PV module

Owners and insurers suffered record hail losses in 2022. John Sedgwick, president of engineering advisory VDE Americas, provides some pro tips for mitigating such risks.

While solar modules and inverters can greatly influence the output of a planned solar project, it is important not to overlook how to select and design cabling systems for your solar plant – for safety as well as generation considerations. Ye Qilin, a senior system engineer at Huawei’s FusionSolar smart PV and energy storage business, runs us through some dos and don’ts.

Weather conditions have a huge influence on photovoltaic output. Even intermittent cloud cover can have a dramatic effect on incident solar energy, while other factors like air temperature, wind direction and speed, precipitation, humidity, and air pressure can all influence the efficiency of solar cells. Monitoring weather conditions accurately is crucial to understand variations in PV plant performance.

A recent report by the International Energy Agency Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (IEA PVSP) reviews the current regulatory and industrial landscape for end-of-life PV management in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, South Korea, China, Australia, and the United States.

The world’s energy sector is concentrated in solar, wind, electricity transmission/distribution and hydroelectric power. For example, investment in solar power plants alone is higher than investment in natural gas, coal-fired and nuclear power plants combined. This is encouraging, but another fact is worrying: China’s exports of solar modules to Europe in the first four months of 2022 were 2.5 times higher compared to 2021. In April alone, nearly 8 GW of solar modules worth more than €2 billion were imported from China into Europe.

On day two of the pv magazine Roundtables Europe event, we focused on minimizing land competition for PV with dual use applications, how high efficiency n-type cells are progressing toward large-scale manufacturing at competitive cost, PV module design choices, how unsubsidized power purchase agreements can adapt and evolve, and the determining conditions for solar-plus-storage and solar-plus-hydrogen business models, among other key PV issues. The last five sessions are now available to view on demand.

The solar supply chain problems that began last year with high prices and polysilicon shortages are persisting into 2022. But we are already seeing a stark difference from earlier predictions that prices would decline gradually each quarter this year. PV Infolink’s Alan Tu probes the solar market situation and offers insights.

Indian Minister of Power RK Singh has revealed interest from manufacturers in developing more production lines, even before newly planned incentive schemes are taken into account.

The Japanese electronics giant has unveiled three monocrystalline half-cut cell modules said to provide 2-3% better performance than standard, full cell panels. The claimed efficiency of the modules exceeds 19.5% and Sharp says power output ranges from 330-395 W.

The new 24.5kg, PERC monocrystalline product from DMEGC is said to have an efficiency of 19.78%. The panels are available in glass and white-backsheet formats.