Website: The company's website address. For most of the companies we show their normal homepage, but for some big companies active in many areas we may show the direct link to the PV section of their website to save our user's time in finding the section.

Email: The email address to directly contact the company. Usually it is the email address of the sales department, the general company 'info' address or the person in charge of PV for the company. All the email addresses listed are gathered from the official websites of the companies, or from other confirmed sources of information collected by ENF. We will review and update the email addresses of companies in our database on a fairly regular basis to ensure they are reliable.

Phone: The phone number to directly contact the company. Usually it is the phone number of the reception or sales department. All the phone numbers listed are gathered from the official websites of the companies, or from other information confirmed to be accurate by ENF. We will review and update the phone numbers of companies in our database on a fairly regular basis to ensure they are reliable.

Fax: The fax number to directly contact the company. Usually it is the fax number of the general reception. All the fax numbers listed are gathered from the official websites of the companies, or from other information confirmed to be accurate by ENF. We will review and update the fax numbers of companies in our database on a fairly regular basis to ensure they are reliable.

Number of staff: How many staff the solar power company has. If the company does not just operate in solar power and has 10 or more employees, then the listing shows in the form: How many staff working with solar power products (How many staff in the whole company).

Revenue €/year: How much money the company made in the stated year by selling solar products. This measure is used to give a relative industry importance for each company. Only the revenue from solar products is taken.

Region [country]: The region where the head office of the company is located.

Countries operating in (installation): Which countries the company is undertaking solar installations in. This should be a measure of the companies' active dealings, rather than a general willingness to go anywhere if the price is right.

Last update: The latest date that ENF has updated some detail of this company's profile.

Key customers: Usually most manufacturers will have certain companies which they sell large amounts of their production to or with which they maintain a good and long-term business relationship with. These companies will be listed as key customers.

[Component] Brand score: The average score out of 5 stars for the company's product quality and value for money.  These scores have come from a global survey conducted by ENF among 300 PV installation companies around the world, asking the companies to score the PV components they had purchased recently.

[Inverter] On-grid inverter: An electrical device regulating the amount of voltage and current that is received from the direct current (DC) solar panels and converting this into alternating current (AC). This kind of inverter is designed to be connected to public electrical grids for PV system owners to sell their electricity to power companies / the government.

[Inverter] Off-grid inverter: An inverter used to convert DC electricity (normally from a battery) to AC electricity, for use in a PV system that is independent from the power grid.

[Inverter] Power range (kWp): The range of normal AC power output from the various types of inverter the company can manufacture.

[Tracker] Axis number: There can be no more than 2 axis in one tracker - one to make the panel track the sun from east to west, and the other make the panel move slowly from north to south or south to north in order to adjust to the angle change caused by Earth's revolution about the sun. 2-axis trackers will maximize the possible daily energy absorption.

[Tracker] Square meter max: The number of square meters of solar panels the biggest solar tracker produced by the company can hold.

[Battery] Battery capacity: Battery capacity refers to the total number of ampere-hours that can be withdrawn from a fully charged battery (we have based our calculations on an average of capacity of 20 AH).

[Battery] GEL: Valve Regulated Lead Acid Battery of Gel Cell. In this traditional type of VRLA, the electrolyte is flooded by the addition of silica gel that turns the liquid into a gelled mass.

[Battery] AGM: Valve Regulated Lead Acid Battery of Absorbed Glass Mat (AGM). This battery uses a fibrous silica glass mat to suspend the electrolyte. This material provides pockets that assist in the recombination of gasses generated during charging, and limit the amount of hydrogen gas produced.

[Mounting system] Ground mounting system: A system designed for hold the panels on the ground, a flat roof or any other flat surface. It is usually a large rack set at a certain angle, into which the panels be assembled to make a tilt-up array.

[Mounting system] On-roof mounting system: For pitched roofs, panels also need some mounting system, but in most situations the on-roof mounting system is smaller than a ground mounting system.

[Mounting system] Integrated mounting system: A mounting system that integrates the PV system into the building's core structure (replacing existing materials, rather than sitting above the existing roof). Usually call BIPV witch means Building Integrated Photovoltaic.

[Controller] Charge controller: Mostly used for off-grid systems, it helps to control and make the battery safe. This device can be integrated in inverter we will call it inverter charger (you can find it in the inverter categories). Charge controller can be called battery charger or controller charger.

Equipment types: The function of the equipment the company makes. 

Material type: The different types of PV-related materials that the company provides.

[Production equipment] Deposition Type:
There are 2 families:
- Physical Vapour Deposition has two main types: Evaporation by thermal evaporation, or E-beam evaporation and DC/RF sputtering.

- Chemical Vapour Deposition which has different types: Low Pressure CVD, Plasma Enhanced CVD, Atmosphere Pressure CVD and Metal Organic CVD.

[Cell production equipment] Cell Handling System: An automatic assembly line used to speed up the cell making process and save human labour. Usually it contains: Speed up and speed down belts, rotator, pitch adjuster, turning station, waste-gate, pick & place, buffer, barcode-reader, transponder, wafer tracking, etc.

[Film] Encapsulation Type:

EVA: Abbr. for ethylene-vinyl acetate. Film used during the encapsulation of the cells.
TPE: Abbr. for Tedlar (also known as PVF), polyester (PET) and EVA. Film usually used as back sheet.
TPT: Abbr. for Tedlar (also known as PVF), polyester (PET) and Tedlar. Film usually used as back sheet.
PET: Abbr. for Polyethylene Terephthalate. Film used during production for encapsulating cells.
TCO: Abbr. for Transparent Conductive Oxide Film. Substrate for thin-film silicon solar cells.

[Cell] Sell out / Use for panels: Whether a cell manufacturer sells their cells to other companies (Sell out) or they use their cells in their own factories to make panels (Use for Panels)

[Cell] Cell Manufacturing Equipment Suppliers: The suppliers of equipment used for manufacturing solar cells.

[Cell] Cell Technology: The type of solar cell being manufactured, or being used to manufacture panels. Solar cells can be categorised by technology (polycrystalline and monocrystalline) and by size (eg. 125*125mm or 156*156mm).

[Panel] Panel Manufacturing Equipment Suppliers: The suppliers of equipment used for manufacturing solar panels.

[Panel] Panel Technology: Technology adopted by panel manufacturers.  Commonly used panel technologies used in PV systems include monocrystalline, polycrystalline and amorphous.

[Solar Products] Product Types: What type of solar end-products the company is making. If a company makes many types of product, then we may either generalise, or show what appear to be their "top" ones in order to save space.

[Solar Products] Cell/Panel Suppliers: The source of the solar cells or panels used by the solar product manufacturer for their solar products.

[System Integrator] % of 2005 Wp (installation): The percentage split of small, medium, large and very large installations, based on Wp installed.

Distributors: The distributors that can be contacted to source this company's products more locally.  A distributor is distinct from a wholesaler by having certain long-term contracts in place with the manufacturer, and sometimes (but not always) exclusive selling rights for certain geographies.

Wholesaler: Someone who buys large quantities of goods and then resells them in bulk.

OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer): A company that purchases products from a manufacturer, and asks the manufacturer to put their brand name on the product rather than the manufacturer's brand.  The term has multiple meanings, but ENF uses the meaning just stated.  OEMs sometimes also specify very exact technical and quality requirements for their products, which can sometimes make their products unique in the marketplace.