One of the biggest challenges for non-AI experts is the terminology. Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and computer vision (CV) are frequently discussed, but people outside of data science fields often do not know what they mean. Fortunately, it is not that complex: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Computer Vision all generally refer to the same thing, just with more specificity.

Right before the holiday season, the European Commission unveiled the latest installment of its “Fit for 55” legislative package – plans that aim to put the continent on track to reducing emissions by 55% by 2030. These additional proposals include the Hydrogen and Decarbonised Gas Package, as well as a revision to the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBDII).

The EU’s Sustainable Taxonomy was intended to complement the Green Deal, provide investors with certainty about the sustainability of their investments, and help channel billions into sustainable, low-carbon processes and technologies. Despite input from experts and NGOs, the inclusion of gas and nuclear power just proposed by the Commission suggests that, once again, politics is trumping science.

Brazil’s deployment of distributed generation PV (below 5 MWp) has exploded from a total capacity of 500 MW in 2018 to 7 GW by September of this year. The trigger for this increase, alongside rocketing electricity prices, was the 2019 proposal of law 5829, writes IHS Markit analyst Angel Antonio Cancino. The proposal is expected to pass into law at the end of this year and will gradually introduce grid-access charges for residential and commercial system owners.

Structural imbalances in the supply chain and the energy intensity and consumption controls that China imposed in late September have caused prices for most PV module materials and components to continue to rise. Shipping fees and PV plant construction costs also remain high. PV plants in many regions will therefore be postponed until next year, but it remains unclear when module prices will start to fall. Despite these challenges, the global race to cut carbon emissions continues, and InfoLink’s Corrine Lin forecasts a bright future for PV deployments in 2022.

The Baltic state has offered energy-intensive, international-facing industries up to an 85% discount on a surcharge levied on electricity consumers since May 2017 and made the scheme wider ranging this year, in a move approved by the European Commission.

Advances in solar power and other clean energy technologies have failed to keep up with demand for electricity as economies rebound from the Covid crisis and China and India’s fossil fuel appetite will ensure the world stays well short of what is needed for a net zero 2050 for at least the next three years.

A news article published on Friday stated 13 cases had been confirmed and a senior physician said the working hypothesis was that at least half of the 120 people who attended the event had been infected. pv magazine has contacted Scatec for an update.

Solar manufacturer Jolywood, which supplied almost 500 MW of its bifacial tunnel oxide passivated contact panels for Oman’s Ibri II facility, has claimed the power plant is the biggest to date to deploy the high-efficiency technology.

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.

Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto’s ambition to become one of the world’s largest lithium suppliers has taken a battering with the Serbian government pulling the plug on the company’s $3.3 billion ($US2.4 billion) Jadar lithium-borates project.

Mercedes-Benz has teamed up with ProLogium to integrate solid-state battery technology into a range of passenger vehicles; Panasonic and Toyota have launched an industrial-academic collaborative research program concerned with battery resources and recycling; and LG Energy Solution plans to spend $2.1 billion with General Motors to build another electric vehicle battery plant in the U.S.

A group of companies comprising Akuo Energy, Amarenco, BayWa re, EDF Renouvelables, Enel Green Power, Engie, Iberdrola and Vattenfall has sent a letter to the European Commission to ask for a strategy to build up a continental PV supply chain.

The InterContinental Energy company behind two proposed green hydrogen megaprojects in Western Australia – the 26GW Asian Renewable Energy Hub and the 50GW Western Green Energy Hub – has received the backing of Singapore’s US$744 billion sovereign wealth fund GIC.

New research from the U.K. shows the increasing competitiveness of long-distance hydrogen interconnectors over the next three decades. Compared to high-voltage electricity cables, hydrogen interconnectors may soon achieve a much lower levelized cost of storage and their ability to further reduce the final LCOE will depend on how much electrolyzer costs will reduce over the years.

On the company’s Q4 earnings call, the world-leading EV manufacturer again prioritized delivering cars over growing low-margin energy storage products, while solar products were barely noted. Both verticals grew though, solar by 68% and storage by 32%.

An international research team has investigated how solar could be combined with thermoelectric coolers (TECs), which are small solid-state heat pumps used either for heating or for cooling. A system was built with six solar panels, an air duct system, four batteries, a charge controller, TECs, an inverter, heat sinks, a test chamber, and condenser fans.

