PV modules

The former director of Fraunhofer ISE will be officially elected at a general assembly planned for September. The ESCM wants a strong Europe to be part of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and also pay attention to sustainability.

The Norwegian manufacturer said Hanwha Q Cells’ legal action in Germany has not started yet, and it will take all necessary steps to defend itself against patent infringement allegations.

The Spanish developer maintained manufacturing activities at the plant for 10 years with an average of more than 100 employees. The company previously managing the factory –Chinese manufacturer Jinko – had abandoned the project in September, after minimum import prices for Chinese PV products in the EU were cancelled.

On August 21, the majority of EU member states rejected the request for the initiation of expiry reviews with regards to the antidumping and anti-subsidy measures for crystalline solar PV modules and cells originated in or consigned from the People’s Republic of China. As such, the undertaking on the minimum import price (MIP) expired on September 3, after almost five years in place. Here, Edurne Zoco, Research Director at IHS Markit looks at the changes this will likely bring to Europe’s PV market.

Canada-based Silfab Solar has invested US$40 million in U.S. solar PV module manufacturer, Itek Energy, LLC’s Bellingham, Washington production facility.

Module degradation tests are essential not only for effective plant operations, but also to ensure an optimum ROI. However, fixed laboratories, where such tests are usually carried out, involve transportation issues, while it is not always economically feasible to send in mobile laboratories. So how can degradation in these instances be measured? Leonardo Enrique Pérez Abreu, Technical Manager of the Testing & Optimization department at Enertis discusses this issue.

The Indian government has imposed a safeguard duty of 25% on solar imports from China and Malaysia for two years. The Ministry of Finance (Department of Revenue) levied the duty based on the final recommendations proposed by the Directorate General of Trade Remedies (DGTR). While most industry players are dismayed, believing project costs could “immediately” go up by 15%, others are more optimistic.

With production and capacity figures provided by industry analyst IHS Markit, pv magazine provides a rundown of the top 10 crystalline silicon module manufacturers based on 2017 production data, followed by a look at the market forces and technology trends that have shaped the supply landscape.

Jay Lin, CEO of PVGuider discusses why the effects of light induced degradation (LID) in PERC cells cannot be completely eliminated. To explain the difficulty, we first need to understand the LID behavior of the cells, he says.