Poly maker pulls out of wafer JV with semiconductor company
GCL-Poly has pulled its commitment to inject US$68m into a 30 GW production capacity wafer fab joint venture established with Tianjin Zhonghuan in the Chinese autonomous region of Inner Mongolia, citing a preference to focus on ‘more competitive products’.
Covid-19 pushes German solar sector to request delay to grid-connection deadlines
Large solar parks awarded contracts under Germany’s tender scheme could lose funding if not brought online on time. The nation’s solar trade body believes the government should quadruple its annual PV deployment target despite an anticipated coronavirus-related hiatus in roll-out.
Bangladesh set for largest solar rooftop with industrial leasing deal
Indian company Mahindra Susten will provide engineering, procurement and construction services on a $1.7m, 3.1 MW array for a German-Bangladeshi knitwear company which will buy the power generated for $0.077/kWh.
Trina to re-list on Shanghai Stock Exchange
The Jiangsu-based PV manufacturer follows peer JA Solar in de-listing in the U.S. to return to its homeland. The board will hope to gain access to more funding as a result, and will also face less public scrutiny.
US boom in the shadow of a black swan
Supply-chain constraints related to China’s coronavirus outbreak could weigh on the performance of the U.S. solar market in 2020, writes SPV Market Research’s Paula Mints.
UN-backed fund to support solar businesses in Burkina Faso
A fund backed by the United Nations and the government of Luxembourg is helping companies to provide small solar PV systems and innovative cooking stoves in the economically challenged West African nation.
Big solar+storage project linked to hydrogen production in Spain
Spanish utility Iberdrola plans to link a 100 MW/20 MWh solar-plus-storage plant to hydrogen production in Puertollano, in southern Spain. The project will require an investment of up to €150 million euros and will be one of the largest installations of its kind in Europe.
EnBW starts working on 187 MW unsubsidized PV plant in Germany
The utility will build the project this year on 164 hectares of land just outside of Berlin. It will be the largest solar park to be constructed outside of Germany’s incentive scheme for solar and renewables.
Solar growing faster than expected in Sweden
The Swedish Energy Agency this week said solar power supplies will increase from 400 GWh in 2018 to 1.7 TWh in 2022. Total energy supply in the country is expected to decline from 551 TWh to 526 TWh in the 2019-22 period, due to the shutdown of several nuclear power plants.
New fractal solar panels combine efficiency and aesthetics
Researchers from the United States have proposed a new electrode design for fractal solar panels that combines the typical aesthetic advantages of the technology with the efficiency of busbar design. The proposed pattern is based on the fractal tree structure known as H tree, or T-branching, which is a geometric shape consisting of a repeating pattern that resembles the letter H. The hybrid H-tree/busbar pattern showed power losses that are close to those of standard busbars.
