Manufacturing

Jakson’s Helia series of 600 Wp mono PERC solar modules are now eligible for use in government installations and projects set up under government schemes and programs.

Haryana-headquartered Saatvik Solar has appointed Photovoltaic Solar to handle retail distribution of its PV panels in the Indian market.

Sales growth in India’s electric vehicle market will moderate to 75% per year over the next three years, as supply constraints drive up prices of key raw materials for batteries. 

A new report form analysts at IHS Markit notes that the market for module-level power electronics (MLPE) grew by 33% between 2019 and 2021, with around one-third of new residential solar installations now taking advantage of MLPE’s promise of improved safety, energy yield and fault detection. And with smaller, distributed generation systems expected to represent 43% of global PV installations between now and 2025, the opportunity for MLPE will only get larger.

In a study that began in 2016, US scientists purchased 834 PV modules, representing seven manufacturers and 13 module types, and installed them in various climate conditions to observe their performance over time. The results show that, while plenty of opportunities still exist to extend module lifetimes and reduce performance loss in the field, reductions in the manufacturing cost of PV have not come with an increase in their degradation rate.

Laser contact opening (LCO), a standard process in PERC cell production, has seen little market development in the past few years. Stiff competition from equipment suppliers in Asia, combined with the fact that most new n-type manufacturing doesn’t make use of LCO, has kept the level of interest here quite low. However, as the PV research community increases its focus on reducing silver consumption, new approaches to cell contacting and metallization provide impetus for a second look at laser processing.

REC, a Norwegian solar panel specialist, will exhibit the latest module in its award-winning REC Alpha line at the Renewable Energy India (REI) exhibition in September. It will also join forces with its new owner, Reliance Industries Ltd., to recruit new talent for a planned solar gigafactory in India.

Sunora Solar’s new 144-cell solar module is available with power outputs ranging from 520 W to 550 W and a power conversion efficiency of 20.18% to 21.03%.

Adani Solar, which has 3.5 GW of PV cell and module production capacity, has selected Roofsol Energy as a partner for the retail distribution of its solar panels in Maharashtra. 

Scientists from France’s CEA-Ines developed a 400 W micro-inverter with a power density of 1.1 kW/L and an efficiency of 97%. The device utilizes GaN 600V diodes and power transistors developed by CEA’s electronic branch CEA-Leti.