REVIEW PHOTOVOLTAICS NEWS USA: Punitive duties for Chinese solar imports? International The escalating trade row between istence and magnitude of the dumping. Af- the US and China could soon also ter investigation is initiated, the Interna- NEWS reach the PV branch. While the Solar Pow- tional Trade Commission will decide er International (SPI) trade show was tak- whether the domestic industry is material- REC will close production ing place in Dallas, a group of companies, ly injured or threatened of the dumped in Norway organised as Coalition for American Solar and subsidiarised imports. As a result, du- Manufacturing, filed a petition claiming ties on Chinese panels could be imposed REC intends to permanently shut down a for the imposition of punitive duties on so- – earliest after 3 months – equal to the large part of its production capacity in Nor- lar imports from China. The seven peti- dumping margin and the subsidy rates. An way. At the end of September, the Board of Directors tioners accuse Chinese PV manufacturers interesting twist is that payments then are announced that the decision had been taken to hold of illegally dumping crystalline solar cells to be due also retrospectively for goods talks with employee representatives about the per- into the US market – at margins “well in delivered in the period since the petition manent closure of some of the company’s Norwe- excess of 100 %”. The petition also as- was filed. The mood among Chinese com- gian production sites – including redundancies. The serts that the Chinese producers receive panies at SPI was understandably sub- units to be closed are polysilicon wafer factories in massive illegal subsidies from their gov- dued. „We’re prepaired and have already Herøya and Glomfjord and the cell factory in Narvik. ernment. The US Department of Commerce taken attorneys on bord who will accom- In total, 700 members of staff may be affected. (DOC) now has to decide whether to inves- pany the procedure“, commented a lead- The reasons are the continuing difficult market tigate the case and then determine the ex- ing Chinese manufacturer. conditions and the prospect of substantial losses (“negative cash flow”). The implementation of the planned measures will reduce the production of sili- German solar installations undergo con wafers by about 775 MW annually, which repre- end-of-year resurgence sents 45 % of REC’s Norwegian wafer capacity. At the same time, 180 MW of solar cell production ca- The market research bureau IHS The rapid rise in demand is presenting pacity will be discontinued. Operations in Herøya iSuppli sees a rising demand for challenges for the leading solar suppliers, will continue at a level of 650 MW of wafers annual- PV systems in Germany at the end of this which are based in China. “Given the slug- ly, and monocrystalline wafer production in Glom- year. After slumping in July and August, gish demand in the third quarter, the ma- fjord will go on with an annual capacity of 300 MW. Germany’s orders for new photovoltaic jor Chinese suppliers reduced their factory The cell and module factory in Singapore (PV) systems are set to soar in October utilization levels in the third quarter,” said (700 MW) and polysilicon production in the US and November, generating a surge in de- Dr. Henning Wicht, Senior Director and (19,000 t/a) would continue to operate at full ca- mand that may be difficult for major sup- principal analyst for IHS. “Because of this, pacity. While REC President Ole Enger considers this pliers to accommodate. some Chinese suppliers may not be able “an unfortunate, but necessary step”, the Norwe- The boom is driven by the drop in the to ramp up production in time to capitalize gian public has started discussing whether, and in country’s feed-in-tariff (FIT) in January of on the demand surge in Germany. With which way, the solar industry could be kept in the next year. Investors and homeowners are delivery times of six weeks, these suppli- country. In the Norwegian edition of the business rushing to place orders for solar systems ers have a short window of opportunity to newspaper E24, Roar Flåthen, the President of the before this incentive decreases. The spike get their products shipped to Germany.” Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions and a in demand had been expected since July. Even with the fourth-quarter increase Labour Party politician, called for a public debate However, due to decreasing PV module in orders, Germany’s solar installations about the future of the solar industry. prices, buyers were compelled to post- are expected to decrease to 5.9 GW for the Flåthen pointed out that Norway has spent con- pone their orders until cost conditions full year of 2011 compared to 7.4 GW in siderable amounts of money in recent years on re- were more favourable. 