Asia & Oceania

At the UK launch of LONGi’s Hi-MO 9 module, PV Tech spoke with the company’s Europe president, Leon Zhang, about his belief that back contact technology represents the future of crystalline silicon PV.

The Queensland, Australia, state election result has seen David Crisafulli’s right-wing Liberal National Party (LNP) of Queensland elected to lead the government, raising questions about legislated renewable energy targets, coal-fired power, and nuclear energy.

The company attributed this loss to the ongoing decline in the average selling prices of polysilicon and silicon wafer products.

The latest figures from the Silicon Branch of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association showed that polysilicon prices have remained flat.

Oil and gas major bp has officially acquired solar PV developer Lightsource bp, securing the remaining 50.03% interest in the company.

Utility giant Engie’s Australian division has started construction on its 250MW Goorambat East solar PV project in Victoria, Australia.

Chinese module manufacturer Trina Solar has achieved a 25.9% cell efficiency for a bifacial i-TOPCON solar cell.

Fierce competition and the emergence of technologies such as TOPCon have led to an uptick in the prevalence of patent infringement lawsuits between PV companies. Tom Kenning reports.

JinkoSolar has launched its latest range of modules, the Tiger Neo 3.0 series, which boast a power conversion efficiency of 24.8%.

LONGi and the School of Materials at Sun Yat-sen have developed HJT back contact solar cells with a power conversion efficiency of 27.09%.