Markets

In another article of a series, Women in Solar Europe (WiSEu) gives voice to Claire Gardner, Marketing Manager Europe at Chinese inverter manufacturer Solis. She tells how she had to deal with her own insecurities rather than with an women-hostile environment at the beginning of her career in the renewable energy industry.

SkyPower Global has signed a 1 GW solar power purchase agreement (PPA) with a Zambian utility to supply electricity to approximately 4 million homes. Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema hailed the significance of the deal amid ongoing droughts.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that warm sea surface temperatures and disturbances increased onshore moisture along China’s southern coast, which in turn increased solar irradiance by 5-15% on long term averages.

Swiss consulting firm Pexapark noted a rise in European power purchase agreement (PPA) prices in March, for the first monthly increase since August 2023. It recorded 18 PPAs in March, totaling 718 MW, with solar accounting for 398 MW across nine deals.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has issued its first report on the importance of battery energy storage technology in the energy transition. It has found that tripling renewable energy capacity by 2030 would require 1,500 GW of battery storage.

OCI has revealed plans to invest $617.9 million to expand production at its Malaysian manufacturing facility from 35,000 to 56,600 metric tons.

India set a new record for monthly renewable energy installations by deploying 7.1 GW of capacity in March 2024. The monthly renewables additions included more than 6.2 GW of solar.

German and Swedish researchers calculated the supply of materials to produce perovskite tandem PV at a multi-terawatt-scale, flagging the difficult supply of gold, indium and cesium, well as a need to streamline production of certain materials used for hole-transport layers. “In essence, we might be able to go post-fossil fuels, but we can’t go post-minerals,” the research’s corresponding author, Lukas Wagner, told pv magazine.

Singapore-based renewables developer Vena Energy has launched commercial operations of a 125 MW solar project in the Australian state of Queensland. It is backed by a long-term offtake agreement with global tech giant Amazon.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, offers bite-sized analysis on solar PV module supply and price trends.