Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

Scientists in Switzerland put together a detailed analysis of the projected costs of designing and operating a 100 MW perovskite solar cell production line in various locations, taking in labor and energy costs as well as all materials and processing. The found that perovskite PV could be cost-competitive with other technologies even at much smaller scale, but noted that this still depends on the tech proving its long-term stability, and impressive achievements in research being successfully transferred to commercial production.

Yingli’s 156-cell Panda 3.0 PRO module has a temperature coefficient of -0.30% per degree Celsius and is available in wattages ranging from 590 W to 615 W, with a bifaciality of more than 90%.

Vikram Solar has unveiled new mono PERC bifacial modules with front-side power outputs from 635 W to 660 W and front-side efficiencies ranging between 20.38% and 21.18%, respectively. The modules feature glass-to-glass construction and provide up to 25% bifacial gain.

The government of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has allocated €10 million ($9.93 million) to support the deployment of balcony solar modules with a power output of up to 600 W.

Reliance Industries says that production will begin at its 10 GW factory for solar cells and modules by 2024. It plans to double the facility’s capacity to 20 GW by 2026 and is aiming for 50 GWh of annual cell-to-pack battery capacity by 2027.

Belinus has released a new solar panel with a power conversion efficiency of 22.0% and a temperature coefficient of -0.25% per degree Celsius.

Trina Solar said Germany’s TÜV Nord has confirmed the efficiency rating of its latest solar cell.

As sales of Li-ion batteries accelerate, both governments and the largest battery manufacturers are beginning to grapple with the question of whether local manufacturing facilities are desirable or even necessary. Although this appears to buck the trend of technological development over the last few decades, there are a number of technical as well as geopolitical reasons that make this a major issue for all Li-ion battery manufacturing stakeholders. Everoze partner Jamie Shaw-Stewart explores some of these issues.

State-owned NHPC and Bharat Electronics Ltd will leverage their complementary strengths to set up a gigawatt-scale vertically integrated solar manufacturing unit.

Australia’s Tindo Solar has unveiled a new solar panel based on M10 wafers for residential and business rooftop systems. The new addition to the company’s Karra range has a rated power of 410 W at 20.6% module efficiency and 23.1% cell efficiency.