Monocrystalline
July 7, 2013
China Sunenergy China Sunenergy (CSUN) is a Chinese solar company which used to produce solar cells initially. Later, the company expanded into solar panel production, with solar […]
December 3, 2012
US Solar Panel Manufacturers have been under siege from cheap Chinese solar panel imports leading to a closure of a number of solar module factories. Small […]
November 30, 2012
Grape Solar Panels Updated on 20/4/2016 Grape Solar is an American company, incorporated in the States of Delaware, Oregon in 2009. The company is headquartered in Eugene, […]
November 9, 2012
Ramsond claims to have an annual capacity production of 300 MW with a capability of meeting the demand of any size solar power project. Ramsond’s range […]
November 8, 2012
Juli New Energy Solar Panels Juli New Energy Co Ltd. is a subsidiary of the Juli Group. It is in business since the last 28 years. […]
October 27, 2012
Instapark Instapark is a Solar Panel Distributor focusing on the North American market and was established in 2001. Besides Solar Modules, Instapark is also a major […]
October 24, 2012
Simax Simax Solar is an integrated Chinese manufacturer which makes silicon ingots, solar wafer, cells, modules and solar PV systems. Simax is a relatively small company […]
October 17, 2012
NESL Changzhou NESL Solartech Co Ltd. was founded in 2006, with an initial registered capital of 50 million RMB. NESL is a state owned Chinese company […]
October 16, 2012
Updated on: 22/6/2016 Chaori Solar was the first company in China to undergo the first bond default and filed for bankruptcy in July 2014. GCL-New Energy […]
October 15, 2012
Tianwei Solar Panels Tianwei New Energy is located in in west China. Tianwei New Energy Holdings Co Ltd. (TWNE) is an affiliate of China South Industries […]
October 6, 2012
Jinko Solar Updated on: 13/10/2014 Jinko Solar works on a vertically integrated model, producing crystalline ingots, wafers, cells, and crystalline PV panels. The company is one […]
October 1, 2012
Renesola was established in 2005 and is a leading global photovoltaic manufacturer. The company has its own R&D team and advanced production equipment. Renesola is a […]
September 28, 2012
LDK Solar is one of the biggest producer of solar wafers that are used by crystalline solar panels. LDK Solar was established in 2005 in China. […]
September 27, 2012
Updated on: 21/06/2016 Trina Solar Panel Reviews Trina Solar is one of the lowest cost manufacturers of Solar Panels. This is the reason that the company […]
September 11, 2012
Hanwha SolarOne Hanwha Group is one of Korea’s top ten enterprises. In 2010, Hanwha Group achieved total assets of approximately USD83 billion and total sales of […]
June 27, 2012
Astronergy was founded in 2006 and is the solar subsidiary of the Chint Group. As a leading integrated solar manufacturer, Astronergy specializes in research, development & […]
June 26, 2012
Talesun is an international manufacturer of solar cells and modules with offices in Munich, San Jose and Shanghai. The photovoltaic solar cells and modules are manufactured in China […]
June 13, 2012
Updated on: 8/06/2016 About Yingli Green Energy Yingli Green Energy is one of the oldest Chinese companies and is completely integrated from polysilicon. Currently Yingli is […]
February 23, 2012
China which is the world's largest provider of solar panels made from crystalline silicon is seeing a large number of smaller polysilicon companies go bankrupt or stop production. The reason is that for many of the smaller companies the price of polysilicon is $25-30/kg while the costs are $40-50/kg .This means that the smaller companies are making massive losses with the production of each kg of polysilicon. Note Polysilicon is a commodity industry like the memory industry and goes through periodic ups and downs when prices can go much below costs. In recent years a large number of companies set up polysilicon plants to benefit from the massive growth in the solar panel demand in Europe. However a massive glut in 2011 led the prices to fall across the supply chain of silicon solar panels. Poly prices fell from a high of $100/kg to $25/kg a drop of almost 75% in one year. This has made many of the smaller poly plants in China stop production as the price is below variable costs. The bigger producers like GCL , Renesola and Daqo have lower costs at around $25-30/kg which means they are breaking even . However for smaller companies the situation is dire as massive capacity expansion by the top polysilicon producers will continue in 2012 keeping prices at around the same level.
