EGEB: China carbon market, black silicon, mono-si bifacial PERC cells (say that five times fast), more

Electrek Green Energy Brief: A daily technical, financial, and political review/analysis of important green energy news.

China’s Carbon Market Shows How U.S. Is Falling Behind – China is really taking the bull by the horns to manage emissions in the power sector. It’s a significant structural shift, but they legitimized the concept of cap-and-trade in these seven pilot programs that started after 2008. China had 10 years to train people and let them learn the ropes of carbon trading. They were a de facto university for a generation of emissions-market traders. The rest of the world has pretty much lost a decade. A smart friend of mine once told me – There are four stages of knowledge, first – you don’t know what you don’t know, then you know what you don’t know, next you don’t know what you know – and finally – you know what you know. I say that because, I don’t think I know what I don’t know about the ‘ropes’ of the carbon trading market.

India Consider 7.5% Tariff on Imported Solar Panels – Two key points, first, India is thinking about taxing panels like an engine since it generates a current. Interesting. Second, 7.5% on a 30¢/W solar panels equals 2.25¢/W. Is 2.25¢/W enough to support Indian panel manufacturers? Will they need other government support to get on their feet? If only for the purpose of creating competition between the soon to be, two most powerful countries/companies on the planet, I do hope for India’s success.

Suntech’s black silicon solar cells enter mass production – Targeting an annual capacity of 500 MW by Q1 2018. “Suntech’s R&D team has effectively fixed all the issues related to diamond wire sawing of multi-crystalline silicon wafers in mass production with self-developed metal assisted chemical etching,” says the company in a statement released. Natcore, a U.S.-based company that holds the license for a black silicon process originally developed by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), says its main interest lies in the technology’s anti-reflective properties. Black silicon will make residential customers who have a flair for aesthetics happy. They’ll also deliver a small boost of productivity – the nature of using black. Canadian Solar moved all 4GW of the polysilicon to black silicon. That’s an argument for watching this product.

Aiko Solar ramps up mono-Si bifacial PERC cell production – Aiko said it completed production capacity of 1.35GWp for mono-Si bifacial PERC cells at its factory in Foshan, southern China in June 2017, and 2.65GWp at another in Yiwu, eastern China at year-end 2017. The energy conversion rate for the front side of mono-Si bifacial PERC cells produced by Aiko exceeds 21.5% and the back side is over 15.0%, and average light-induced degradation for such cells is less than 1.5% after generating electricity of 20kWh, according to the company. In the right setting, these products are going to break 25-26-27% (or more?). I’m working on a metal roof right now that the manufacturer says has a 60% solar reflectivity value – that turns the backside 15% efficiency into an 8-9% total panel efficiency boost (I think). Tentatively looking to deploy these products on white roofs.

How Climate Change Deniers Rise to the Top in Google Searches – My first auto-suggest search result says, ‘Climate Change is a Chinese Hoax.’ I don’t get ANY ads related to this search. They know better than to put that crap in front of me, but their search results don’t fare too well. Link farms and paid ads are creeping into our reality because the liars need to manipulate us to keep their margins in place.

Tweeting this one again: Nearly 2/3rds of India’s coal power generation is no longer price competitive with electricity from new solar PV or wind projects. Shutting coal down would save money for Indian consumers, reduce air pollution and water scarcity. https://t.co/Y0q9SM4rd5

— Harri Lammi (@harrilammi) January 4, 2018

Good. While I do feel for the humans losing their jobs, as I was laid off back in August and it hurts, the world needs to let go. I feel for the former 98% agricultural workers in the US. I feel for the stable people who lost out to the car. I feel for the accountants doing tables that lost jobs to MS Excel and the typists that lost to copy machines and desktop computers. However, they must go. It is the nature of change in a universe that cares about our progress forward, not our momentary comfort.

Weekly Price Summary: Module Prices Reflect a Downtrend #PV #Solarhttps://t.co/Dc3B0eQ0b9

— InfoLink Consulting (@InfoLinkConsult) January 4, 2018

Solar panel pricing nudging downward.

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