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.

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.

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.

The Czech Republic is pouring an additional CZK 55 billion ($2.5 billion) into its New Green Savings program, which includes rooftop PV rebates, among other energy-saving measures in the residential sector.

The Indian states of Rajasthan, Gujarat and Karnataka now account for more than 50% of the nation’s cumulative installed solar capacity.

Greece’s Ministry of Environment and Energy has revealed a new €200 million ($215.3 million) subsidy program for solar projects and small storage systems in the residential and agricultural segments. The scheme is backed by the country’s post-pandemic recovery plan.

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

A local environmental organization has published pictures of the stranded array which appeared last week on two beaches. Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department is currently investigating where the installation came from.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Norway’s Over Easy says its pilot vertical PV system in Oslo achieved remarkable performance throughout a snowy winter. In 2022, the vertical array generated 1,070 kWh per kilowatt installed, which the company says compares to around 800 kWh per kilowatt installed for a conventional rooftop array.

French module maker Systovi says its new solar panels weigh just 3 kg/m2. They are designed for flat tertiary rooftops that cannot support the weight of framed solar panels. It will begin selling the new modules in 2024.

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

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.

Researchers at IIT Mandi have developed high-quality, uniform thin films of nickel oxide on the silicon substrate using an aerosol-assisted chemical vapor deposition technique, with nickel nitrate as the precursor material.

While shingled cells have been around for a while, Tongwei’s adoption of the technology is notable as it is a manufacturer with considerable scale. If shingling can overcome some hurdles, it could prove a welcome solution as unshaded sites for PV become elusive in mature solar markets.

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.

Poland emerged as Europe’s third-biggest solar market in 2022, driven by the rapid uptake of PV micro-installations below 50 kW in size, but this year is already starting to look different. Marcin Ślęzak, chief commercial officer of Warsaw-based Menlo Electric, recently spoke to pv magazine about changes on the demand side and tech preferences in this thriving market.

South Korean scientists have developed a new way to integrate a lithium-metal anode into a battery and reach higher energy capacity levels than current lithium-ion tech. They worked with a carbon fiber paper infused with lithium and demonstrated an energy density of 428 Wh/kg, along with encouraging performance in stability and potential ease of manufacturing.