Manufacturing

PV manufacturing capacity is projected to more than double by 2024, led by China, but oversupply is also anticipated, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Brisbane-based battery materials and technology company Novonix has sealed a $45 million (USD 30 million) deal with South Korean battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution that is complemented by an agreement between the two parties to jointly work toward developing high-performance, synthetic graphite anode material for lithium-ion batteries.

Longi said today it cut the prices of its wafer products by 30% and Trina announced it will build a 25 GW monocrystalline ingot factory in the Sichuan province. Furthermore, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that the Chinese PV industry produced 39.92 GW of solar cells in April, and Datang Group unveiled the results of a tender to procure 8 GW of solar panels.

A global race is underway to capture the manufacturing market for clean energy technologies. While lady lucky has certainly shone on Australia, competition is fierce, experts say.

An international research team in China has used Czochralski n-type c-Si wafers from China-based Sichuan Yongxiang to build textured wafers with a thickness ranging from 65 μm to 55 μm. They have used the wafers in heterojunction solar cells ton hit efficiencies close to those of devices cells based on conventional wafers.

The annual SiliconPV Conference came to TU Delft in the Netherlands in April, and offered an important health check for the science and technology behind solar energy. pv magazine was on site to hear the latest from researchers reaching for higher efficiency through tandem cells and other innovations; looking to understand and mitigate cell degradation mechanisms; and working to cut down solar technology’s consumption of rare and expensive materials.

The rise of rooftop solar in Victoria will see all new inverters installed under the state government’s solar and battery rebate programs soon required to be technically capable of remotely updating and enacting dynamic export limits to allow network companies to manage the export of rooftop solar back in to the grid.

The new series comes in seven versions, with power outputs between 560 W and 590 W. The power conversion efficiency ranges between 21.7% and 22.8%

China exported 154 GW of PV modules, 24 GW of solar cells, and 41 GW of wafers in 2022. In 2026, annual cell and wafer exports could hit 230 GW and module shipments could reach 149 GW, according to Wood Mackenzie.

Sungrow’s new power optimiser has a rated input power of 600 W, a maximum efficiency rating of 99.4%, and a weighted efficiency of 98.8%. It can accommodate up to 30 modules per string.