China

But new ventures into coal-fired steam and petrochemicals products helped state-owned China Shuifa Singyes towards a significantly healthier balance sheet in 2020.

Solar demand grew around 40%, year-on-year, during the first three months of 2021 and wafer producer Zhonghuan Semiconductor has raised its holding in Singaporean solar manufacturer Maxeon to become its second-largest shareholder after Total.

The polysilicon maker lurched from a $17m profit in 2019 to a $960 million loss last year, according to an unaudited extract from its overdue annual figures. Publication is being held up by an auditor enquiry relating to a $71m abandoned-production-project pre-payment which appears to be either owed by, or to, a GCL subsidiary.

Researchers in Bangladesh have simulated a solar cell based on a copper bismuth oxide material, used as an absorber, with n-type cadmium sulfide (CdS) utilized as a buffer layer. In the experiment, the device achieved an efficiency of 26.0%, an open-circuit voltage of 0.97 V, a short-circuit current density of 31.61 milliampere per square centimeter, and a fill factor of 84.58%.

Xinte unveiled a $197 million plan to raise its polysilicon production capacity to 100,000 metric tons per year in Xinjiang. Longi signed a strategic cooperation agreement with oil and gas giant Sinopec to jointly develop hydrogen and renewable energies.

The tracker has a length of 72 meters, which the company says allows for 120 modules per tracker. The new product was conceived as a multi-drive, dual-slewing system that is claimed to have improved overall stability compared to other products and to show a reduced aeroelastic effect.

The proposed technique is said to be able to connect directly to the microscopic and medium scale defects in the solar cell materials. It is based on three kinds of noises that science has thus far been able to identify in PV devices.

Risen will sell 50,000 metric tons of poly to Shangji Automation and Zhonghuan Semiconductor has raised the prices of all its wafer products.

An ‘explosive’, ‘booming’ global solar market in the second half of a Covid-hit 2020 saw the previous glass manufacturing overcapacity reversed, as float and auto glass producers bent all their efforts on making material for PV modules.

The panel was unveiled in October and is the most powerful product the company has brought to the market to date. The Chinese-Canadian manufacturer expects to reach, for this product, a 10 GW capacity by the end of the year.