won a pv magazine Award for its MS-80SH pyranometer, which impressed jurors with its ability to provide accurate measurements of solar irradiance with little need for maintenance or monitoring of the installed sensors. EKO Instruments Director Kees Hoogendijk accepted the award in Abu Dhabi, and pv magazine caught up with him to discuss solar operations and maintenance (O&M), as well as the company’s sensor solutions.
Mar 09, 2023
New lease on life
The Invesco Solar ETF, an exchange-traded fund that tracks the MAC Global Solar Energy Index, under-performed relative to the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) in February. Roth Capital’s Jesse Pichel attributes this to inflation uncertainty and concern over expected interest rate hikes.
Mar 09, 2023
Floating the solar dream
Indonesia is a coal-dependent country in which conventional power grids are problematic. The archipelagic nation is turning to floating PV (FPV) to help accelerate its energy transition. Sorta Caroline takes a look at the state of play for water-borne solar and the problems that still need to be overcome.
Mar 09, 2023
A positive negative outlook
While p-type (positively-doped) passivated-emitter rear contact (PERC) solar cells are unlikely to disappear any time soon, n-type technology is gaining ground, with tunnel-oxide passivated-contact (TOPCon) expected to lead the charge into the new normal. S&P Global Commodity Insights’ Karl Melkonyan takes a look at the n-type runners and riders.
Mar 09, 2023
Haiti hopes
When Brighten Haiti was launched in 2020, the challenges facing schoolchildren in the Caribbean country were profound. While the organization and its 2022 pv magazine Sustainability Award-winning Solar4Schools program are set to address some issues, the security and economic situation in the nation has deteriorated even further, as Brighten Haiti founder Kevin Keene told Jonathan Gifford.
Mar 09, 2023
As simple as IBC
The search for ever higher conversion efficiency has driven solar researchers to focus on back-contact cell approaches, and efforts to devise more cost-effective manufacturing are bringing technologies such as interdigitated back contact (IBC) solar into the mainstream, as Mark Hutchins reports.
Mar 09, 2023
Global efforts in a fractured world
Already, 2023 is bringing unprecedented development to the global PV market as forecasts for annual installations surge above the 300 GW mark. To meet this demand, manufacturing is ramping up across the solar supply chain. Encouragingly, the production capacity being added – plus existing lines being upgraded – are coming in the form of high-efficiency […]
Mar 09, 2023
Rotate half cells for stronger modules
A team of researchers at the US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has developed a structural mechanics model to calculate the probability of cell cracking under given loads. It is now making it available to the public, as NREL’s Harrison Dreves explains.
Mar 09, 2023
China goes big on back contact
When Longi Solar said in November 2022 that its new Hi-MO 6 modules would feature a mixture of interdigitated back-contact (IBC) and tunnel-oxide, passivated contact (TOPCon) cells, it stunned the solar industry. However, IBC production has been under way in China for some time, reports Vincent Shaw.
Mar 09, 2023
