First Solar breaks ground on 3.3 GW module factory
First Solar has started building a new PV module factory in the U.S. state of Ohio. The $680 million facility is scheduled to start operations in the first half of 2023.
Chinese PV Industry Brief: Work begins on 12 GW heterojunction module factory in Zhejiang
Furthermore, Zhonghuan Semiconductor’s parent company has reported strong results for its PV business and solar developer Shunfeng has halted trading in its shares.
Cooling PV modules with plants, coir pith
An Indian-Malaysian research group has investigated the effectiveness of several passive cooling techniques for solar panels, including the placement of plants around the modules or coir pith underneath them, both of which, surprisingly, offered good performance in terms of temperature reduction and power yield.
New PV facade design in Sweden
Soltech Energy has installed a 60 kW solar facade on the wall of a garage in Sweden that hosts 300 EV-charging posts. It features a steel structure to facilitate the flow of air.
JinkoSolar builds 7 GW wafer factory in Vietnam
The new factory should begin production within six months and serve the company’s cell and module assembly factories in Malaysia, as well as the module assembly facility in the United States.
Spain announces 3.3 GW renewables auction
The auction will be officially launched on Tuesday and will also include a quota for small scale projects.
US residential PV pricing fell 6.3% over past 12 months
Residential solar installation price declines have accelerated over the past year in the U.S. solar market. However, energy storage pricing has gone up, with Enphase taking an increasingly larger share of the market.
Brazil imported 4.88 GW of PV modules in H1
According to a new report from Brazilian consultancy Greener, the Latin American country installed 1,450 MW of distributed generation PV systems and just 63 MW of large-scale PV plants in the first half of 2021. Despite the disappointing large-scale performance, the strength of the distributed segment should ensure another record year for the Brazilian solar sector.
Taiwan’s URE Corp deploys production line for M6, M8 solar modules
The new capacity is expected to meet domestic solar module demand, which the PV manufacturer expects will significantly increase in the second half of this year.
Financial close for 1.5 GW solar PV project in Saudi Arabia
The Sudair Solar PV plant is the first project under the renewable energy program run by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. The facility is owned by energy giants ACWA Power and Aramco, as well as electricity holding company Badeel.
