Magazine Archive 2010

U.S. solar conference: The trend is towards large-scale solar plants and roof arrays with multi-megawatt capacity. Ensuring well-coordinated design and quality control is all the more important, as Solarpraxis’ symposium PV Power Plants 2009 – USA revealed.

Mounting racks: The market for ground-mounted systems is booming. The system that a plant designer opts for depends on various factors. Dimensions, foundations and module mounting must match perfectly. However, too often plants are dimensioned in a stereotypical fashion. Now, wind tunnel trials are helping to save money.

Funding policy: The proposals made by German Environment Minister Norbert Röttgen for an extra reduction of the feed-in tariffs for solar electricity surprised the industry. However, the final word has yet to be given. There is increasing resistance, even within the government coalition.

Czech Republic: 2009 has been an enormous success for the Czech photovoltaics market. Despite cuts in the solar feed-in tariffs of five percent, the majority of market participants are now expecting even better development in 2010. It seems unlikely that the gold rush atmosphere in the Czech Republic will calm down before 2011.

Dear readers, The announcement of lower feed-in rates for solar power in Germany spoiled many a party for industry representatives at the beginning of the year – for the growth of the world’s biggest photovoltaics market could be stunted, and jobs may be lost, especially for midsize companies. At the same time, opposition to the […]

Module prices: The photovoltaics industry went through a crisis year in 2009. When asked how business will go in 2010, module makers’ opinions diverge.

Industry ranking: pv magazine asks market researchers and analysts: who are the leading manufacturers, and who will be among the top ten? This time, we will focus on silicon and wafer producers.

The story of solar electricity: The eighth part of our series with chapters from John Perlin’s book From Space to Earth recounts how photovoltaics brought long distance telephone calls to people living in sparsely populated regions.

Ardour solar index: Fears of accelerated feed-in tariff cuts in Germany trigger a slide in solar stocks.