The minigrid space continues to attract a lot of attention from development partners in Africa. Minigrids can actually generate profits, so there is no doubt that commercial finance players will eventually jump on the bandwagon, according to the Africa Solar Industry Association (AFSIA).

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) explains how to optimally use its SolarCity Simulator, an open-access platform designed to help member countries to deploy PV systems at the municipal level.

The renewables industry fears that the new energy bill that the French government is preparing could make clean power generation even tougher. However, solar analyst Xavier Daval says that betting everything on the nation’s nuclear power fleet is a risky strategy.

Solar is wrongly perceived by some people to be an area-intensive energy generation technology requiring much more space than conventional fossil-fuel power plants.

Clean Energy Associates (CEA) has calculated the price premium that solar developers will swallow in return for the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) savings offered by the latest generation of high-efficiency PV panels.

The off-grid solar sector has shown resilience in the face of pandemic-related challenges, with 70 million people gaining access to electricity from early 2020 to the end of 2021. However, the ability to pay for solar energy kits has taken a hit.

The African Development Bank has announced that European and US donors will provide $20 million of concessional loans to support pay-as-you-go solar companies in sub-Saharan Africa.

With comparisons with a Covid-hit 2020 inevitably offering a string of positive numbers, there was also little to concern the board of the inverter and battery manufacturer from the returns generated in the last quarter.

The input costs of the two biggest contributors to solar plant development expense have gone through the roof since the world began to come out of Covid-19 lockdowns, to leave project developers with some difficult choices.

The latest edition of a clean power jobs survey produced by IRENA and the International Labour Organization has stressed the important role which will need to be played by the public sector if the energy transition’s employment benefits are to be shared equally.

Three years ago, Tesla said it expected to install 1,000 solar rooftop arrays per week, which would have amounted to 156,000 Solar Roofs in that time period. However, Wood Mackenzie reports that just 3,000 have been installed to date.

Canada’s new policy plan mirrors the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), including two new input tax credits (ITCs) targeting clean energy and technology manufacturing that will remain at 30% through 2033, stepping down to 15% in 2034 before phasing out altogether after 2034.

Sandbox Solar, a solar developer and US federal grant recipient, has released a beta version of its software modeling tool for agrivoltaic power plants. It supports the design and optimization of solar panels, as well as the crops underneath.

New figures from China’s General Administration of Customs show uninterrupted growth in global solar module demand. Chinese manufacturers exported 14.85 GW of panels in January and 14.82 GW in February.

The European Parliament and the Council have reached a provisional agreement to raise the EU’s binding renewable energy target for 2030 to a minimum of 42.5% of the overall energy mix. The bodies also agreed on a further 2.5% indicative target, which would set Europe on a path to at least 45% renewables within this decade.

Data collected from a 30 MW PV project in China’s Tianjin Province demonstrates that n-type tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) modules achieve a little more than 5% more energy yield than p-type PERC. Analysis by JinkoSolar, which supplied its TOPCon modules to the project, credits the n-type modules’ increased performance to a better temperature coefficient in the project’s hot climate, higher bifaciality and lower degradation.

A European Union-funded project is bringing building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) solutions to eight historical cities in Europe. pv magazine recently spoke with Júlia Pereira, project coordinator for EDP New, about the innovative solutions being blended into the landscape in Évora, Portugal.

Tata Power Solar Systems has secured approval to build a 300 MW solar project as an engineering, procurement and construction contractor in the Indian state of Rajasthan.

A $12.5 billion (AUD 18.7 billion) takeover deal for Origin Energy has been struck with a consortium led by Canadian giant Brookfield. Brookfield’s vision for Origin Energy involves spending “at least” AUD 20 billion to build new renewables and storage.

Swift Current Energy is set to begin construction on an 800 MW project by the fall of 2024.

German researchers claim to have reduced ribbing effects in using slot-die coating for the production of perovskite solar cells. The results are reportedly the most efficient solar cell built with this technique to date.

Australian battery manufacturer Redflow has signed a deal that will see it supply its “non-lithium” energy storage technology to clean energy outfit Ameresco which is looking to develop integrated solar and zinc-bromine flow battery solutions for its customer base throughout North America and Europe.

While it initially had a chilling effect on the Polish residential solar market, the transition from net metering to net billing has also resulted in positive changes, such as better sizing of rooftop PV systems and a higher rate of self-consumption, says Instytut Energetyki Odnawialnej (IEO), a Polish research body.

iDM has developed a modular air-source heat pump that uses propane (R290) as the refrigerant. It can produce between 2 kW and 24 kW of heat and domestic hot water up to a temperature of 70 C. A larger version can produce between 10 kW and 50 kW of heat.

Arizona-based Solestial’s silicon-based solar cells exhibit a high level of resilience in space, according to third-party testing.

Zhang Yingbin, Trina Solar’s head of global product strategy, speaks to pv magazine about the path to a supply chain dominated by n-type TOPCon products. He says Trina Solar will reach 30 GW of TOPCon solar module capacity by the end of 2023.

GCL Integration expects to start operating a new 12 GW solar factory in October, bringing its total solar panel manufacturing capacity to 30 GW.

C2F has developed a building-integrated PV (BIPV) facade made of aluminum that purportedly limits the impact of hot and cold weather, while also improving solar module performance.

Eleven companies in India have emerged as the winners of the second round of the production-linked incentive scheme for high-efficiency solar modules. In particular, Indosol, Reliance, and First Solar have secured incentives for fully integrated production.

Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action says it will fund a study on the feasibility of quickly restoring a full PV supply chain in Europe. Three German companies are leading the study and are calling for participation from other industry stakeholders.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) told Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue participants this week that $5.4 trillion of annual investment is needed to support the global shift to renewables. Kenyan President William Ruto, meanwhile, called for a fair energy partnership between Europe and Africa.

China Southern Power Grid, a state-owned utility, has revealed plans to use alloy materials to store hydrogen.

Germany’s cumulative residential battery installations hit 5.5 GW at the end of 2022, with the large-scale storage business growing by more than 900%.

Wärtsilä Energy and Eolian LP have partnered on a new 200 MW grid-scale battery system. They claim that it is the largest merchant energy storage facility in the world.

France’s Sirea has developed a new range of smart plug-in systems for PV storage. The batteries can deliver from 20 kW (AC) to 500 kW, depending on the model, with storage capacities ranging from 100 kWh to 1 MWh.