China

Chinese PV inverter manufacturer Atess Power has launched a new hybrid inverter for commercial solar power plants, featuring an efficiency of ≥96% and supporting up to 600kW system capacity.

China is the largest residential PV market in the world, and this trend is only expected to strengthen in the next few years. By July 2021, China’s cumulative installed residential PV capacity had reached more than 30 GW, with a total of 1.864 million residential units hosting solar PV systems. IHS Markit’s Holly Hu looks behind these impressive numbers.

Manufacturing giant JinkoSolar has set another world record for n-type solar cell efficiencies with its TOPCon technology, this time pushing to 25.4%. The new world record was confirmed by JET laboratories in Japan, and surpasses JinkoSolar’s previous record of 25.25% set back in May.

China’s president has detailed plans to accelerate the planning and construction of large-scale wind and PV projects in desert areas, while Wuxi Shanghai announced new granular silicon and nano-silicon production capacity expansions.

As the solar market enters the busy season in September and October, module utilization rates are reaching 70% to 85%. However, structural shortages remain in the supply chain, with polysilicon supply running short in the face of high demand, writes PV InfoLink analyst Amy Fang. Prices, which were expected to stabilize, rose again in the second half. High module prices will cast a shadow on demand in the fourth quarter, prompting module manufacturers to postpone delivery for some orders from the second half into next year.

Luoyang Glass is planning to deploy two solar glass production lines with an annual capacity of 1,200 tons each and wafer maker Wuxi Shangji has secured a big supply agreement from Longsheng New Energy. Furthermore, Tongwei has reported increasing profits driven by its polysilicon business.

The double-glass product has dimensions of 2,384 x 1,303 x 35 mm and a weight of 38 kg. It is based on the company’s n-type TOPCon 2.0 cell technology dubbed Niwa Max, which the manufacturer said reached efficiencies of up to 25.4% in the laboratory. The module’s efficiency ranges from 21.73 to 22.53%.

The 210 mm module can reach a power output of up to 703.6 W and a power conversion efficiency of 23.08%. The result was confirmed by Germany’s TÜV SÜD.

Solar PV modules are currently trading at price levels last seen in 2018 and 2019, according to an account manager at PVO International. EPC companies in Europe, in particular, are suffering. A lack of large-scale integrated PV production on the continent is also playing a role.

In the following interview, pv magazine’s China correspondent Vincent Shaw talks to Li Kui, Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing at Sunways about the PV inverter products it will unveil at this year’s Intersolar Europe, inverter trends, and the plans it has for 2022.