South Korean energy producer South-East Power has started operating a 150 MW solar plant in South Jeolla province. The project was partly backed by crowdfunding among local residents.

The Chinese solar developer, which has sold off four-fifths of its PV project capacity to state-owned entities, wants the permission of the holders of $420 million of 2024 senior notes to change the terms of their investment so it can buy Ethiopian natural gas from a connected business.

SUN Energy’s 100 MW Merredin Solar Farm in Western Australia has emerged as the country’s best performing utility-scale PV project in 2021. International consultancy Rystad Energy says it has delivered an average capacity factor of 29.6% for the calendar year.

The first 20MW/20MWh battery energy storage system in the 470MW/470MWh portfolio Fluence is deploying for Filipino conglomerate San Miguel Corp has started serving the island nation’s electricity network.

German scientists have developed a perovskite PV cell with remarkable stability by adding a bilayer of polymers that protects the perovskite from corrosion. This design helps to shield the extremely sensitive perovskite interface and provides the cell with extraordinarily high conductivity.

A massive solar noise barrier in the US state of Massachusetts is expected to generate 802,000kWh of electricity per year, or the equivalent of annually supplying 120 homes with power.

Toronto-based developer Amp Energy has had the green light to install two 400MW batteries in central Scotland which have been touted as the largest grid-connected battery storage facilities in Europe. The projects will deploy grid-forming inverters and be coupled with two synchronous condensers.

Scientists in Australia have analyzed the state-of-the-art of all gettering technologies used in the solar industry. This technique, which is aimed at reducing defects in wafer manufacturing, may become more important in the future, as cell efficiencies increase and become increasingly sensitive to traces of metallic impurities.

A preliminary ruling by the European Court of Justice states panel makers should not be responsible for electrical waste management costs in a seven-year period as the rules in place before the EU’s WEEE directive entered force, in 2012, permitted member states to place the obligation on panel users instead. The resulting change in law, in some states, cannot be applied retroactively, under EU legal rules.

Egyptian researchers have analyzed all cooling techniques for solar module cooling. Their review includes passive and active cooling methods, cooling with phase change materials (PCMs), and cooling with PCM and other additives, such as nanoparticles or porous metal.

Allen Cao, General Manager of International Business at Arctech speaks to pv magazine about the solar supply chain challenges experienced in 2021 and how he believes the market will evolve this year. Overall, he says the industry could see a sharp rise in year-on-year PV installation capacity as prices start to come down. BIPV is also discussed as being a hot topic for the Chinese highly power-consuming industries.

SunWiz has identified the most popular solar panel and inverter brands in the Australian market. In total, 5.2 GW of solar was installed in Australia in 2021, putting the country’s cumulative tally at 26.9 GW.

In a recent media brief, new Enel Green Power CEO Salvatore Bernabei said the company’s heterojunction solar module factory in southern Italy will be scaled up from 200MW to 3GW by mid-2024. He also revealed that another factory may be built abroad, with the United States being a possible location.

In the next ten years, according to Milanese consultant REF-E’s simulations, storage in Italy will mostly be driven by opportunities in the ancillary services market. After 2030, when renewables will provide most electricity, REF-E believes the price spread between different hours of the day should be high enough to cover the cost-per-cycle of energy-intensive storage. Energy expert Virginia Canazza discussed the topic with pv magazine.

Nickel-zinc batteries will be coupled with geothermal power to support 30MW of critical IT load at a data center in Wyoming, in the US. The batteries’ lifespan can be up to 15 years, while its roundtrip efficiency stands at 85%.

According to BloombergNEF, electrolyzer shipments may reach up to 2.5GW in 2022, up significantly from 458MW last year. China and the United States will become the world’s first and second markets, respectively.

The Chinese manufacturer has upgraded its commercial application battery with a dissipative balancing technology that, it is claimed, will make the storage system suitable for different load conditions. Each battery module is sold with a capacity ranging from 100 to 200Ah and a storage capacity of 7.68kWh.

While East Africa – and Kenya is particular – has made great strides in the provision of off-grid solar systems, Central Africa is a long way behind, according to a new report from IRENA and the African Development Bank. In terms of investment, the study’s authors wrote, much, much more will be required to achieve universal electricity access this decade.