First Solar

Practical matters, beyond simply improving on solar cell efficiency, have led the agenda at the European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference (EUPVSEC) going on this week in Lisbon. Policy and the geopolitics of solar manufacturing is the big question on everybody’s lips as the event passes its halfway point today. Concerns including grid integration, critical materials consumption, and public acceptance are all being aired frequently – illustrating a closer than ever link between work being done in the labs at solar energy institutes and the everyday lives and energy consumption of people in Europe and around the world.

First Solar has announced a limited production run of the “world’s first” bifacial solar panel with a cadmium telluride (CdTe) semiconductor. The pre-commercial Series 6 Plus Bifacial module is making its debut this week at Intersolar Europe in Munich, Germany.

The perovskite solar race is heating up, with a cue of manufacturers forming to test products at the US Department of Energy’s (DoE) PV commercialization facilities, and academics on both sides of The Pond announcing new advances in recent months.

Wiki-Solar’s latest league table of utility-scale solar project developers shows that only six renewable specialists occupy the top 20 spots.

First Solar has agreed to pay $38 million to buy Swedish manufacturing startup Evolar AB, as it seeks to expand development of high-efficiency tandem PV tech.

Thin-film technologies have long promised to make a major impact on the solar industry but have largely been constrained to niche applications and research labs if they were not shredded by the market. After several false starts, current trade dynamics and promising research programs may help solar thin films find their place in the sun.

Lighsource bp has ordered 4 GW of US-made thin-film solar panels, adding to the 4.3 GW it ordered in 2021. Silicon Ranch, meanwhile, expanded upon its master supply agreement with First Solar, which includes a 4 GW transaction announced in April 2022.

IIT Madras Research Park and US-based First Solar have agreed to cooperate on a range of R&D activities, including the localization of thin-film solar and other next-generation PV technologies in India.

First Solar has announced plans to invest in a new 3.5 GW manufacturing facility in the southeastern United States, on top of a $185 million upgrade for its Ohio plant.

The 1.36 GW of solar capacity installed by Shanghai Electric across just three projects in 2021 and the first quarter of 2022 helped it enter an annual ranking of the global solar industry’s biggest engineering, procurement, and construction contractors.