The urgency to decarbonize the building sector has caught global attention in the lead-up to the COP26 summit, commencing on Oct. 31. Wood Mackenzie’s Ben Hertz-Shargel says that success will require a two-pronged strategy of massively electrifying building heat over the coming decade, while also investing in technologies that can pick up future heating demand if the grid cannot handle it.

Industrial shutdowns and reduced factory production capacity levels indicate the companies producing the raw materials used by solar manufacturers are being afflicted by electricity consumption measures just as other sectors are. It is not clear whether the solar industry will be afforded any favors by Beijing, as analyst Frank Haugwitz explains.

It turns out that you can have too much of a good thing, says Mark Byrne of Australia’s Total Environment Centre. Or rather, it’s possible that there is too much rooftop PV at some times in some places. As a result, a range of critical reforms – including the introduction of export tariffs to pay for upgrades of the electricity distribution network – are necessary to allow for the uninhibited growth of solar in the future, he argues.

With a rising chorus of voices calling for more solar industry recruits to perform the energy transition, Nigeria already has a skilled base of PV engineers and, with a little help filling the few gaps they have in their knowledge, the nation can step into the breach immediately, as Testimony Gabe-Oji, chief technology officer for Abuja-based installer Green Energy Spectrum, explains.

China is the largest residential PV market in the world, and this trend is only expected to strengthen in the next few years. By July 2021, China’s cumulative installed residential PV capacity had reached more than 30 GW, with a total of 1.864 million residential units hosting solar PV systems. IHS Markit’s Holly Hu looks behind these impressive numbers.

A note issued by Norwegian analyst Rystad has hinted it may be time to consider abandoning the 1.5-degree average global temperature rise ceiling agreed upon in Paris six years ago, because the world will never be able to pump out enough solar panels in time.

An independent third-party has approved the European Commission’s safeguards to ensure the projects in member states financed by €250 billion of green bonds over the next five years, will have genuine emission reduction credentials.

‘More than 90’ suppliers of appliances such as solar lanterns and home solar panels, as well as mini-grid installers, will be offered low-interest credit by an assortment of government-backed and privately-financed entities.

Norwegian consultancy DNV today published the latest of its annual surveys of the state of the energy transition and lamented the fact so very little has been achieved during the last five years. We are forging ahead into a world that will be 2.3C hotter this century, predicts the report.

The latest global PV industry outlook published by trade group SolarPower Europe, has indicated tight supply of the solar panel raw material is expected to persist this year but the trade body said it would be unlikely to drive further price rises.

The levelized cost of rooftop solar generation is the lowest in India ($66/MWh) and China ($68/MWh), while the United States ($238/MWh) and the United Kingdom ($251/MWh) are some of the most expensive countries, according to a new international study.

South Korean battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution has launched a new inverter in the Australian market, adding a 5 kW hybrid inverter to its Residential Energy Storage Unit (RESU) Home battery energy storage range.

Bangladesh has floated an international tender seeking engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning services for a 60-MW solar power plant in north-western Pabna district.

Norwegian hydropower giant and Europe’s largest renewable energy generator, Statkraft, has published its annual “Low Emissions Scenario”, which describes investment in green projects as “unstoppable”, while calling for a dramatic scaling up for renewables, electrification and green hydrogen.

Energy consultancy DNV was tasked by module manufacturing giant Longi Solar with comparing the balance of systems costs between modules utilizing 182mm and 210mm wafers, based on a 3.7 MW project in three different layouts. The results reveal a slim cost advantage for the smaller of the two, based on both fixed tilt and tracker systems.

US data management company Iron Mountain has a growing portfolio of onsite and PPA renewables, and it’s one of the first major corporate firms to track its renewables by the hour as part of an innovative PPA that may serve as a forerunner for widespread 24/7 matching.

Panels being covered in volcanic ash can cause several problems – as has been seen recently with ongoing eruption in the Canary Islands. The weight of the ash may be too much for the structure to bear, sharp ash particles or small stones within the ash can scratch module glass, and acids or sulfur compounds contained in the ash can cause corrosion on the backsheet.

Spain’s latest renewable energy auction has awarded 3.12 GW of new capacity at an average price of €30.56/ MWh. Capital Energy once again took the largest share, winning all of 1.548 GW that it was competing for, in an auction where the absence of some large power companies was conspicuous.

