bifacial

The Chinese manufacturer has debuted two models in the new bifacial, double-glass series to join the scramble for a slice of the 500 W-plus market and to stake its claim to have the 182mm, M10 wafer adopted as the industry standard.

The EU-funded Nextbase project aims to manufacture heterojunction, interdigitated back-contact solar modules for less than €0.275/W. Solar panels featuring the Nextbase cell tech are expected to have a conversion efficiency of 23.2%, according to the European Commission.

Xinyi Solar today said it is anticipating a bumper profit from the first half of the year – an announcement likely to bring wry smiles at the board of parent company Xinyi Glass, which soon after announced quite the opposite prospects after selling off shares in the PV subsidiary last year.

A research project in the Netherlands is seeking to assess the impact of large scale PV projects on soil quality and biodiversity. Principal scientist Wim Sinke, of Dutch research center TNO, says well-designed and operated and maintained solar parks could prove to have better outcomes than monoculture farming.

The Chinese manufacturer will provide Indian developer SunSource Energy with its Vertex panels. Shipments will be made in the fourth quarter.

The 11th edition of the German document which tracks solar price falls and efficiency improvements has considered the role bigger wafers are playing in cost reduction.

Big clean energy supply contracts have been announced in Brazil, Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Getting the most out of a bifacial module requires a rethink at almost every level of system design and the industry is hungry for field data generated by such systems to better inform energy yield modeling and define the best approaches to maximizing yield at minimal cost. In May, the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory began a three-year study into bifacial performance which is beginning to yield results.

TOPCon cell technology has become one of the two leading next-generation options after mono PERC. But for the n-type architecture to truly become a rival to PERC, high-quality and cost-effective production technologies must become settled.

The Chinese manufacturer believes it has set a record because its device was manufactured on standard commercial production equipment.