Solar Cells

PV manufacturer Maxeon has filed a lawsuit in Germany claiming that its rival, Aiko Solar, has breached European patents for the architecture of back contact solar cells. Aiko Solar has denied the allegations.

iDeals and M&A Community says there were 16 merger and acquisitions (M&As) announced in Spain in October.

As the world’s solar manufacturers continue to ramp up production at an eye-watering speed, a cell connection technique up to 10 times faster than the industry standard holds rich promise, according to Keven Tremblay, from Canadian laser process specialist Laserax.

Researchers in China have built a prototype of a spectral-splitting concentrator agrivoltaic system (SCAPV) with a PV efficiency of 9.9, a hybrid light-use efficiency rating of 9.05%, and a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of $0.033/kWh.

A consortium of European thin-film PV manufacturers and research institutes are working to advance copper, indium, gallium, and selenium (CIGS) solar development in a €5.9 million ($6.4 million) project. It aims to achieve 25% cell power conversion efficiency by improving manufacturing processes and scaling up from lab-sized bifacial devices to small outdoor-tested modules for a range of applications.

China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) says the nation deployed 33 GW of new residential PV capacity between January and September, bringing cumulative installations to 105 GW, while Flat Glass says it will invest $290 million in new glass factories in Indonesia.

Armor Group has acquired a 20% stake in French solar panel maker HoloSolis, marking its entry into perovskite-silicon tandem panel production, a mere week after abandoning organic solar module production.

Scientists from South Korea have designed new photovoltaic modules with both rectangular and triangular shapes and solar cells connected in parallel, which they said have higher partial-shading tolerance compared with cells connected in strings. The panels are reportedly less sensitive to partial-shading geometries than shingled modules.

Sri Lanka’s government-owned Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) is inviting applications for the development of 1 MW to 5 MW ground-mounted solar projects – totaling 70 MW – with 20-year power purchase agreements (PPA).

Stanford University researchers have explored the efficiency of a single-junction solar cell using transition metal dichalcogenides such as MoS2, MoSe2, WS2, and WSe2 as absorbers. The device has shown substantial light absorptance in ultra-thin 5-nanometer (nm) films, achieving high short-circuit current levels.