China

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.

With the Chinese manufacturer claiming it has already hit 16% conversion efficiency on a large panel, a recent perovskite conference heard predictions the technology will make up the next generation of PV cells – provided it avoids the pitfalls experienced by thin-film devices.

Taiwan is expected to become one of the fastest-growing solar markets worldwide despite this year’s feed-in tariff (FiT) reductions, according to a new report, but a local developer has challenged the document's conclusions about the impacts of global PV module supply.

Deutsche Bank’s attempt to shut down the Chinese solar developer and BIPV maker, due to be heard this morning, has been adjourned for two weeks.

The ever worsening balance sheet of the Hong Kong-based solar manufacturer has triggered the removal of shares listed in Taiwan, which is likely to leave the company with a $2.84 million bill for buying them back.

An accelerated transition to renewables could go either way, regarding the United States’ unique geopolitical strength. According to Indra Overland – head of the Center for Energy Research at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs – the U.S. could surrender a major advantage if it abandons fossil fuel. The nation could, however, remain dominant in the global energy sector if it continues to lead on innovation and clean energy tech-related intellectual property.

Argentina has staked a claim to Latin American solar records after wrapping up the extension of a complex that could reach gigawatt-scale proportions within 10 years.

Chinese companies have built a 300-megawatt solar farm in the highlands of northern Argentina, the largest of its kind in the South American nation, China’s state news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday.

Investors are afraid of solar energy right now, but the long-term prospects of the industry are improving.

Chinese state-owned PV manufacturer Jetion Solar says it has signed a deal with Italian government-owned oil and gas major Eni to develop a slew of new solar projects across five regions in the next three years in a deal worth €2 billion.

Residents of the Verde Para Sempre extractivist reserve in the Brazilian Amazon protested as loudly as they could about the Tucuruí transmission line.

The nation’s plan for grid-parity solar – brought forward to ease a mounting public PV subsidy debt burden – could be left in ruins by a newly-announced scheme to part liberalize the electricity price, itself motivated by a need to bail out financially stricken state-owned power companies.

The exercise, conducted on Longi PERC bifacial modules by Germany’s TÜV SÜD at a test field in China, showed surprisingly higher gains in panels getting light reflection from painted-surface and grassland albedo. It also showed, Longi claimed, bifacial panels operate at lower temperatures than single-sided alternatives.

Solar power installations out in the open are a common sight in many parts of the world, but how about household solar generators? A team of Swedish and Chinese scientists recently reported this might become part of our future after they successfully converted indoor light to electricity using organic photovoltaic cells.

Farmers who want to sell electricity to utilities generally lease land to power companies to build the panels.