Major polysilicon and merchant cell producer Tongwei Group is to invest in an additional 32GW of solar cell capacity through a RMB12 billion (US$1.9 billion) investment in partnership with the government of Meishan City, in Sichuan Province, China. The capacity expansion will be conducted in two 16GW phases, Tongwei said, with the company aiming to bring the first phase of the project online by the end of 2023, after which work on the second phase will begin. Tongwei said in a stock statement that the new facility will be built on Qinglong Street, Tianfu New District, Meishan in cooperation with the local government. Tongwei has long held plans to ramp up its cell capacity and at the end of last month, it signed a two-year polysilicon deal with LONGi to supply the module maker with more than 200,000 metric tonnes (MT) of polysilicon. Last year, it also consolidated an agreement with ‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member JinkoSolar that saw Tongwei secure extra gigawatts of mono wafers through a supply agreement. Last month, Tongwei, which has forecasted for a six-fold increase in net profit in Q1 2022, reported that its revenue had increased by more than 50% in 2021 whilst suggesting that tight material supply meant that high prices were here to stay in the short term. Elsewhere, PV Tech’s head of market research Finlay Colville has mused that Tongwei could become the industry’s leading PV module supplier by 2025 if it pursues a vertically-integrated product strategy that would see it become the sector’s first polysilicon-to-module manufacturing entity.

Renewables investor Aquila European Renewables Income Fund has acquired a 100MWp solar PV portfolio currently in construction in Spain, doubling its portfolio’s current solar PV capacity. Aquila has signed a sale and purchase agreement, valued at around €90 million (US$99.13 million), with additional earn-out payments for a portfolio of two assets in the southern region of Andalusia. The earn-out payments are to be valued at up to 50% of the uplift of any power purchase agreement signed against a reference price agreed between the two parties. The Greco project is expected to be completed by the end of the year, once it receives authorisation from local authorities, and the company estimated its operating life to be 30 years. Ian Nolan, chairman at Aquila, said: “We are pleased to be able to secure another large scale, high quality solar PV project, which dramatically increases our allocation to solar system, in-line with our portfolio targets.” With the acquisition of the project, Aquila will double its solar panel capacity located in Portugal and Spain to 200MWp, and will increase its renewables portfolio by a third to a total of 432MW. Moreover, it is currently seeking to secure a power purchase agreement for the Greco project before it is completed. In 2020, Aquila entered the solar PV market in Portugal with its first acquisition of projects with a 20MWp capacity and last year acquired a 50% in a 60MWp plant in the Alentejo region.

Speaking at the Solar Finance and Investment Europe (SFIE) conference in London, hosted by PV Tech publisher Solar Media in London, Colville said that over the past year, especially since the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow in November, the demand for solar solar panels has increased. growth is unbelievable. "I've never seen such a drastic change in a 12-month period," Colville said. "Right now, everywhere is struggling to get limited supply of solar panels." Demand for solar panels is about 25-30% higher than industry supply, and about 30% of solar panels currently produced never leave China, which means the rest of the world is competing for the remaining 70%, he said. Polysilicon capacity remains an obvious bottleneck. Over the past 18 months, as demand for solar panels and polysilicon has surged, producers have been unable to ramp up capacity sufficiently to meet demand. The situation is further complicated by natural events and energy constraints curbing Chinese production capacity. As a result, Chinese polysilicon producers have hiked prices sharply, leading to an increase in gross operating profit of as much as 70 percent, Colville said. On the other hand, all new polysilicon facilities take around 18 months to be commissioned, which means a long wait with no short-term impact on module prices. For the same reason, new production plants outside China are unlikely to be opened. The 18-month timeframe required for the new polysilicon plant, the huge capital expenditure costs and energy intensity are the main risks facing developers, Colville said. Judging by the time it takes to build factories, prices could plummet, or China could squeeze new entrants out of the market, resulting in losses on the first day of business. Furthermore, these incremental capacity additions are small relative to China's capacity potential and have little impact on the final price of the developer's modules. Meanwhile, the Ukraine war may also put upward pressure on module prices. Increased demand for components to accelerate the development of renewable energy, coupled with a decline in Europe's reliance on Russian natural gas, will push up prices. Increased material costs from conflict could also lead to higher prices. In short, Colville's message to delegates at SFIE was not to expect component prices to drop for at least 18 months, or even two years. In the short term, the price may even rise, but for a while, there will be no material change in the price.

