Magazine Archive 10-2018

Along with a host of energy, industry, and business bodies, Australia’s Clean Energy Council (CEC) publicly backed the National Energy Guarantee. It didn’t help. Kane Thornton, the CEC’s Chief Executive says that it leaves the state and territory governments with the energy policy heavy lifting.

The booming music and bright sunshine at the opening of Renewable Energy India Expo 2018 mirrored the country’s ambitious goal of becoming the world’s largest renewable energy market. As the sector works towards the country’s bold goals, policy emerged as a key point of discussion – as without the right settings the industry is bound to fall short.

By removing the five year long trade tariffs, the European Commission has lifted the single biggest barrier to solar growth in Europe, writes James Watson, CEO of SolarPower Europe.

While the rooftop market segment might indicate smooth sailing, the debate over low cost suppliers and installers serving Australian homes and businesses continues to simmer just beneath the surface. And one name remains especially prominent in the discussion: Euro Solar.

In the jargon-heavy world of solar-speak, C&I handily condenses Commercial and Industrial into a snackable
sub-section of the PV industry. But as sub-sections go, the C&I space has perhaps the greatest scope for flexibility, offering a raft of possibilities from ground-mount through to ingenious use of rooftop space. For module manufacturers, C&I also means something else: Challenges and Innovations, writes Ian Clover, Manager Corporate Communications, Hanwha Q Cells.

Off- grid renewable energy assets for the mining sector are enjoying growing popularity, though this market is still largely untapped, comprising a few dozen flagship projects. Thomas Hillig, an expert in off-grid solar systems, spoke to pv magazine and believes that, in the end, it will be in the interest of mining companies to switch.

The global vertical integration of the PV tracker industry is accelerating, as players seek to build organizations that can provide manufacturing and support in multiple markets simultaneously. These partnerships tend to connect intellectual property assets with global manufacturing capability and construction and engineering teams that have the financial wherewithal to pursue international markets. The trend also is driving product line expansion, as in the case of Nextracker’s offering of energy storage as an integrated part of its tracker design.

Longi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd has big plans. In the near future, it wants to manufacture 400 GW of monocrystalline silicon ingots and 200 GW of wafers per year. To get to those numbers – four times bigger than the whole solar industry today – the company partly wants to build factories in the deserts of Saudi Arabia. These manufacturing facilities will be powered by solar, and fed with ocean water and desert sand as inputs – with solar modules and desalinated water as output.

An unexpectedly large gathering of international bifacial PV experts convened in Denver, USA in early September, at the 2018 bifiPV Workshop to trade notes on the performance of bifacial PV modules, lauded by some as the most promising advance in solar for a decade. pv magazine was on the spot.