photovoltaics

Chinese manufacturer Amerisolar and Brazilian energy company Nova Renováveis are planning to set up a 200 MW solar module manufacturing facility in Belo Horizonte, in the Minas Gerais state.

Trina Solar has been producing its 500 W modules in series for a month now and plans to increase their output to more than 600 W in the future.

Clean energy developers have three days left to pre-qualify for the first procurement exercise staged by the Irish Renewable Electricity Support Scheme. Solar will compete with wind – on and offshore – and biomass projects.

The transformer-free products have a power range of 3-6 kW and efficiency of 97.8%. The Chinese manufacturer says the devices are designed to accurately match the voltage and phase of the grid sine wave AC waveform.

EuPD Research has conducted a survey showing that potential investors see Germany’s 52 GW cap for solar incentives in the residential segment as the main barrier to future growth. Renewable energy trade body Bundesverband Neue Energiewirtschaft, meanwhile, said the nation has the potential to reach 1,000 GW of installed solar capacity by 2050.

French organic PV module manufacturer Armor said it began manufacturing free-form PV modules in early April. The new technology will allow the company’s ASCA PV film to be produced in a range of different shapes.

According to the 2020 World Silver Survey 2020 by the U.S.-based Silver Institute, the metal’s price will decline by only 3% this year, despite the impact that the Covid-19 crisis will also have on demand. In the global PV industry, silver demand is forecast to drop 3% from 98.7 million ounces in 2019 to 96.1 million ounces this year.

Atamostec, a private-public initiative supported by Chile’s government-run Production Development Corp. and several industrial partners, has developed a new module. The team claims that the bifacial panel offers an additional annual average gain of 11% compared to monofacial PERC modules with the same cell technology.

Researchers from the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory have developed a tool to balance customer curtailment and grid stability. The “Precise” tool for utilities provides unique inverter settings tailored to each customer, with minimal investment and labor for companies that use it.

A group of researchers from India is trying to apply a special phase change material to regulate temperature in copper, indium and selenium solar panels. Phase change materials are substances that are capable of storing thermal energy, allowing for the stabilization of temperature.