In the Australian leg of its global strategy, US-based tracker supplier Nextracker will use locally produced steel for a major project.

The first installations featuring the Tesla Powerwall 3 are currently being completed in the United States, with the company promoting a fully integrated solar-plus-storage and electric vehicle (EV) residential system, with big backup power capacity. While the first Powerwall created a new market segment, the latest iteration enters a marketplace in oversupply.

The production of PV ingots and wafers remains the most highly concentrated of all the production stages in the silicon solar supply chain. Yet efforts to re-establish production in Europe and the United States are not for the faint-hearted.

PV manufacturing analysis is revealing that module prices can not “sustainably” fall significantly in 2024 without producers selling below cost. UK-based analysts Exawatt delivered the development last week, in a trend observed by Australian market participants.

The rollercoaster of surging and plunging demand is a familiar feature of many PV marketplaces. Ethan Miller, the chief operating officer of Powur, a residential solar sales and project fulfillment platform, reports that the ‘solar coaster’ has arrived in the United States this year.

RE+ 2023, held last week in Las Vegas, was bursting at the seams with attendees, exhibitors and enthusiasm. Three pv magazine editors share their insights and observations on key drivers, exciting new products, trends, manufacturing momentum and a few persistent uncertainties.

Crowds have flocked to the Tesla booth at RE+, as the American battery and EV maker displayed its new hybrid battery, the Powerwall 3. The battery, which the company is guiding will be available in “summer 2024,” features an integrated inverter and should deliver lower cost energy storage to consumers by virtue of its ease of installation and manufacturing efficiency.

Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff, actor and former White House aide Kal Penn, and CNN’s Van Jones addressed the opening ceremony of RE+ yesterday. The high-profile speakers opened the event and delivered a rallying cry to the solar and energy storage industry to be more inclusive of disadvantaged communities and people of color as it undergoes a period of unprecedented expansion.

The British university reports that the share of polysilicon manufactured in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and used in solar module production has dropped from 45% in 2020 to 35% in 2022. The research alsom found that polysilicon produced in interior China increased from 30% in 2020 to 50% in 2022, with the share of international markets dropping, somewhat surprisingly, from 25% to 11%.

U.S. solar was disrupted in 2022, with module seizures delaying projects due to strict laws designed to stamp out alleged forced labor practices in sections of the Chinese PV industry. However, it remains to be seen whether seizures affected such alleged practices.