Magazine Archive 03-2013

The Philippines: Although the solar market in the Philippines is small, it is increasingly gaining momentum and an important driver is the high cost of conventional electricity.

PERC cells: Imec reports on recent innovations in some of the key steps for fabricating PERC-type solar cells: a new metallization scheme, a promising ALD-Al2O3-based passivation layer and the integration of very thin cells into a module. In all these improvements, imec goes beyond current Si PV boundaries by using industrial manufacturable processes.

Self-consumption: Solar power plants are still attractive for farmers. This is demonstrated by the example of a farming operation in which scientists have evaluated the consumption of self-produced electricity and electricity purchased from the grid, taking into account the possibility of load shifting. The study’s authors, Josef Neiber and Werner Schmid, explain.

Feed-in tariffs: The Hollande administration comes out in support of small-scale PV. Germany sees the introduction of a support scheme for storage systems, but not without its detractors. And last month’s hearsay about Japan was true.

Microinverters: In Shanghai Involar is supplying microinverters for a one megawatt solar rooftop project.

Product lifetime: In Germany, the success story of photovoltaics all started with the 1,000 Roofs program in the early 1990s. How are these solar power systems doing today, after 20 years in operation? A study commissioned by the Energy Agency of the federal state of Saxony looked into this and came up with astonishing results.

c-Si vs thin film: The evolving PV market is making it likely that c-Si and thin film technologies can coexist in the future. This is the argument proposed by NPD Solarbuzz’s Finlay Colville. The article reviews some of the standard metrics historically used to compare c-Si and thin-film technologies, but also provides new parameters that are becoming more important to track.

Myanmar: The country has opened up to the rest of the world after being walled in for a long time. Myanmar is rich in natural resources and as the economy starts to grow energy needs will multiply too. Neighbors Thailand, India and China have turned to renewables like PV. Will Myanmar follow suit?

Module prices: Stock clearances have been successful, so now a minor price increase is in sight, especially in higher performance classes.