South Korea

Hanwha Solutions has confirmed that it will shut down its polysilicon business over the course of the next year, only a week after saying that it was still evaluating its plans for the sector.

The nation’s only two poly manufacturers could both shutter factories in their homeland due to downward price pressure. OCI says it will maintain only 6,500 MT of its 52,000 MT annual production capacity in an operational state and Hanwha Chemical says it is ‘examining the situation’. Poly analyst Johannes Bernreuter has discussed the reasons for the crisis with pv magazine.

The solar giant shipped 14.2 GW of modules last year, up 33% on 2018 for the high-water mark of another year dominated by Chinese manufacturers.

WoodMac analysts say the amount of new battery manufacturing capacity added in the nation this year could fall by as much as 10% because of the outbreak. With Tesla’s Shanghai gigafactory affected by the extended new-year-holiday shutdown, the analyst warned of potential supply shortages for Australia and the U.S. and U.K.

Storage system providers in Europe have told pv magazine output has thus far been unaffected by the virus outbreak in China. Manufacturers are aware, however, the situation may change rapidly if self-isolation measures taken by the authorities continue.

Korean researchers claim it is possible to extract more than 10% of ‘hidden electricity’ in crystalline solar cells using a new encapsulation process based on poly‐dimethylsiloxane coatings and a three-dimensional module structure. Compared to EVA films, the new coating is said to avoid cutting off short-wavelength light.

Electronics corporations Panasonic, Kyocera and LG have filed results for the nine months to December 31. All three reported uplifts because of their solar activity and LG has said it will dive deeper into energy storage. Panasonic is deepening its commitment to automotive batteries through a new joint venture with Toyota.

Researchers in Korea have proposed a new design for dividing and bonding which is said to provide higher efficiency from fewer fingers. The number of fingers optimized for division into five cells was 128 and for three, 171. Five offer power conversion efficiency of 17.346% and three 16.855%.

A list compiled by a British price comparison website draws upon data from German company Statista which shows clean energy – including hydro – made up 12.74% of the nation’s power mix at the end of September.

The Chinese government will extend duties on U.S. and South Korean polysilicon for another five years from today despite committing to buy $200 billion more American goods and services in the trade deal signed on Wednesday. Poly manufacturer REC Silicon says it expects polysilicon to form part of that trade agreement.