2010. search into environmentally sound energies. If the solar industry is weakened even further, there is a risk that research results and competence will leave Gujarati canal to be covered with solar panels the country and spur growth abroad, without any profit for Norway. “We need a debate about how we The state of Gujarat, India, in- working on the project have also been can prevent this from happening.” tends to develop a unique model asked to investigate the feasibility of to generate clean energy from the Narma- hanging micro-hydropower turbines from REC’s polysilicon wafer factory in da canals that is bound to draw the atten- the array of solar panels so that when wa- Glomfjord will be closed. Photo: REC tion of the world. The Narmada canals ter flows through the canal electricity is constitute one of the world’s largest canal generated.” networks. On a pilot basis, around 25 km of the Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of the Narmada branch canal network will be State said: “We have concluded that by covered with solar panels. Since the canal covering one kilometre of the Narmada network passes near villages, energy branch canal network with solar panels, could easily be distributed to them direct- 1 MW of power can be generated, and in ly without any risk of theft, and the sys- the process 10 million litres of water can tem would be a unique integrated model be saved from evaporation. The engineers of clean energy generation. 6 Sun & Wind Energy 11/2011 » Forget about oil. Solar electricity is the energy of the 21st century.*« Larry Hagman, also known as the oil tycoon from the TV series “Dallas”, always had an intuition for profi table businesses. Now he focuses on clean energy made from the sun and sand, and on solar electricity systems from SolarWorld – winner of the Photon performance test in 2008 and 2009. High performance, German technology. Find out more about our smart solar solutions at www.solarworld.com * On his farm in Ojai, California, Larry Hagman established the largest residential solar power system of the Unites States. REVIEW CSP NEWS Novatec creates solar thermal steam at 500 °C Novatec Solar has further developed electricity generation. “Through the use of su- operation with 1.4 MW of electrical capacity. the design of its receiver and can perheated steam, standard turbines with a The company is currently building its second now use solar thermal technology to produce high efficiency can now be used”, explains project, Puerto Errado 2, which will have a ca- superheated steam with a temperature of Martin Selig, Board Member for Market and pacity of 30 MW. Both power stations, how- over 500 °C. To do this, Novatec uses a linear Product Development at Novatec Solar. The ever, still work with significantly lower tem- Fresnel collector to focus the sunlight onto German Aerospace Centre (DLR) will carry out peratures. In Australia, the company has re- vacuum-insulated receiver tubes. These con- performance tests on the superheating equip- cently gained a contract for a solar field that tain water, which is heated and vaporized us- ment. The results will then form the basis for will be attached to an existing coal-fired pow- ing the solar energy. The development to future CSP projects using superheated steam. er station. This will not make the power sta- these higher temperatures was mainly moti- In March 2009, Novatec put its first com- tion CO2-neutral, but will reduce its fossil fuel vated by the resulting gain in efficiency of the mercial power station Puerto Errado 1 into requirement. Solar thermal molding The US Company LightManufactur- ing launched a new system for mold- ing of plastics that is based on concentrated solar irradiation. LightManufacturing’s “So- lar Rotational Molding” system uses a solar field with heliostats that track the sun and re- flect the sun’s irradiation onto a rotating hol- low mold, which heats to several hundreds degrees in a few seconds and molds the plastic. “Rotational molding has a long cycle time – e.g. 15 to 30 minutes, and an opera- tor can adjust cycle times to accommodate greater or lower levels of heat”, explains Karl von Kries, President of LightManufacturing. To adjust the temperature, it is possible to fo- At its California test facility, LightManufacturing has successfully made a range of plastic cus additional or less heliostats to the hol- parts, from water tanks to loudspeaker enclosures to household goods. low. Photo: LightManufacturing LLC In contrary to common rotational molding, Of course you can’t use the solar system facturing estimates that about 49 % of the the solar system heats the plastics directly. by night and need good solar irradiation. But earth’s surface affords feasible conditions. Normally, air is heated up by gas firing to the company states that the system can be Its system can work with traditional oil- 200 to 320 °C.