There should be no surprises regarding the top five ranked PV module manufacturers in 2015, as they form the backbone of the key six-member ‘Silicon Module Super League’ (SMSL), which PV Tech highlighted in late November 2015.

The Top 10 PV module manufacturers list for 2015 is based on actual module shipments through the first nine months of last year and guidance figures as well as detailed analysis of over 45 leading manufacturers’ expected shipments for the full year.  

One of the challenges in assessing module shipments of the top 10 producers last year was the rapidly deteriorating business position of SMSL member, Yingli Green. 

Click Here to Read Full Article

May 3 (SeeNews) – US conglomerate General Electric (NYSE:GE) will supply 220 MW of its LV5 Series solar inverters for the second stage of the up to 5-GW Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum project in Dubai.

GE expects to start deliveries of the products this summer. The inverters are part of a frame agreement between the US company and Spanish engineering, procurement and construction firm TSK, which won the right to build the solar park alongside Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power International.

Click Here to Read Full Article

After a record-breaking 2015, GTM Research expects the global solar PV market to grow 21 percent and add 66 gigawatts of capacity by the end of the 2016. Tempered by policy pullbacks across major markets China, Japan and the U.K., PV growth will slow in 2017, but the market will reach 95 annual gigawatts by 2020.

Below are some of the key trends GTM Research identified in its new report, Global Solar Demand Monitor: Q2 2016.

Click Here to Read Full Article

Windows and solar panels in the future could be made from one of the best — and cheapest — construction materials known: wood. Researchers at Stockholm’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology have developed a new transparent wood material that’s suitable for mass production.  

Lars Berglund, a professor at Wallenberg Wood Science Center at KTH, says that while optically transparent wood has been developed for microscopic samples in the study of wood anatomy, the KTH project introduces a way to use the material on a large scale. The finding was published in the American Chemical Society journal, Biomacromolecules.

Click Here to Read Full Article

Embattled renewables firm SunEdison has disclosed that it has received a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) regarding the failed acquisition of Vivint Solar and related actions associated with its two yieldco subsidiaries.

SunEdison said in an SEC filing the following:

On March 28, 2016, SunEdison, Inc. (the “Company”) received a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice (the “DOJ”) seeking information and documentation relating to: (i) certain financing activities in connection with the Company’s acquisition of Vivint Solar, Inc., (ii) the conduct of a former non-executive employee who is alleged to have committed wrongdoing in connection with the Vivint termination negotiations, (iii) the previously disclosed investigations by the Company’s audit committee, (iv) intercompany transactions involving the Company and each of TerraForm Power Inc. and TerraForm Global Inc. and (v) the financing of the Company’s Uruguay projects in connection with project costs and equity contributions that remain to be contributed by the Company and the DOJ may have additional requests.

Click Here to Read Full Article