European solar manufacturers secure EU financial support
Norsun and Midsummer have both secured financing to support their capacity expansion plans. Norway’s Norsun plans to raise its polysilicon capacity to 3 GW and Midsummer wants to build a 200 MW module facility in Sweden.
Chinese PV Industry Brief: CHN Energy plans 1 GW offshore floating PV project
CHN Energy has signed a deal to build 1 GW of offshore floating PV in China’s Shandong province, while JA Solar has announced plans to raise around CNY 9 billion ($1.3 billion) to support capacity expansion.
The solar glass opportunity in India
Large capacity addition in solar modules by 15-20 players is likely to drive domestic solar glass demand, say CRISIL analysts in an interview with pv magazine. New players have expressed interest to set up solar glass manufacturing in India, however, import duty removal last year on solar tempered glass has put them in a wait-and-see mode.
Reusing silicon from end-of-life photovoltaic modules for battery anodes
Scientists in China have proposed to use recycled silicon from discarded solar cells to build anodes for batteries. They combined the recycled waste silicon powder with graphite and created a composite material that is claimed to exhibit remarkable electrochemical performance.
SPI Energy to build US heterojunction solar cell factory
SPI Energy says it will set up a new heterojunction solar cell factory in the United States. Its manufacturing plans in the country now include modules, wafers and cells.
Mixed price signals for solar wafers, narrowing spread between M10 and G12 wafer prices
In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.
Meyer Burger gets $224 million for 3.5 GW solar cell, module plant in Europe
Swiss manufacturer Meyer Burger Technology AG says it will probably build a new 3.5 GW factory at an unspecified location in Spain. The EU Commission is expected to issue a formal decision on granting funding for the project by the end of this year.
US Customs solar exclusions might be ‘de facto ban on Chinese polysilicon’
Longi solar modules made of Tongwei polysilicon have been excluded from entry to the U.S.
Collimated solar simulator for curved photovoltaic panels
Researchers in Spain assembled an experimental solar simulator for vehicle-integrated and curved solar panels. They found that the measurements of the short-circuit current of the cells followed the ideal cosine response of the curvature with differences lower than 0.5%.
Chinese PV Industry Brief: Tongwei plans 16 GW PV cell factory
Tongwei says it will build a new 16 GW solar cell factory in Meishan City, China’s Sichuan province.
