Trina announces 23.3% efficient PERC cell produced on commercial tools
The Chinese manufacturer claims a record — since the device was manufactured on standard commercial production equipment.
A plug-and-play solar-powered battery back-up solution for the home
The OneBox, from Indian manufacturer Vision Mechatronics, consists of a lithium battery, hybrid inverter and solar charge controller to give a ‘hassle-free’ solution for electricity back-up during power outages. Solar rooftop owners are offered a grid feed feature to maximize net metering income from any excess power generated.
Trina unveils two 500-watt bifacial solar modules
The panels are equipped with glass-glass or glass-backsheet frames. Both offer a reported 21% efficiency. Trina plans to have a combined 5 GW of annual production capacity for the products this year.
Chinese solar production juggernaut rumbles on
Three more PV manufacturers are announcing plans to invest in an expansion of production capacities — as the industry appears to make light of coronavirus fears.
Panasonic: ‘Eventually solar-plus-storage will be like air conditioning or HVAC’ but for now it’s an ’emotional sale’
“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.”
Morning brief: Oil billionaire pursuing perovskites, energy storage market to grow to $546 billion
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.
‘Tesla and Panasonic are scrapping their partnership’ in solar cell production at the Buffalo factory
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 officially exits polysilicon business
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.
Beijing to develop 500 MW of solar in Uganda
State-owned China Energy Engineering said the PV capacity will be developed in two phases in a deal worth $500 million.
The futurology of solar power: robots, hackers, 5G, cheaper modules, repowering, and really cheap electricity
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.
