Asia

Ratings agency Crisil estimates India will have 38-43GW of annual solar module manufacturing capacity by the end of March 2025. Production capacity will be driven by strong domestic demand, favorable government policy, raised module conversion efficiency, and price competitiveness, according to the ratings agency.

Scientists in Singapore have developed a cell that could be used to power vehicles and boats, among other applications. The tandem device purportedly retains 90% initial efficiency after 500 hours of maximum power point tracking under continuous one sun illumination.

Scientists in China analyzed defective solar cells based on Czochralski (Cz) silicon wafers and found Swirl defects may be responsible for an efficiency drop of up to 4.7%. According to them, the presence of Swirl defects could be mitigated by applying a heat treatment at a temperature above 1,050 degrees Celsius in a clean environment before the manufacturing of the solar cells.

With five public entities having committed RMB1.25 billion into a project to produce copper, indium, gallium, selenide solar modules five years ago, the joint venture has been abandoned at an estimated impairment cost of RMB1.42 billion.

Growatt’s new AXE LV battery covers a wide range of capacities, from 5kWh to 400kWh, and can support off-grid systems with power outputs of 3kW to 30kW.

Through the procurement exercise, the power utility is seeking proposals to deploy around 600MW of capacity that will have to start providing power in February 2026, and another 250MW to begin commercial operations in February 2027.

The National Energy Administration (NEA) reported this week that the newly installed PV capacity for the Chinese market reached around 53 GW last year. Of this capacity, around 29 GW comes from distributed generation projects. The country’s cumulative installed power reached 306 GW at the end of December.

The Suiso Frontier cargo vessel docked at Victoria’s Port of Hastings on Friday to take on the world’s first shipment of liquid hydrogen. The ship’s arrival is a landmark for the Japanese-Australian Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain pilot project, which sees liquefied hydrogen generated from brown coal, and an engineering milestone in itself. But while the Australian government describes the product as “clean”, experts maintain that carbon capture and storage technology has proven only to be an expensive failure.

According to Asia Europe Clean Energy (Solar) Advisory (AECEA), this huge capacity may not be met by actual demand in the global market. Furthermore, the consultancy reveals that solar module prices should reach a price level of up to RMB 1.75 ($028)/W by the second half of the year, and that in 2021 new PV additions totaled 53 GW with more than half of this capacity being delivered by distributed generation.

Researchers in India have built the 4T device with top and bottom cells based on large-area semi-transparent perovskite cells with copper metal contacts. Copper has been used instead of expensive gold with the aim of reducing the cell’s overall cost.