Magazine Archive 11-2014

CEO Interview: China Sunergy (CSUN) is one of the Chinese module manufacturers that diversified module production geographically and set up a production facility abroad. What were the main reasons for choosing Turkey as a manufacturing location? What were the benefits and the lessons learned? pv magazine spoke with CSUN’s CEO Lu Tingxiu. 

German Renewable Energy Act: The amendment of the German Renewable Energy Act has been much criticized. The introduction of an EEG surcharge on the self-consumption of solar energy was the biggest cause for concern for the German solar industry. But conditions for photovoltaics in Germany have not deteriorated as much as the bad mood may suggest. Investments continue to pay off in various sectors.

Junction boxes: Manufacturers are attacking potential failures with high quality. Junction boxes are becoming better in terms of performance, lower cost, ease of installation and reduced failure.

Interview: In his new book, The Economic Competitiveness of Renewable Energy, Winfried Hoffmann, former president of the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA), provides a unique economic and industrial point of view about the current state of global energy, the increasing impact of solar and the impending paradigm shift that photovoltaics has triggered.

Dutch PV market: boom and bust is a phrase that is heard all too often in relation to PV markets. By contrast, solar in the Netherlands has been quietly building and now appears to be on the pathway to strong, if not world-beating annual PV capacity numbers.

Commercial rooftop PV in Germany: The recent amendment of the German Renewable Energy Act (EEG) includes an EEG levy on self-consumed solar power. Joachim Goldbeck, Björn Lamprecht, managing directors of the Goldbeck Solar GmbH, an EPC based in Hirschberg, Germany, say that it is nevertheless possible to achieve attractive rates of return.

Feed-in tariffs: The new German FITs have been publicized. Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands and Slovenia all make slight adjustments to their FITs.

India: Distributed solar has great potential to rapidly alleviate electricity shortages and strengthen the resilience of power generation in India. However, this would require a great deal of funding. A range of new financing models has emerged in recent years which could play a major role in expanding distributed solar in India. David Fullbrook of DNV GL identifies several new financing models, which, given the policy context, could have a big impact.

Module prices: Are new business models the solution to the crisis in Europe?

EU PVSEC: Amsterdam played host to Europe’s leading scientific conference for PV technologies in 2014. The accompanying trade show was a minnow compared to those of years past, however a range of technologies designed to push c-Si cell and module efficiencies north were on display.