Manufacturing

The research group led by Professor Martin Green has published Version 63 of the solar cell efficiency tables. There are six new results reported in the new version.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.

A report from Ernst & Young shows that despite inflationary pressures, solar remains the cheapest source of new-build electricity. The global weighted average levelised cost of electricity for PV is now 29% lower than the cheapest fossil fuel alternative.

Australia is geologically equipped to become a battery critical-minerals hub but the nation is stumbling upon sticky structural issues. Sensitive diplomatic and trade ties, delicate forests and ecosystems, and a devotion to free markets and small government are among the major hurdles, writes Bella Peacock.

With the consistently unambitious forecasts for solar trotted out by entities such as the International Energy Agency (IEA) now a matter of record, a German risk management company has tried to predict more realistic figures for 2030 and beyond.

Sharp’s new IEC61215- and IEC61730-certified solar panels have an operating temperature coefficient of -0.30% per C and a bifaciality factor of over 80%.

Redback Technologies has announced inverters certified as compliant with Queensland’s dynamic connections for energy exports. This enables homeowners to export energy back into the grid at a flexible rate so that energy output is only limited in roughly 2% of the time when excess power from PV installations would overwhelm the grid.

Hanwha Qcells has closed its 3.5 GW solar factory in South Korea as part of plans to optimise its PV module production capabilities amid a stagnant domestic solar market.

First Solar and its cadmium telluride (CdTe) technology dominate thin-film solar in the mainstream market. Valerie Thompson looks at the US-based business and the future of thin-film PV technology.

BloombergNEF says historically low module prices will drive the global solar industry to record installations in 2023.