Asia

“Brand is powerful — after a house and a car, a PV/storage system worth tens of thousands of dollars is one of the larger purchases a family will make.”

Also in the morning brief: Arizona mandatory solar panel recycling bill, Sumitomo invests $46 million in long-term energy storage from Highview Power, and more.

Elon Musk has spoken of the “exponential” ramp-up of its solar glass tile at the Buffalo factory. Panasonic’s tiles never made the cut for that product

Hanwha Solutions has confirmed that it will shut down its polysilicon business over the course of the next year, only a week after saying that it was still evaluating its plans for the sector.

State-owned China Energy Engineering said the PV capacity will be developed in two phases in a deal worth $500 million.

Module efficiencies will continue to increase, while the price of an individual module will stay the same. Not only will this hardware produce more power, it’ll work far longer — with predictions of 30-year module warranties, roughly the projected lifetime of gas assets.

Total acquired 50% of India’s Adani Group’s solar portfolio for $510m and Shell is building its first large-scale solar farm, a 120-MW effort in Australia.

In part 2 of our interview, the SunPower brain trust talks about scaling-up its high-efficiency PV technology in a way that it has not been able to do in the past — now that it has cash and a definitive focus.

The coronavirus outbreak in China could raise solar module prices in the near term as manufacturers have already begun experiencing wafer and solar glass shortages. Production rates are also being affected by an extended new year holiday introduced by the authorities as a measure to deal with the virus, and the requirement workers from infected areas quarantine themselves for two weeks.

“Hanergy…is not above the rule of law, and this is not China. In abruptly closing the Alta plant, defendants violated the federal and California WARN Acts, which require at least 60 days written notice of termination where a plant is shut down and/or mass layoffs occur.”