January 4, 2012
Smaller Polysilicon producers with small sizes and higher costs are going bust almost everyday.With poly prices falling below $30/kg even bigger producers with inefficient plants like MEMC have been forced to curtain capacity.The smaller poly producers with 2000-3000 tons capacity have virtually no future.With poly expansion still taking place by big producers even in an oversupplied market the small fish are having the capitulate.
July 7, 2011
Photovoltaic Module demand has increased by more than 50% each year in the last decade as solar panel costs have gone down sharply by almost 80% in the last 4 years alone as scale and technology have improved.Photovoltaic Modules are a combination of solar cells which generate electricity when light strikes them.Photovoltaic is the name given to this process where electrons are released when photo or light transfer its energy to the solar cells.The following article covers a large amount of literature on Photovoltaic Modules from its costs to selling prices as well as the efficiency of the Photovoltaic Module which affects the Energy Output.There are hundreds of Photovoltaic Module Manufacturers but only a few major ones.There are reviews on the major Photovoltaic Module Suppliers and Market as well.
July 6, 2011
SunForce is a good marketer and distributor of solar and wind energy products,however it is not a manufacturer of these products.Buying Solar Panels from Sharp does not make too much sense as Sharp Solar Panels are expensive and on top of that you have to pay a margin to SunForce as well.SunForce Foldable and CIGs Thin Film 12V Solar Products also don't list a manufacturer nor do their solar inverters.SunForce does not look like the type of company who could make a technologically advanced products like a CIGs Solar Panels.You are better off buying charge controllers and solar panels directly from manufacturers rather than using SunForce.For some Solar Battery Kits SunForce might make sense as they have a good distribution.
July 6, 2011
Polycrystalline silicon or Polysilicon( poly-Si or "poly") is a material consisting of multiple small silicon crystals.The difference between Silicon Metal and Polysilicon is that Poly is highly pure form of silicon and is much costlier.Polycrystalline silicon can be as much as 99.9999% pure (also known as 4N pure,the 4 denotes the number of 9s after the decimal point).Polysilicon was primarily used by the semi industry till 5-6 years ago and the electronic industry used 9N pure polysilicon.The Solar Industry which has become the main user of polysilicon nowadays can do with 6N pure poly.
Polysilicon is refined to single crystal polysilicon before it can be used by the semiconductor industry.However solar cells can be made even from multicrystalline polysilicon.Monocrystalline solar cells on the other hand are made of single crystal polysilicon and have higher efficiency than those made from multicrystalline polysilicon.Polycrystalline cells can be recognized by a visible grain, a “metal flake effect”. Semiconductor grade (also solar grade) polycrystalline silicon is converted to "single crystal" silicon – meaning that the randomly associated crystallites of silicon in "polycrystalline silicon" are converted to a large "single" crystal.
July 6, 2011
New Solar Panels and New Scientific Breakthroughs in Solar Technology it seems are reported every month.But Solar Energy is still not competitive with Fossil Fuel Energy despite its obvious advantages.The costs of Solar Energy are declining quickly but they remain still some way from being on par with the dirty forms of energy like Coal.The reason for all these new exciting technologies which are reported in newspaper not being able to bring a fundamental change in the energy scenario is that the costs are too high.Bringing a new solar panel technology from the lab to the factory takes a lot of time and effort.During this time the incumbent technology like crystalline solar technology keeps advancing due to the massive global R&D dollars that are spend and the rising scale.This had made many new startups in solar technology like Solyndra ,Spectrawatt and others bite the dust.You can read about the large number of solar failures in the first wave of thin film solar bankruptcies .
July 6, 2011
What is a Solar Cell
A solar cell is an electrical device that converts light energy directly into electricity by the photovoltaic effect.Note Solar Cells can be made of many materials like Silicon,Cadmium Tellerium,CIGS and even on Organic Substrates.However almost 90% of the Solar Cells produced in the world currently are made of crystalline silicon.The drastic fall in prices of silicon solar cells has seen an explosive growth in demand with solar cell supply increasing by almost 50% per year in the last decade.
