China

All eyes are drawn to China every year for SNEC, the world’s biggest solar PV expo, as it invariably features a large number of new products from the key Chinese manufacturers. Vincent Shaw was on the scene in Shanghai this year and took the opportunity to take the industry’s pulse.

Jinchen Machinery has landed module production equipment orders from leading Indian solar manufacturers. It has already installed 2 GW of production lines and plans to supply the balance within three months. The company will open an India office in Surat, Gujarat. 

The nation maintained the highest score of 62.7 for solar in the latest edition of Ernst & Young’s renewables attractiveness index. It ranked third for overall renewable energy investment. 

The Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR) under the commerce ministry stated the Indian manufacturers provided sufficient evidence to warrant the initiation of an investigation into the alleged dumping of solar cells. The investigation will aim to determine the existence, degree and effect of the dumping and recommend an amount of anti-dumping duty to offset the material injury to domestic manufacturers.

India ranks behind the United States and China in IHS Markit’s latest rankings of most attractive solar markets.

Graphite’s pivotal role in electric-vehicle battery technology is coming under increasing scrutiny. Graphite is almost exclusively produced in China, and while the processing of the mineral poses serious environmental issues, the alternatives appear costly. Ian Morse looks at what’s next for critical graphite supplies.

Coronavirus disruption has been cited as the chief culprit as imports from China, Thailand and Vietnam slumped from April to January, but safeguarding duty also appears to have had an impact, with unaffected imports from nations such as Myanmar, Chad and Russia on the rise and Malaysian trade keeping steady.

The Chinese solar manufacturer has launched the 670W Vertex solar module in India that offers an efficiency of up to 21.6%. It has also fielded two models of panel tracking solutions from its TrinaTracker business. 

The device will go into mass production in the second half of this year. It features an efficiency of 99.01% and is claimed to be the most powerful string inverter ever launched on the market to date.

The Chinese manufacturer commanded a 17% share of the total 3268 MW of rooftop PV inverter shipments in India in the January-December 2020 period.