The European renewables roadmap
Roadmap 2020: The European Commission allotted a special role for photovoltaics in its Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET plan) for 2020. Here, an overview of the European roadmap to renewable energy is presented.
Working on the railroad
The story of solar electricity: The seventh part of our series highlighting chapters from John Perlin’s book, From Space to Earth, tells how the American railroad tuned to photovoltaics.
XXL in focus
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.
Big cost- advantage
Interview: HSBC Alternative Energy Analyst, Shishir Kumar Singh talks to pv magazine about his take on how the Asian silicon module manufacturers are performing in the international marketplace.
A French twist
Italy: This years Solarexpo trade exhibition in Verona, Italy, turned out to be an exchange of good news. The renewal of the Conto Energia the law governing feed-in tariffs for solar electricity in Italy will not be long in coming and will focus on two new aspects. Furthermore, the respective tariffs will remain attractive.
At the upper limit
Ranking: Which manufacturers are leading the pack? Who will make it to the top ten? pv magazine asked market researchers and analysts. In this edition: an analysis of the biggest crystalline module manufacturers and their strategies.
Breaking the glass cartel
Triple Green, part 6: The days of float glass are numbered. The expenditure involved in its production drives up the price of modules and consumes too much energy. Inexpensive rolled glass, specially developed for solar modules, promises substantial savings in terms of energy, weight and material.
Defect buster
Process-control tools: The rise of thin film manufacturing is fueling a growing demand for metrology and in-line process-control tools. But what tools are necessary and whether the investments will pay off is a matter of debate.
Effects of the euro slide
Ardour solar index: The solar sector is under heavy pressure in the wake of European turbulence.
Electricity in a snakeskin jacket
Building integration: Photovoltaics on stadium roofs is becoming a more familiar sight. If you want to see a megawatt-capacity photovoltaic array though, thats a genuine structural component of a newly built stadium and supplies all of its electricity, the first port of call is Taiwan.
