Panasonic and GS-Solar team up in PV business
Panasonic and GS-Solar, based in Shenzhen China, are teaming up to form a new photovoltaic research and development joint venture. The aim to drive further development of heterojunction photovoltaic technologies through the sharing…
A solar-powered car that doesn’t scream solar
Aesthetics have always been a nagging problem for solar panels, evinced by Tesla's continuous efforts to make them look like normal roof tiles. Hyundai recently revealed more information about its new hybrid vehicle that tackles this…
The importance of tax credit to solar
One of the biggest obstacles to deploying solar and other forms of renewable energy is legal. SEIA, the Solar Energy Industries Association, is a national non-profit trade association of more than 1,000 member companies that works to…
Black absorbs light from GE
General Electric has been incubating a startup known as GE Solar since 2012. The company announced last week that the startup has evolved into Distributed Solar Development (DSD), a new business created with BlackRock, the world's largest…
$42.2 million of solar
Oxford PV secured $42.2 million of funding for a 200 MW heterojunction (HJT) solar cell line from Meyer Burger to start production of perovskite-silicon tandem cells next year in Germany. This investment comes after its $38.5 million…
MiaSolé making a comeback
MiaSolé has almost 20 documents in the Thin Film Photovoltaics sector, but its portfolio noticeably contains a gap between 2011 and 2018 in which no applications were filed in this sector. However, the company made a comeback to its IP…
The Sun’s Origin
Toyota has partnered with NEDO, a Japanese R&D organization, and Sharp, a Japanese electronics company, to commence public road trials of electrified vehicles equipped with high-efficiency solar batteries. Toyota installed modularized…
New world record!
The world record holder of the energy conversion efficiency of CIGS solar cells on flexible polymer substrates, EMPA (Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology), broke its own record and achieved an efficiency of…
Stacking solar cells to reach the Sun
Salah Bedair, professor of electrical and computer engineering at North Carolina State University, recently published and presented his research on multi-junction solar cells. While these cells boast the market's highest efficiency—up to…
Advanced solar panel and grid simulations
Sandia National Laboratories, which is operated by a subsidiary of Honeywell, developed a new software that can run a detailed simulation—known as quasi-static time series analysis—of how individual rooftop solar panels would interact with…
Third time’s the charm…?
Elon Musk announced that Tesla is about to complete the third version of its solar roof. Its cost is expected to be "equal to a comp shingle roof plus someone's utility cost or [be] lower than that." The company has been focusing on the…
Protect your cells
At the 2019 SNEC Solar conference last week, DuPont announced its new product Fortasun™, which "increases durability, stability, productivity, and overall performance of solar panels and helps lower cost per kilowatt-hour and lower…
Shopping for luxury vehicles in a sustainable building
The indiGO Auto Group has selected Renova Energy to install a SunPower Helix Dual Tilt solar system on its new Porsche dealership. The LEED-certified building will allow future owners of Taycan—Porsche's first all-electric vehicle—to…
A total of oil, gas, and solar
Total S.A., one of the seven "Supermajor" oil companies in the world, started up commercial operation of a 25-MWp solar power plant, the company's second solar power plant in Japan. It is connected to the electricity distribution grid and…
First Solar powering Facebook
Amidst the recent trend of corporations supporting renewable energy, Facebook is directly investing in a 300 MWac solar project in Texas and will be purchasing power generated by a 122 MWac solar project in Utah. Both solar projects will…
First Solar and Capital Dynamics announce 280MW California Flats Solar Project
First Solar of Tempe, AZ, and private asset management firm Capital Dynamics announced the completion and commercial operation of the 280MWAC California Flats Solar Project, located on about 2900 acres near the borders of San Luis…
LG, sunny, and carbon-free
LG, one of the top patent holders in the Thin Film Photovoltaics sector, launched its aggressive Zero Carbon 2030 initiative this week. Part of its plan for carbon emission reduction is to expand renewable energy installations using solar…
Is it time for SunPower’s sunset?
Last year, SunPower had bought SolarWorld America's plant in Hillsboro for $26 million as part of its acquisition. It is now seeking to lease out a significant portion of the plant and sell the old cell-manufacturing equipment used by…
Are Tesla and Panasonic breaking up?
A Panasonic letter to US Customs officials revealed that most of the solar cells produced by its factory in upstate New York are, instead of being sold to Tesla as expected, being exported to foreign buyers, most notably in Asia. This news…
Panasonic partners with GS-Solar
Panasonic announced last week that it will transfer its solar manufacturing subsidiary, Panasonic Energy Malaysia, to GS-Solar, while separating its photovoltaic research and development function in order to establish a new company with…
Solar printing press
Researchers at the University of Louisville recently won a $1 million grant from the US Department of Energy to study the manufacture of thin solar panels by re-purposing printing presses. With the goal of reducing production costs, the…
Tesla expects sunny weather
Tesla is seeking to revive its residential solar business by selling solar panels and related equipment for up to 41 percent less than the national average price. It was able to cut prices via a series of operating cost reductions, such as…
The modern wings of Daedalus
Last week, Alta Devices, which focuses on solar panels designed specifically for UAV applications, introduced its new HALE solar product. It uses world-record efficiency single junction gallium-arsenide solar cells and meets the unique…
Corning both makes and uses solar cells
Corning announced on 4/4/2019 that it is building a solar array at its facility in Oneonta, NY. This solar project is Corning's first in New York state. Corning is one of the largest entities in the Substrate category of Thin Film…
Price of silver rising with the demand for solar
Thanks to its unique properties that make it the metal with the highest electrical and thermal conductivity, silver is an important material in the manufacture of solar panels, making up around 6% of the total cost. Researchers at Kent…
Patent Forecast® gives you AI-driven, interactive data that identifies key innovators and first movers.
