The U.S. solar industry faces a moral dilemma, writes Paula Mints of SPV Market Research. Either continue to deploy projects and set aside concerns about forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region, or source PV cells and modules from elsewhere, while bearing higher costs, in the pursuit of urgent action against climate change.

Polysilicon capacity is unable to catch up with rapid capacity expansion in the mid and downstream segments, writes Corrine Lin, chief analyst for PV InfoLink. New polysilicon capacity requires big capex investment and a lead time of more than two years to complete construction and reach full operation. With unbalanced capacity between the upstream and downstream segments, polysilicon prices have been rising since the second half of 2020, with prices for mono-grade polysilicon surpassing CNY 200/kg ($27.40) in June 2021, up more than 250% year on year.

In his second article, Philip Wolfe founder of Wiki-Solar lists the world’s largest individual solar PV power plants. The biggest solar parks and other clusters of plants will be listed in subsequent blogs.

The global single-axis tracker market increased shipment volume by 40% year on year to reach 45 GW in 2020. This was despite significant pandemic-related supply chain turbulence that resulted in longer lead times for the delivery of components, the idling of steelmaking capacity in some key markets, container shipping dislocation, and widespread restrictions, particularly at ports. Most notably, this caused the cost of some commodities, such as steel, to more than double between 2020 and 2021. Jason Sheridan, a senior research analyst for IHS Markit, runs through some of the key developments in the tracker market.

This summer, IHS Markit published its annual global ranking of EPC providers that build in-house developed and third-party PV projects, based on last year’s installations. 2020 was a year of many contradictions, with lockdowns and increasing component prices taking their toll on many of the companies, both large and small. At the same time, EPC providers with their main share of business in mainland China and the United States had a remarkable year.

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.

Greek startup Tobea has developed a PV-powered platform for people with disabilities. The system consists of a fixed-track mechanism in which a moving chair can be shifted in and out of the water. It can be powered by conventional modules and relies on a battery supplied by a Greek manufacturer.

President Xi Jinping’s pledge this week at the United Nations General Assembly that China will not build new coal-fired plants abroad is welcome news; however, Asia’s transition to low carbon energies remains in dire need of policy reforms.

Aerocompact, an Austrian supplier of solar racking solutions, has started manufacturing PV mounting products for flat rooftops in India.

The new rules will increase the PV net metering factor from 0.65 to 100 and the credit accumulation period from three to six months.

Anti-dumping tariffs would jeopardize 18 GW of solar projects by 2023, the US Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) said in a letter to the Commerce Department.

The Australian-Singaporean group behind a proposed 20 GW solar PV farm and 42 GWh battery energy storage project under development in Australia’s remote far north has hinted that other, similar-sized projects are already in the pipeline.

US storage system provider NeoVolta has developed a battery inverter that provides 32 A of AC output power. It has a storage capacity of 14.4 KWh that can be expanded to 24.0 kWh with the addition of another battery without the need for a second inverter.

Dutch company Triple Solar has launched a new PVT module for residential applications which can be connected to water-to-water or PVT heat pumps. The new panel is said to be 10% larger and have a 15% higher output than the company’s other products and can reach a PV power output of 450 W.

Multiple factors can affect the lifespan of a residential battery energy storage system. We examine the life of batteries in Part 3 of our series.

Rio Tinto has confirmed that Energy Developments Ltd. is set to start construction of a new PV array and battery storage system that will more than triple the generation capacity at the miner’s AUD 2.6 billion ($1.9 billion) bauxite mining operation at Weipa, in the Australian state of Queensland.

Generac has released a new microinverter product as part of its ongoing shift into the solar and energy storage space. The U.S. manufacturer of backup power generation products also offers a backup battery storage solution.

German manufacturer Solarwatt today announced the opening of a new 300 MW module production facility, as well as new battery pack assembly lines, located on the outskirts of Dresden. The company invested around €35 million in the new lines and says it will begin delivering modules produced on the new equipment to customers as early as next week.

The German research institute has unveiled a novel interconnection technology for shingled PV modules that eliminates the need for electrically conductive adhesives and screen-printed busbars. It consists of an 8-μm-thick aluminum foil that is joined to the silicon nitride (SiNX) passivation via laser metal bond (LMB). When integrated in a solar module, the efficiency of the new interconnector improved by 0.7%.

The German solar manufacturer has unveiled three new formats for its glass-film and glass-glass PV modules for the first quarter of 2022.

Vattenfall is leading a Dutch consortium in a research project to assess whether agrivoltaics is also compatible with strip cropping. The company’s head of Solar Development NL, Annemarie Schouten, spoke with pv magazine about the first 0.7 MW pilot project under development in the northern Dutch province of Flevoland.

Ubiquity Solar plans to annually produce 350 MW of utility-grade PV cells and 1.5 MW of advanced space-grade PV cells for aerospace customers.

The new inverter can be used for both DC or AC coupled systems and has an efficiency of up to 98.5%. Available in two versions with power of 7.6 and 11.4 kW, respectively, the device features up to 200% DC oversizing, and 50 V starting voltage.

The manufacturer has raised the cost of all its products. Elsewhere, Xinyi is planning to deploy 5 GW of solar in Heilongjiang province and the China Electricity Council has reported the nation added 22 GW of solar in the first eight months of the year.

NREL researchers said a profitable and sustainable solar panel recycling industry could establish itself by 2032. Here’s how the numbers work.

A Russian-Italian research group has developed resonant silicon nanoparticles that are claimed to improve the performance of perovskite solar cells. These particles serve as nanoantennae – they catch light and it resonates inside them, which amplifies the cell’s light absorption.

Singaporean scientists have developed a special device that prevents the formation of dendrites in lithium-ion storage. The additional layer they created works as an interface on behalf of the negative electrode, to exchange lithium-ions with the positive electrode.

A 1.2 MW solar plant and ‘up to 2 MWh’ energy storage system will replace generators to power the city broadband network in Freetown from mid next year.

Renewables developer Edify Energy has been granted development approval to build and operate a green hydrogen production plant of up to 1 GW, as well as a behind-the-meter solar and battery storage facility within the Lansdown Eco-Industrial Precinct in Townsville, northern Queensland.

Developed by Dutch company UseAllEnergy, the module is fabricated with a heat exchanger placed on the rear side that works as a heat source for a brine-water heat pump. Thanks to this innovation, the heat pump does not need to get heat from a borehole yet can still generate sufficient thermal energy. The solution is claimed to be easy to install and also to be suitable for retrofits.

The renewables-powered sustainable hydrogen announcements have come as a group of international researchers made controversial claims about the potential of gas-fired blue hydrogen to be part of the climate change solution.