July 6, 2011
Kaneka is a Japanese company which is present in a number of product categories like chemicals,functional and expandable plastic products, foodstuffs, life science products and synthetic fibers.However the main focus of the company is in Thin Film Solar Panels.Kaneka has been developing amorphous silicon thin film technology since 1980 and has advanced manufacturing into developing higher efficiency tandem microcrystalline silicon solar panels.The company also sells transperant see through solar panels.Note Thin Film Technology is facing existential threat from the rapid price reduction in the mainstream crystalline silicon technology which comprises about 85% of the global solar panel market.Kaneka sells its solar modules under the HYBRID brand name which refers to its hybrid tandem thin film silicon technology.Note other companies like Sanyo,Mitsubishi.Oerlikon have also developed this form of technology which gives higher efficiency solar panels as it captures a bigger part of the solar spectrum.
July 6, 2011
Solar Panels are sold by hundreds of companies around the world ranging from small to very large and comes in various shapes and sizes as well.Besides this solar panels are also made of very different materials for example silicon solar panels and thin film solar panels.So comparing solar panels and choosing a solar panel is a very difficult process if you want the best solar panel according to your need.The most efficiency solar panels are needed in cases where the land area or rooftop area is at a premium.Note a typical 200-250 watt solar panel requires an area of 60x38 inches which means an area of around 2000 square inches.1 megawatt of solar panels would require an area of between 5-10 acres of land depending on the efficiency of the solar panels.However this can be reduced by using solar trackers which can increase the output of solar panels though they to increase the area requirement slightly.Also the area also depends on the location of the place since a place recieving high sunlight for example California would require lesser area for generating the same amount of electricity compared to London (upto 30% fewer solar panels).Note solar panels with higher efficiency have a higher price tag associated with them since they require higher cost to manufacture.The most efficiency solar panels which are used in spacecraft and have a efficiency of around 35-40% may cost upto 100 times more than the normal silicon solar panel.
July 6, 2011
Types of Solar Panels Explained (Amorphous,Polycrystalline,Monocrystalline with Efficiency) for Home
Types of Solar Panels have increased manifold with the surging global solar demand fueled by falling prices of solar panels/modules.Note Solar Panels prices would have fallen by around 75% in 3 years which is a record for any energy let alone solar energy.This has made Solar Electricity on par with Electricity prices in a number of places globally.The number of manufacturers of solar panels too has increased drastically particuarly in China and Asia.The range of technologies being used to made solar panels has also increased in tandem.However polyscrystalline silicon solar panels continues to be the king of solar panels accounting for a lion's share of solar panels produced globally (around 75% according to my estimates).Each Solar Panel Technology differs from others in terms of efficiency and price.They also differ in their electricity production capabilities depending on temperature.They also differ in weight and flexibility.The Sizes of Solar Panels are also quite different and different powered solar panels are required for different applications.For a small power need like charging a mobile phone only a 5-20 watt solar panel would do while for powering a solar house you would need a number of 200-300 watt solar panels.
July 6, 2011
Solar Panels are now available from hundreds of different manufacturers using different technologies like crystalline Silicion,CIGs and Cd-Te.The Solar Panels Efficiency also varies a lot depending on the solar panel manufacturer and the technology used.The cost of the solar panel can also vary a lot depending on the retailer,size of the solar panel,technology and the brand.This makes buying solar panels a confusing problem though most residential and commercial buyers are not involved leaving the decision to the solar installer/EPC company.Sunpower is a US company which makes the most efficient solar panels using its monocrystalline solar cell technology which gives efficiency of more than 24%.The company sells black solar panels with efficiency of 18-20% .The company is a solar system integrator and developer as well building some of the largest solar farms in the US.The company was recently bought by the French Oil Giant Total.Sunpower operates in all the main segments of the market and has reputation for selling some of the highest quality solar panels in the country.
July 6, 2011
Amorphous Silicon Solar Panels were the big rage in 2-3 years ago when the prices of polysilicon the main raw material were touching $500/kg making the mainstream crystalline silicon solar panels very expensive.Amorphous Silicon (a-Si) on the other hand is a non-crystalline silicon which is deposited as an extremely thin layer on glass and other substrates.The cost of the silicon is much lower though the efficiency of solar cells which are made from a-Si is about half of those made from crystalline silicon.Applied Materials with its SunFab turnkey amorphous silicon (a-Si) equipment capitalized on this opportunity, lining up a number of customers with some customer orders in the range of a Billion Dollars.Oerlikon Solar was the other major thin film equipment market winning customers in Europe and China.Sky high poly prices also gave birth to numerous Thin Film startups planning to Manufacture and Use their own equipment rather than selling it .