With energy certification already a must-have for any business which makes green energy claims, Ed Everson, chief executive of England-based, global certification company Evident, makes the case for firms to be required to make full disclosure of their energy sources.

Solar and wind are being installed at a rate that is three times faster than all other new electricity sources combined. This offers compelling market-based evidence that PV and wind are now the most competitive and practical methods for deploying new generating capacity.

Airport PV can provide an instant boost to emission-reduction efforts while work continues on sustainable aviation fuels. Developing solar projects at or near airports, however, is not as straightforward as typical ground-mount installations.

The two dominant methods used in the industry to estimate soiling levels on solar projects go some way in mitigating losses, but there is plenty of scope for more accurate observation.

Buoyant predictions about a rosy future for African photovoltaics, based on the continent’s abundant solar resources, continue to overlook the difficulties of securing investment, as Empower New Energy co-founder and CEO Terje Osmundsen explains, referring to a report published by the Africa Solar Industry Association at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi today.

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.

The International Renewable Energy Agency’s latest annual report on the progress towards UN sustainable development goal seven estimates 670 million people will still lack electricity in 2030, and more than 2 billion will be reliant on unhealthy, polluting cooking methods.

It should come as no surprise that clean energy spending is a big chunk of Warsaw’s four-year EU grant and loans package, given that the nation’s grid-connected solar capacity rose from 3.99 GW at the end of 2020 to 6.3 GW four months ago, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.

The clean power numbers published annually by the International Renewable Energy Agency provide a snapshot of the global solar market and, this year, a lot of figures were unchanged from the previous dataset, especially in the off-grid segment.

Polysilicon prices started to rise in the second half of January, according to new data from the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association (CNMIA).

A $1 billion to $1.5 billion US market opportunity awaits PV equipment manufacturers through 2030, a McKinsey & Company consultant said at a recent event for potential equipment buyers and sellers in Washington, DC.

India’s 2023-24 budget shows the government’s plans to support the domestic production of lithium battery cells.

DT Global, a US-based development firm, is seeking engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors to build a PV plant with 5 MW to 7 MW of capacity in Lebanon.

Storage Hub founder Oliver Schmidt speaks with pv magazine about his outlook for battery energy storage pricing and the cost trajectory of electrolyzers. Schmidt’s new book, “Monetizing Energy Storage – A toolkit to assess future cost and value,” will be published by Oxford University Press in June.

China’s Trina Solar has published a white paper on its latest n-type TOPCon modules, with cost calculations and figures from demonstration projects. The Chinese PV manufacturer claims better performance from its 210 mm cells than with other n-type products based on smaller, 182 mm cells.

Portugal’s cumulative PV capacity hit 2.59 GW at the end of 2022, outpacing the growth of other renewable energy sources. The country failed to meet its own installation predictions, likely because some large-scale projects awarded in the 2019 and 2020 auctions ended up missing their commissioning deadlines.

The Brazilian Association of Photovoltaic Solar Energy (ABSolar) says the country has reached 17 GW of installed solar capacity for PV projects below 5 MW in size. Over the past three months, connection requests for distributed-generation PV projects have hit 32 GW.

TBEA has developed new products with nominal power ratings of 10 kW to 25 kW and efficiencies of 98.5%.

Japan’s largest oil company, Eneos, has opened a green hydrogen demonstration plant in Brisbane, Australia. The project is relatively small, producing just 20 kilograms of green hydrogen per day, but Eneos Senior Vice President Yuichiro Fujiyama says the company will expand it in the “near future.”

Chinese scientists have analyzed reports of thermal issues with vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFB) and existing thermal management methods. They say the operating temperature should be maintained in the range of 10 C to 40 C to ensure VRFBs with high efficiency, weak side reactions, high electrolyte stability, and low crossover.

Enphase’s new bidirectional EV charger enables vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid applications, and can be integrated with its home energy systems.

An international research group has developed an inverted perovskite solar cell with an active area of 9.6 mm2 by using polymer dipoles for interfacial engineering. It retained 96% of its initial power conversion efficiency after continuous maximum power point (MPP) tracking for 1,000 hours.

Low participation rates for vehicle-to-grid (V2G) tech of just 12% to 43% are needed to provide short-term grid storage demand throughout the world by as early as 2030, according to a group of Dutch and US researchers.

LG has developed an air source heat pump with the capacity to heat 200 liters to 270 liters of domestic water. It uses R134a as a refrigerant and the pump has a coefficient of performance (COP) of up to 3.85.

Makoto Tajima, an agrivoltaics analyst for Japan’s Institute for Sustainable Energy Policies (ISEP), speaks to pv magazine about the growth of agricultural PV in Japan, as well as cost considerations and the pace of technological development.

Canadian Solar says its cell and module capacity will reach 50 GW by the end of this year.

Soleis AG has developed two storage systems with capacities of 1 KWh and 2 kWh.

Andreas Thorsheim, the CEO of Norway-based residential solar specialist Otovo, speaks to pv magazine about solar array prices, current market trends for distributed storage, and shortages of qualified professionals.

Katek, a German PV inverter manufacturer, says its 4.6 kW coolcept fleX inverter features silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductors from US-based Navitas Semiconductor. It is smaller and weighs less than non-SiC models.

Just weeks after announcing its intent to build a AUD 300 million ($210 million) lithium-ion battery manufacturing facility in Australia, Recharge Industries has reportedly joined a host of other bidders considering the revival of collapsed UK battery company Britishvolt. Investment could also revive plans to construct a battery cell gigafactory in northern England.

Sun Cable, the company behind the world’s largest solar and storage project, has officially gone up for sale after entering voluntary administration in Australia in January. Its administrator, FTI Consulting, is seeking binding offers of acquisition or recapitalization by the end of April, with a deal to be finalized by the end of May.

General Electric has switched on two more 300 MW pumped storage turbines at a 1.2 GW hydro battery complex in China’s Anhui province, after finalizing the facility’s first 600 MW unit in December. The project has completed a trial period and commercial operations are now fully underway.

V-Tac’s new 10 kWh lithium iron phosphate, wall-mounting battery system purportedly runs for more than 5,000 cycles.

US researchers have conducted case studies on the successful deployment of distributed renewables in the state of Alaska. In one study, two cities installed 223.5 kW solar PV arrays coupled with 351 kWh batteries and 250 kW inverters, in addition to cold climate heat pumps.