Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

A research team at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory has made highly bifacial perovskite cells with a front-side efficiency of 23%.

Australian modular PV array manufacturer 5B’s preassembled and relocatable modular solar technology has been awarded international honours with the United States-based World Future Awards panel naming it the best solar solution in its clean tech category.

Italian manufacturer Barrel claims that solar kits packed in barrels are ideal for remote areas and conflict zones. Its standard packages consist of 6 kW solar modules, a 5.6 kW single-phase hybrid inverter, and 3.55 kWh of lithium battery energy storage capacity.

California-based manufacturer SEG Solar says its new panels have a temperature coefficient of -0.30% per degree Celsius. They come with a 30-year power output guarantee for 87.4% of the initial yield.

High performance and low environmental impact are set to stand heterojunction module maker REC Group in good stead in the current buyers’ market, argues CEO Jan Enno Bicker. Speaking to pv magazine at Intersolar Europe last month, Bicker said that in the rooftop segment the benefits of the company’s Alpha HJT module series shine. 

German renewables developer Solar Kapital has deployed membranes at three of its utility scale PV plants in Greece and claims the technology has delivered an up to 6.4% increase in yield and the payback time of the new solution is relatively short.

Huang Haiyan, chief sustainability officer for Astronergy, spoke with pv magazine at the recent SNEC trade show in Shanghai about the company’s new TOPCon PV module line and its broader expansion plans.

Research carried out by China‘s National Photovoltaic Quality Inspection Center shows that new n-type TOPCon modules are living up to their promise, outperforming the previous generation of p-type PERC products. Data gathered over six months from a fixed-tilt PV system showed that the n-type products produced 3.69% more energy, and also suffered much lower performance losses.

United States-headquartered module maker SEG Solar has leased land in Indonesia where it will establish a 5 GW capacity solar cell and 3 GW capacity PV module manufacturing facility.

The Queensland government has unveiled its own Critical Mineral Strategy, with a decidedly more focussed policy approach than its recent federal counterpart.