Norway

The Norwegian manufacturer has delayed full shutdown of its U.S. polysilicon operation until mid July as President Trump and his Chinese counterpart are scheduled to hold talks in Osaka in two weeks’ time.

It is not just the big beasts of Chinese solar that are investing in aggressive expansion as high-efficiency wafer maker NorSun and tracker supplier GameChange Solar make big announcements. The New York company, however, may fall foul of President Trump’s America First trade mantra by opening production lines in the Far East.

Stock in the polysilicon manufacturer appeared to be recovering in early trading on the Oslo exchange this morning after it cancelled plans for a private placement of as many as 50 million shares.

In a conversation with pv magazine, REC vice-president for sales in the EMEA region Ivano Zanni describes the new strategy of the Norwegian manufacturer following the launch of its high-efficiency, half-cut mono n-type heterojunction module. REC expects annual production capacity for the panels at its factory in Singapore to increase to 600 MW by the end of next year, and that the company’s total capacity will reach 2 GW.

Among 45 critical energy technologies and sectors assessed in a tracking report by the International Energy Agency, only seven are keeping hopes alive that climate, energy access and air pollution goals can be met.

The company has reported declining revenues and increasing losses in its first-quarter update. A plan to reduce polysilicon production will begin in a week’s time and if access to the Chinese market is not restored, a complete shutdown could be in place by the end of June.

Scatec Solar continued to grow in the first quarter of the year, with a global pipeline of 4 GW and more capacity under construction than in operation. The company expanded slightly less than it did in the preceding quarter, but EBITDA and revenue still grew threefold year on year.

The polysilicon maker said it will use the funds to improve its liquidity situation until access to the Chinese polysilicon market is restored. It sold 254,381,870 shares, which corresponds to approximately 9.9% of its oustanding capital.

The world’s largest sovereign wealth fund will invest in non-listed infrastructure, with the government stressing such commitments will not be a climate policy measure but an investment strategy. The fund had already announced an intent to gradually divest holdings in oil and gas companies and related projects.

With competition on the module market as cutthroat as ever, manufacturers are increasingly looking to emphasize the quality and reliability of their products and services as a differentiator. pv magazine investigates what’s behind some of these claims, and the move from manufacturers to more sophisticated quality assurance methods.