The 50.49KW on grid system solar power generation project of the experimental training building of Anhui Jianshe University's South Campus in Hefei City, Anhui Province, China was successfully on grid.

Guangxi Huadian Liuzhou Liudong New Area Phase II 15MW distributed solar energy system project was successfully connected to the state Grid on March 4. The solar panels of this project are all LONGI 540W Monocrystalline solar panels, and the inverters are HUAWEI 196KW on grid  inverters.  The total scale of the project is planned to be 15MW, and a total of 10 solar roofs will be constructed. After the project is completed, it is expected that the average annual solar energy system will be 14 million kwh, and the carbon dioxide emission will be reduced by about 13,000 tons.

On February 23, according to Yonhap News Agency, LG Electronics decided to withdraw from the solar panel business. As early as 2014, South Korea's Samsung and LG Electronics have withdrawn or reduced the scope of solar energy operations. LG decided to withdraw from the CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Selenide) thin film solar cell market, leaving only the crystalline silicon solar cell business. LG Electronics' decision to exit the solar panel business on February 22 was approved by LG's board of directors in South Korea after a comprehensive review of the impact of increased material and logistics costs and severe supply constraints on the solar business. Currently, LG Electronics is the second largest solar module manufacturer in South Korea. In 2020, LG Electronics ranked second in the U.S. residential solar market with a 13.3 percent market share, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. In addition, in the commercial solar market, LG Electronics ranked third with a 10.3% share. Facing stiff competition from Chinese rivals, it's not just South Korean manufacturers who are pulling out of the solar panel business. In January 2021, according to Nikkei, the Panasonic Group will withdraw from the production of solar cells and solar panels.

The construction of the On-grid Solar system 1.78MW photovoltaic roof project is completed! The project factory is located in Hefei City, Anhui Province, China. All use JA 540W solar panels, two pitched roofs and flat roofs, with different bracket designs.

As of 19:30 on February 9, the main London aluminium futures contract offer hovered at US$3205.8 per tonne, having hit its highest value since 2008 at US$3236 per tonne overnight. This means that London aluminium futures have continued to rise by more than 14% this year following a 42% rise last year, making it one of the best performing metals on the London Metal Exchange so far this year. "At the moment, the London aluminium futures rally is looking unstoppable." A Wall Street commodity investment type hedge fund manager to reporters straight. since February, many hedge funds scrambled into the period aluminum market to buy up arbitrage, to beat the drum type aggressive position building way to push the London period aluminum in breakthrough 3000 U.S. dollars / ton integer mark, quickly to 3250 U.S. dollars / ton approaching. "Tightening supply and demand is indeed one of the fundamental reasons driving London aluminium futures prices higher by the day." The above-mentioned Wall Street commodity-investing hedge fund manager pointed out.   Aluminum ingot accumulation during the Spring Festival was lower than the average of previous years. According to SMM data, as of February 7, 2022, the Spring Festival period domestic aluminum ingot inventory increased by 140,000 tons to 866,000 tons, from the law of previous years, before the holiday downstream factory holiday, aluminum ingot inventory often began to increase, according to the average value of the past five years, the Spring Festival accumulation of about 180,000 tons, and this year, the accumulation of significantly lower than in previous years. Behind the soaring aluminum prices, on the one hand, is to Europe mainly in the region of high energy prices, resulting in smelters cost pressure. On the other hand, as the world's major aluminum exporters, Russia and Ukraine's dispute once again to the global aluminum supply overshadowed a layer of worrying. In addition to Baise due to the impact of the epidemic electrolytic aluminum enterprises have planned to reduce production, after the Spring Festival, Jin Lu Yu area due to environmental protection policy led to alumina reduction production, superimposed on some of the overseas production reduction news are pushing up aluminum prices. Industry general analysis that, in accordance with the situation of the epidemic clearing in various regions, it is difficult to recover within a short period of time in the region.