Mining giant Rio Tinto has been on the back-foot since its destruction of 46,000-year-old sacred indigenous sites last year, costing one chief executive his job and one country a timeless piece of its cultural heritage. Along with the impacts of Covid-19 and stock price decline, the company is seeking to rebuild its brand with improved emissions reduction targets, which will see multi-gigawatt solar and wind installations.

A new study from researchers at the universities of Lancaster and Reading in the UK has managed to quantify the economic boost provided by the symbiotic relationship between solar farms and honeybee hives.

Scientists in the United States developed a method to observe the structure and mechanics of a perovskite material during its synthesis and transition from liquid precursors to a solid thin film. The group says its work will provide new insight into manufacturing and the development of reliable large-scale processes for perovskite solar cell production.

A report from Australia’s Future Battery Industries Cooperative Research Centre which analysed the development of battery hubs in the U.S., Germany and Japan, has found that co-location and cooperation between industry and government were key to their success. For Australia to play the same game, it will have to leverage its wealth of resources, and clean up its act along the way.

South Korean company LG Chem has developed a new plastic material that it says could replace the metal frame of a PV module, making it much lighter. The company says it has already secured mass production capability for the material and begun selling products at full scale.

Mobile test equipment is a must for fault detection and performance monitoring of large-scale PV installations. The Australian PV Institute has contributed to an international review of available aerial and portable ground-based technologies, and how to deploy them for reliable, relatable results.

Big rooftop PV systems on factories, warehouses and public buildings need not be limited by ownership issues nor local grid capacity, claims Australian innovator EleXsys Energy. The company is maxing out an Ikea in Adelaide, Australia, with solar and storage. And it claims its smart technology can allow the same to be done elsewhere.

PV manufacturing giant Trina Solar says it has agreed with other industry players on a set of standard dimensions and other technical specifications for PV modules utilizing 210mm wafers – the largest currently available on the market. The manufacturer says it expects the China Photovoltaic Industry Association to formally release the standard before the end of October.

Shipments and revenue both rose in the first three quarters, for a company which this year announced the painful consequences of winding down its cell manufacturing operation were behind it.

The modular solar marketplace is growing, especially in Australia where remote mining and agricultural sites appreciate the benefits of compact, movable solar. One new entrant is Western Australia’s CDI Energy with its “Rapid Solar Module”, which CDI founder and CEO Darryl Bower told pv magazine is up to 30% cheaper than fixed axis alternatives.

Swiss Solar AG has started construction on a new PV manufacturing facility in Europe. It has already invested CHF 50 million (around €47 million) in the project. 

This week, Shuangliang Eco-Energy has signed a multi-year sales contract for delivery of its PV wafers to solar cell manufacturer Jiangsu Runergy, and Wuxi-based perovskite start-up UtmoLight Technology has won a Pre-A round investment of RMB 220 million from several private equity funds.

Construction has begun on a manufacturing pilot project to see battery-grade nickel, cobalt and manganese for precursor battery cathode materials (PCAM) in Perth. The facility is expected to be completed in early 2022 and is one of a number of developments that will look to establish Western Australia (WA) as a materials supplier to the growing battery manufacturing industry.

With an initial capacity of 100 MW, the plant will supply more than 100 million kWh a year to countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region, helping to reduce load shedding by providing much needed power at peak times.

Belgian materials company Umicore has signed a contract with Australia headquartered Vulcan Energy Resources to purchase up to 42,000 tons of lithium hydroxide over a five year period beginning in 2025. The material will be used in Umicore’s production of cathode materials for lithium-ion cell manufacturers.

Chinese tech giant Huawei Digital Power has signed a contract with China’s SEPCOIII, a construction and engineering company and power plant operator, for a 400 MW PV plus 1300 MWh battery energy storage project in Saudi Arabia. Developed by ACWA Power, with SEPCOIII serving as general contractor and handling EPC services, the Red Sea Project […]

Production waste puts a dent in the perception of sustainability of batteries. Northvolt, however, has partnered with a young Swedish company to make the best use of the battery production waste, and also help to decarbonize the fertilizer industry while they are at it.