China

Every year, the SNEC PV Power Expo marks a turning point in the direction of solar market trends, and 2021 was no exception. Corrine Lin, chief analyst at PV InfoLink, was at the show to soak up the latest trends at one of the first big events to go ahead since early 2020.

While the independent investigation of a payment handed over to a state-owned lead contractor for a polysilicon fab planned by GCL exposed a breach of internal policy, the manufacturer has been cleared of any non-compliance with legal requirements.

Scientists in China examined some of the key achievements in the development of perovskite solar cells in 2020 and 2021. The group finds that translating laboratory achievements onto larger, manufacturable devices, is the biggest challenge, and sees continuing collaboration between the industry and academic researchers as the key to overcoming this challenge.

Indonesia will catch the eye too over the next nine years, according to analyst WoodMac, as its market grows from 300 MW to 8.5 GW.

State-owned China Xinhua Power Development has booked a $53 million discount on seven solar farms as developer Kongsun seeks to pay down debts, and Canadian Solar has landed a 45 MWh energy storage contract in Colombia.

Up to eight battery modules from the Chinese manufacturer can be combined to form a storage system with a capacity of up to 25.6 kWh. According to Sungrow, it is not necessary to wire the battery modules.

The result was confirmed by Germany’s Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin.

The solar cell was fabricated with a special polymer that is able to passivate defects at the grain boundaries and interfacial surfaces, inhibit nonradiative recombination and charge-transport loss, and improve stabilities under moisture. The device exhibited a remarkable fill factor, of 0.862.

The Chinese solar glass maker, which claimed a positive legal judgement in the European General Court in 2019, is now likely to have that victory set aside by the European Court of Justice, with an advocate-general saying the company benefited from an income tax regime which may have unfairly distorted its operations.

The PV module relies on Jinko’s TOPCon mono cell technology, for which a record efficiency of 25.25% was announced in late May. TÜV Rheinland has confirmed the result.