Trends of the solar panel development

The progress of technological development in Solar is impressive and it is driven by the economical environment in most Countries. The cost of photovoltaic cells falls 20% while doubling of the global capacity. This is the so called “Swanson Effect” after Richard Swanson who founded SunPower, the big US-based solar cell manufacturing company. The chart is came from Economist and proves this effect very much. The charts shows the relative price of one watt solar panel power in US dollar. This trend supports the investors and helps to develop solar projects. One recent news proves is as well. One of the most important parameter of the solar panels is the efficiency. Increasing the efficiency is always one of the most important trend. This would be the key factor for repowering of the Solar PV plant in the future. If we consider the speed of efficiency increase we can estimate that the power of the standards panels will be doubled within ten years while the prices expected to decrease significantly. The space requirements and the substructure can be the same, the modules and the electrical systems should be reinstall and the benefit will be double power and energy generation. This is a potential upside of our activity as well. This trend is supported by the recent announcement of SolarWord. The Company introduced their newly developed second generation PERC solar PV panel. The utilized new technologies result 306 watts output power for the panel while the dimension is stayed the same as the standard 60 cells module. The parameters of the new module is certified by TÜV Rheinland. SolarWorld currently produces low cost solar cells and modules in the range of 260-275 Wp. In addition of the higher power the new panel has more favorable advantages: Lower annual degradation of the power and higher durability.

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