There have been reports this morning of a fire at Jinko Solar’s wafer production facility in Jianxi, China. JinkoSolar has estimated damages at between $80,000 and $160,000.

Signals from the Australian Federal Government appear to indicate that rooftop solar will remain free from subsidy cuts. Program to trial solar plus storage at new housing development announced.

IHS has concluded that 700 MW of solar systems installed in North America will be coupled with storage in 2018. Representing nine percent of all installs, this is up from 30 MW in 2014.

Chinese monocrystalline ingot and wafer producer LONGi is predicting non-silicon costs for mono ingot production to drop significantly, to as low as $5/kg by 2018. The producer reports that the rollout of diamond wire technology is having a dramatic and positive impact on costs.

U.S.-based third-party owned solar provider SolarCity has launched its GridLogic microgrid service, which will integrate distributed solar with battery storage and load management for discrete areas of electricity consumers. In keeping with SolarCity’s business model the service can be provided “with little to no upfront cost.”

German PV equipment supplier Schmid is promoting its PERT technology as resulting in significantly reduced light-induced degradation than occurs in PERC multicrystalline cells. PERT refers to Passivated Emitter Rear Totally Diffused (PERT) technology that Schmid can achieve with its Atmospheric Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition (APCVD) tooling.

Dutch thin film equipment supplier Smit Ovens has filed for insolvency. A notice on the Smit Ovens site advises that the bankruptcy filing is for restructuring purposes.

Swiss solar technology provider Meyer Burger will supply its DW288 diamond wire saws for PV wafer production to SunEdison. The deal is in the upper single-digit Swiss Franc range (1 Swiss Franc = US$1).

U.S. based solar equipment supplier GT Advanced Technologies looks to have raised $100 million in financing. The deal was revealed in revised bankruptcy documents filed in local courts.

Chinese PV manufacturer Canadian Solar has indicated that it will work with the European Commission to demonstrate that it has acted in accordance with the minimum import price (MIP) for modules sent to the EU. Canadian management have added that any change of MIP status for the firm will not significantly impact its 2015 guidance.