This week, Women in Solar Europe (WiSEu) gives voice to Oana Ijdelea, the founder and managing partner of Romanian law firm Ijdelea & Associates. She says there is no objective blockage impeding women from pursuing a career in the renewable sector. There is, however, a vicious circle where women may become reluctant to apply for a position where males appear to be more present, and on the other hand, the lack of female presence in such roles does not encourage other women to step in.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.

The requirements of measures such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) mean that solar panel prices in the United States can be twice as much as in Europe.

Prices for tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) solar panels continue to fall. pvXchange.com founder Martin Schachinger explains how this will affect the sale of PV modules based on passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) cells.

Economic cooperation between India and Australia may open doors for investment in clean energy technology, but challenges still abound in a competitive global market. Vibhuti Garg and Shantanu Srivastava, of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), discuss the role that public funding and resource pooling could play in supporting manufacturing ambitions.

China’s cumulative PV capacity has surpassed 670 GW. The nation deployed approximately 60.5 GW of new solar in the first four months of 2024, including 14.37 GW in April alone.

Nikola plans to sell 100 hydrogen fuel-cell trucks for logistic operations in California, Volvo has started developing hydrogen combustion trucks, and Airbus has announced plans to launch a study into hydrogen projects in the US state of Georgia.

BloombergNEF (BNEF) says in a new study of 1,600 planned hydrogen projects that governments will miss their 2030 hydrogen targets. Analyst Adithya Bhashyam tells pv magazine that most of the announced projects to the end of this decade lack the key conditions for success.

A new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) examines the global energy system’s transformation and its implications for energy security. It tells policymakers that energy security in renewables-based systems will require multi-dimensional thinking.

Malakoff Corporation Berhad, a Malaysian independent power producer (IPP), plans to acquire a 51% share in ZEC Solar and a 49% stake in TJZ Suria. It says it has already signed a share sale and purchase agreement with Zelleco Engineering.

Visionpark said its novel solar carport solution is self-weighted and requires no foundation. It can reportedly host all kinds of solar panels and be installed quickly.

An international research group has utilized a newly designed coalitional game system to ensure economic fairness between members of energy communities. The game system considers different types of prosumers relying on stand-alone and combinations of solar and storage.

Novel research from Germany and the USA has analyzed the impact of heat pump (HP) integration on the ability of day-ahead load forecasting in energy communities. Using different models, the scientists have also investigated whether HP loads should be forecasted separately from the rest of the household or both together.

About 60% of energy customers in California have included battery energy storage with their rooftop solar installations. However, a “sustained downturn” is expected for the market.

A compact, “motionless” wind turbine with a magnetic generator designed for large commercial rooftops provides 5 kW of capacity per unit. Aeromine Technologies secured Series A funding for scaling its innovative design.

The Japanese industrial technology supplier is shipping coating tools for perovskite solar panels with dimensions up to 1,000 mm × 2,000 mm. The company will also offer soon a support for 2,400 mm ×1,200 mm sizes.

Gamesa Electric has released a white paper on losses due to harmonics in PV plants, including an independent study that compares the performance of ultra-low total harmonic distortion inverters.

The French research institute presented in a scientific paper the technical details of its recyclable heterojunction module with a power output of 566 W and a carbon footprint of just 313 kgCO2eq/kW.

Researchers in China have designed an inverted perovskite solar cell with a new strategy aimed to optimize the cell’s bottom region. The proposed cell was treated with two molecules known as 2-mercaptoimidazole and 2-mercaptobenzimidazole and was based on a hole transport layer relying on a self-assembled monolayer.

A research group in Spain has demonstrated the technical feasibility of using repaired solar modules with satisfying results. It also warned, however, that there is an urgent need to define a protocol for evaluating the features of a “viable” repaired panel.

Aiko Solar has won a patent litigation case against Maxeon Solar Technologies in a Dutch court. The judge has ruled that Aiko Solar did not infringe upon Maxeon Solar’s EP2297788B1 patent for back-contact (BC) solar cells.

Waaree Energies says it will supply 445 MW of its 540/545Wp dual-glass PV bifacial modules to Statkraft India’s single-location solar projects in Rajasthan, India.

Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency is partnering with Husk Power Systems for interconnected minigrids and isolated minigrids, rooftop commercial and industrial (C&I) solar, productive use of energy (PUE) initiatives, appliance sales, and financing.

Australian Energy Minister Chris Bowen says the federal government’s AUD 1 billion ($662.2 million) Solar Sunshot initiative could lead to domestic production covering 20% of the nation’s PV panel needs by the end of the decade.

Researchers at the University of Bologna carried out crash simulations to qualify a novel solar powered 350 kg passenger vehicle for the next edition of the 3,000 km Bridgestone World Solar Challenge (BWSC) across the Australian continent.

The subsidiary of Chinese-Canadian solar manufacturer Canadian Solar says the financing will go towards developing and constructing solar and battery energy storage projects across Spain, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands, France and Germany.

BloombergNEF says in a new report that solar and wind must drive most emissions cuts before 2030 to stay on track for net-zero by 2050. Its net-zero scenario targets a combined solar and wind capacity of 31 TW by 2050.

Energy Vault and Enel have revealed plans to build 18 MW/36 MWh of gravity storage in the United States. They say that the project will be the first large-scale gravity energy storage in a Western country.

Scientists in China have fabricated a prototype of a PV system integrating phase change materials, a thermoelectric generator and thermal collectors. The three technologies are intended to cool the solar panel and increase its power generation efficiency.

Amp Energy is pushing “full steam ahead” on the development of a green hydrogen production facility with up to 10 GW of electrolyzer capacity in South Australia, after finalizing commercial agreements for the multimillion-dollar project.