China

Real estate and logistics company owner Cheung Shun Lee is making a third attempt to relist a company whose shares have been suspended for five-and-a-half years, and whose corporate history during that time reads like a soap opera.

The Wuhu-based solar glass maker and PV project developer expects to raise around $167 million to expand operations after diluting stock by issuing shares equivalent to just under 5% of the business.

Profits and revenues were down in a year which saw average selling prices slump – especially after the turbulence in the Chinese market – but the company’s hell-for-leather dash for production capacity expansion and aggressive cost cutting mitigated the ill effects. And there is more to come in the year ahead.

A Chinese research team has tested large-area perovskite solar cells by sending them into near-earth orbit at 35 km, and has discovered the near lack of oxygen and moisture is good for their stability.

The PV equipment manufacturer said solar sales remained stable. Major CIGS contracts with Chinese partners Shanghai Electric Group and China Energy Investment Corporation dominated the company’s PV business.

The Changzhou-based company, which has established the Shanxi facility with state-owned rival Shanxi Lu’An Photovoltaics Technology, has not revealed what proportion of the factory’s output will feature the high efficiency technology.

The Chinese polysilicon heavyweight has joined forces with Japanese industrial and energy conglomerate Mitsui & Co and software company eVolution Networks, and promises to deliver a solution that will beef up the grid.

In the second half of 2018, monocrystalline silicon technology passed an important milestone: Quarterly production of monocrystalline ingots, wafers, cells, and modules overtook that of multicrystalline for the first time in the mainstream PV era. This milestone was tracked by PV technology and market forecasting firm exawatt. CEO Simon Price sets out how mono’s rapid growth could have been, and was, predicted.

In a report which states utility-scale PV project development in France can cost as little as €600 per installed kilowatt, the CRE has made recommendations including factoring in transport and full supply chain costs into the calculation of how environmentally friendly solar panels are.

In December, pv magazine met SolaX Power president Li Xinfu and his team at the company’s headquarters in sprawling Hangzhou, in Zhejiang province. The region is a hotspot for the Chinese PV industry and SolaX belongs to the cutting edge of Chinese inverter and residential battery manufacturers.