Manufacturing

Bidders have until February 3 to lodge their interest for the solar projects to be set up anywhere in India.

The title of Martin Schachinger’s October market commentary was “Module prices set to rocket back to 2019 levels.” This month, he writes that prices have already reached December 2018 levels and notes that there is no reversal in sight. Prices for all module technologies have once again risen by an average of 3 percentage points since last month.

Reliance Industries said its solar unit will buy UK-based sodium-ion battery technology provider Faradion for GBP100 million (US$135 million) including debt, as the Indian conglomerate pushes forward with its ambitious plan to move into the renewable energy industry.

The Mumbai-headquartered solar manufacturer supplied its 335 Wp polysilicon modules for the 1.53 MW PV project located at Kovilpatti in the Indian State of Tamil Nadu.

Scientists at the Nankai University in China have provided a comprehensive overview of current research on silicon heterojunction-based tandem solar cells (SHJ-TSCs) and shared their expectations of future developments in this field.

The lead-acid battery major, which is into lithium battery assembly in a joint venture with Swiss firm Leclanche, will set up a multi-gigawatt lithium-ion cell manufacturing plant as it strives to become more cost-competitive and better serve its customers.

Nexcharge, a joint venture of India’s largest lead-acid storage battery manufacturer, Exide Industries Limited, and Swiss Lithium-ion battery manufacturer Leclanché, has fully automated assembly lines of li-ion battery packs, modules, and cell testing labs in Gujarat. Ketan Chitnis, vice president-stationary BU, tells pv magazine the government’s PLI Scheme is a major incentive for attracting investment into Li-ion cell manufacturing.

The Mumbai-headquartered natural resources company has acquired Goa-based Nicomet, a producer of cobalt, nickel, and their derivates in India, as it looks to capitalize on the electric vehicles and energy storage boom.

An international research team has examined combining solar power generation with energy-intensive hydroponic horticulture and has found that this may be a viable solution depending on project size and available incentive policies. Their approach considered various factors impacting PV system efficiency, including environmental factors, the type of solar array, and the electricity demand from the hydroponic farm.

There is a threshold at which big becomes too big when it comes to PV module sizes, argues Hongbin Fang, the director of product marketing at Longi Solar. Fang recently said at pv magazine’s Roundtables USA event that despite size limits, there is still a lot of efficiency and cost-reduction potential to come.