Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

Researchers in South African have developed a new cleaning system for solar panels that uses a colour-sensing light-to-frequency converter to detect dirt. It can reportedly remove about 95% of the dust from a PV panel in less than a minute, at a lower cost than other systems.

A reduction of silver consumption in PV production is required on the way to terawatt scale. Given this, the time may have come for the commercialisation of new copper plating technologies – doing away with the need for silver in cell metallisation altogether. However, the history of plating technology is littered with cautionary tales.

Australian modular solar manufacturer 5B has secured a $20 million (USD 13.7 million) investment from the venture arm of British energy giant bp which will allow it to accelerate the development of its preassembled and relocatable modular solar technology.

Moving with Australia’s Zeitgeist, Stuart Parry, managing director of Energy Storage Industries, is working to bring battery manufacturing onto Australian shores – and his approach is, if not novel, certainly well advanced. “It’s about being smart in how we do it,” Parry tells pv magazine Australia.

Adani Solar revealed a monocrystalline silicon ingot this week at the Intersolar India 2022 expo. It produced the ingot at its Mundra facility in the Indian state of Gujarat.

While the efficiency of solar cells will always be important, scaling innovation in sustainable cell technology and solar deployment, is the new game in town. With hydrogen exports and production of green metals in its sights, Australia has some breakthrough tech coming down the pike, as pv magazine Australia’s Natalie Filatoff reports.

Australia’s national science agency has urged the government to develop a domestic solar manufacturing industry with a new report warning that the current highly concentrated international silicon and PV cell supply chains pose real risks to the nation’s energy security and independence.

Analysts study lab-to-market pathways for clean energy technologies including a look at the development of First Solar’s cadmium-telluride thin film solar modules.

Chinese PV technology manufacturer Trina Solar has launched an upgraded version of its Vertex S All Black module featuring an increased output of about 30 W hoping to capture a significant portion of Australia’s growing residential and commercial solar market.

South Korean steel producer Posco Group will invest $60 billion (USD 40b) in Australia by 2040 across the green steel supply chain, including in renewable generation, electrolysis and steel making processes.