A cold snap rocketed demand for electricity in Europe’s main markets in the final week of November compared to the previous week, according to Aleasoft Energy Forecasting.

With the consistently unambitious forecasts for solar trotted out by entities such as the International Energy Agency (IEA) now a matter of record, a German risk management company has tried to predict more realistic figures for 2030 and beyond.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that Ireland, the west coast of Great Britain, Northern Italy, and the rest of Eastern Europe saw 10-30% above average November irradiance while other areas saw lower or close to average irradiance than normal.

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.

Strong solar and wind meant MIBEL recorded the lowest energy prices compared to the other major European markets in the final week of November, according to data collected by Aleasoft Energy Forecasting.

Goldi Solar has agree to supply its HELOC PRO series of 545 Wp PV modules to Engie India, while Waaree Energies has agreed to provide more than 200 MW of solar modules to IRCON Renewable Power.

The new cobalt-free battery yields about 60% greater energy density than conventional lithium-ion batteries for an equivalent weight and volume and sustains unprecedented 1,000 cycles.

A number of Australian critical mineral producers will likely be ineligible for US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) subsidies, as the US government has published draft rules forbidding access to enterprises with stakes held by Chinese investors.

At COP28, Masdar revealed a $16 billion investment deal with Iberdrola for green energy projects in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Masdar also signed a memorandum to assess the feasibility of a green hydrogen plant near the Port of Aqaba in Jordan.

TotalEnergies had the biggest amount of utility-scale PV projects in its swag from July 2022 to June 2023, according to United States (US) research firm Mercom. The French energy company had 12 GW of solar projects operating, 3.8 GW under construction and 25.5 GW in the pipeline, according to Mercom’s hotly anticipated “Annual Global Report.”

Energy supplier BKW is developing six solar power projects at high-altitude locations in Switzerland.

The Queensland government has announced that CleanCo is now providing Coles grocery stores with renewable energy for 95% of its electricity needs in the Australian state.

Scientists in Iraq have applied two different kinds of phase-change materials to lower the operating temperatures of PV panels. Their experiment showed that beeswax and paraffin wax are particularly effective in achieving this goal, even when they are combined together.

UK-based researchers have developed a novel method to estimate the amount of defrost cycles a heat pump will experience in the winter and how much energy it would require to implement the cycles. The results of their simulation showed a strong relationship between the number of defrost cycles and the ambient temperature.

Tesla’s new trucks offer 11.5 kW of power output to homes, and 9.6 kW of output via five plugs.

Sharp’s new IEC61215- and IEC61730-certified solar panels have an operating temperature coefficient of -0.30% per C and a bifaciality factor of over 80%.

A group of scientists in Korea has a hot-air technique instead of atomic layer deposition to fabricate a perovskite absorber that reportedly shows a higher film quality. They applied this film in a perovskite-organic tandem solar cell, which exhibited low open-circuit voltage losses and high efficiency levels.

China Three Gorges has commissioned a 1 MW pilot solar plant with perovskite panels near Ordos, in China’s Inner Mongolia region. This marks the world’s first commercial PV system to use perovskite tech and features 11,200 modules from an undisclosed manufacturer.

Scientists in Spain have proposed to combine anaerobic digestion plants with photovoltaic-thermal panels and have found that this combination may achieve an LCOE of $0.045/kWh across several locations in Europe and North America.

Toshiba has developed a 1.5 Ah lithium-ion battery prototype with a voltage of more than 3 V. The device retains its initial efficiency for over 6,000 charge/discharge cycles and enables rapid charging to 80% of capacity within just five minutes.

E.ON has acquired German PV distributor Klarsolar, expanding its network of local businesses offering rooftop PV and residential storage systems. The financial terms of the transaction remain undisclosed.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has prohibited the use of battery-tied solar exports to offset delivery charges, following its decision to slash the value of standalone solar exports in order to encourage the pairing of systems with battery storage.

Delhi-based Bluebird Solar, which currently operates 400 MW of annual panel manufacturing capacity, says it will ramp up capacity to 1.2 GW by March 2024 and to 2 GW by March 2025.

Lithuania-based Solitek has launched a carport product line featuring 370 W glass-glass frameless modules. It is designed to withstand a snow load of up to 2.5 kN/m2 and 27m/s of wind loads.

The application of busbarless cell interconnection approaches could unlock the potential of heterojunction (HJT) technology, primarily by reducing the historically high silver usage of negatively-doped, “n-type” cell technology. As HJT manufacturing increases, a wave of applications may very well be on the horizon.

Rolls-Royce has told pv magazine that it prefers sustainable aviation fuels (SAF) for large commercial flights, but it continues to invest in hydrogen for mid-size aircraft in partnership with easyJet.

The South African Government’s Department of Mineral Resources and Energy announced French utility Électricité de France (EDF) will develop 257 MW of battery energy-storage systems across three projects, while South African renewable energy company Scatec Africa will develop one 103 MW project.

A research group in South Africa has developed a novel method for PV output forecasting in commercial buildings. The proposed approach is purportedly able to accurately forecast the output power of a PV plant using real-time weather data.

Daikin has released a line of residential air-to-air heat pumps, using difluoromethane (R32) as the refrigerant, with outdoor unit dimensions of 662 mm x 442 mm x 1022 mm. The output ranges from 2.5 kW to 3.5 kW, and the seasonal coefficient of performance (SCOP) is between 4.85 and 5.17.

Australian energy giant AGL will install a nickel-hydrogen battery at its Torrens Island power station site in South Australia as it explores the potential opportunities that the technology could provide for stationary energy storage applications