China

India is the top market for solar investment, according to the latest edition of Ernst & Young’s renewables attractiveness index. Spain, Germany and the United States are the top three markets for corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs).

India’s Directorate General of Trade Remedies, an entity under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, has terminated an anti-dumping probe into solar cells coming from China, Thailand, and Vietnam as domestic manufacturers withdraw the application.

Longi is entering the green hydrogen market in India with its alkaline electrolyzer offerings. It will also roll a next-generation Hi-MO solar module later this year, which, it says, will outshine all the prevailing panel technologies. 

China’s Trina Solar has shipped more than 8 GW of solar modules to India. It is looking to strengthen its foothold in the market with the launch of n-type PV modules.

The Chinese solar inverter manufacturer has shipped more than 14 GW of inverters in India since entering the market in 2014.  

Trina Solar introduced its n-type bifacial module with a peak power output of 685 W in the Indian market.  

The giants of the Chinese PV industry are now integrated along both ends of the supply chain, amid expectations for strong demand and price volatility. Module makers are adding polysilicon capacity, while poly and wafer producers are making module production a part of their business. But do companies still face the same risks that have brought down vertically integrated solar giants in the past? Vincent Shaw reports from Shanghai.

GaoRun, a China-based supplier of automated solar module production equipment, has appointed Hitesh Tungal as the vice president of its global business, effective from Sept. 1. The company has also decided to open an office in India.

The rise of electric vehicles brings rapid technological advancement and cost reductions to lithium ion battery manufacturing, which can serve to make batteries more useful and more profitable for the energy storage industry. However, the use of stationary batteries as energy assets is still at a nascent stage. Most markets and business models are immature, and InfoLink analyst Yuan Fang-wei sees policy as the major driving force to lead and stimulate China’s energy storage market.

The Chinese PV module maker has shipped more than 8 GW of solar panels to India since the start of its operations in the market in 2010.