Max Hall
REC Silicon prepared to power down the rest of its operation
The Norwegian polysilicon and silane gas producer has announced it will listen to offers for its production facility in Butte, Montana after mothballing its other manufacturing operation – at Moses Lake, Washington – in the summer.
Solar pays tribute to founding father of SolarEdge
A tribute to Guy Sella has hailed him as “a brilliant man” and a “revolutionary trailblazer”.
Utility scale, rather than behind-the-meter batteries will drive energy storage take-up
BNEF has published its latest Energy Storage Outlook report and says large scale deployment will provide the majority of the 1,095 GW/2,850 GWh of battery storage worldwide in 2040, with prices driven down further by grid services demand and EVs.
Megapack marks Tesla’s new play for utility scale storage
The Palo Alto company says it has improved its large scale battery offering with the new product in the wake of the success of its Powerpack-driven big battery in Australia. The Megapack can be deployed at a 250 MW/1 GWh clean energy plant four times faster than a fossil fuel alternative, claimed the business in a blogpost.
REC Silicon can’t say when polysilicon lines will start up again
The Norwegian polysilicon supplier – which has most of its manufacturing operations on U.S. soil – cannot give any estimate on when its production of polysilicon for solar will return, and has been left entirely dependent on the semiconductor products made by its Montana facility.
Solar, storage and wind can keep us on track as far as 2030
This year’s New Energy Outlook report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance predicts renewables can keep us on track for less than two degrees of global heating for the next decade. But after that, other technologies will have to do their bit.
Fate of Washington polysilicon plant hinges on Trump, Jinping meeting
REC Silicon has delayed full shutdown of its Moses Lake polysilicon operation until mid July as President Trump and his Chinese counterpart are scheduled to hold talks in Osaka in two weeks’ time.
Plug-in hybrid cars have as much longevity as Betamax and MiniDiscs – stick to pure electric
A report on the prospects for a mooted $2.6tn electric vehicle market over the next decade says PHEVs – part electric, part gas-guzzling – are already losing market share rapidly to pure electric rivals, and will be extinct by 2030.
Rise of bifacial lifts profits for the world’s tracker companies
Things are hotting up in the tracker world as the desire to squeeze down the price per Watt of solar power intensifies. And the rise of the trackers is attracting some well-known businesses to buy their way into the field.
Tesla borrows $520m from China for Shanghai Gigafactory
The electric carmaker has signed 12-month credit agreements with three of China’s “Big Four” lenders as well as the development bank for Shanghai as it aims to get its lower-priced Model 3s rolling off the production line by the end of the year.
