On Dec. 10, European Internal Market and Environment Commissioners Thierry Breton and Virginijus Sinkevičius, in conjunction with Vice President Maroš Šefčovič, announced a keenly anticipated piece of legislation: the commission’s proposal for modernized EU battery rules. Pia Alina Lange – head of communications for Recharge, the European battery industry association – says that while there are potential pitfalls with the new regulation, it could pave the way to sustainable industry development.

The global residential energy storage market continued to grow in 2020, writes IHS Markit Analyst Michael Longson. Many suppliers were looking to build upon a strong first quarter when Covid-19 hit in March 2020 and slowed the market significantly. However, as a result of several funding packages being introduced and the gradual easing of local restrictions, shipments continued to grow throughout the second and third quarters, enabling strong year-on-year growth for the sector in 2020.

An overview of the state of solar across the continent by trade body the Africa Solar Industry Association has highlighted a patchy policy landscape where clean power ambitions are often not followed through.

Despite pandemic-induced impacts, the PV market was bigger than expected last year. In particular, an installation rush in Vietnam and China took place in December and pushed global demand upward. PV InfoLink estimates that global module demand in 2020 reached 140 GW. Analyst Mars Chang delves into the numbers.

Taking a renewable energy project into its operational phase calls for several workstreams to be synchronized. The one that perhaps jumps out the most is permitting processes: correctly navigating the intricate and time-sensitive steps for licenses and permits. Regardless, each workstream calls for a different set of skills, and because of interlinked chicken-or-egg causality, it is difficult to say which single element is most important in a project’s development. However, there is an unsung element of the financial closing which has as much, if not more, impact on a project’s profitability than the cost of debt does: the underlying terms and conditions.

The Amsterdam-based, Australia and central Europe-facing developer saw sales slump thanks to Covid-19 last year but has touted a growing operational project portfolio.

The national PV body in the country wants €1 billion from the EU’s recovery and resilience fund to be allocated to upgrading the electricity network to host more solar power generation capacity.

The kingdom has had a ban on new large scale clean energy projects since January 2019 as Covid-19 exacerbated a situation in which generation capacity already outstripped supply. Lifting that embargo, and re-starting renewables auctions would be a step in the right direction, according to IRENA.

The former need not necessarily relate to conventional lithium-ion batteries, however, as a recent webinar staged by Solarpower Europe and EU body GET.invest discovered.

The European Parliament and Council of Ministers continued to tidy up the details of the bloc’s Covid-recovery package today by publishing the rules of how the money will be disbursed.

German scientists have improved the scribing method to interconnect perovskite PV cells, in order to then upscale them into mini PV modules. They established suitable laser fluence ranges for nanosecond and picosecond lasers and found that the former results in higher efficiency levels.

Chinese inverter maker Sungrow revealed a 350 MW solar facility was energized in Loc Ninh County, Binh Phuoc Province. The project secured a FiT of $0.0709 per kWh.

Daqo has secured another big supply deal, Xinte is pushing to build a new factory in Inner Mongolia and the board of JA Solar has approved a proposal to deploy 20 GW of wafer production capacity in the autonomous region.

According to the analysts, the German photovoltaic market would grow by 23% this year, compared to 2020. Strong growth is expected to come from large scale projects.

As it prepares to lift the nation out of its list of the world’s least developed countries, the supranational body said the country should turn its back on coal and other fossil fuels.

The solar plant is planned to be built in southwestern Kosovo and to come online next year.

In a new report, Berkeley Lab describes recent legislative revisions, key policy design features, compliance with interim targets, past and projected impacts on renewables development, and compliance costs.

India’s cumulative installed solar capacity stood at 41.6 GW as of Dec. 31, 2020, with 1.29 GW added in the October-December period. Capacity additions in the first quarter of this year could surpass 2 GW.

The rooftop segment was once again the main growth driver in the German PV sector. The feed-in tariff for PV systems not exceeding 10 kW in size will drop under the €0.08/kWh for the first time.

EDF and Oceanus plan to build a pumped hydro storage station and a desalination system powered by wind and solar. The system will use saltwater to produce hydropower during periods of high demand, while producing affordable freshwater.

Scientists in the U.S. laid out the rationale behind new PV module testing specifications published last year, which aim to better take into account the role of temperature in various types of performance loss. They suggest a new ‘98th percentile’ approach to measuring module operating temperatures, which would offer system designers a better understanding of the module’s performance in a particular ‘micro-environment’.

A handful of companies are challenging Chinese control of a core material in lithium-ion battery production, before the electrification of transport truly kicks off the global battery boom. International Graphite, a Perth-based startup at the forefront of this effort, recently spoke to pv magazine Australia about the surprisingly collaborative race to feed global demand.

Edgehog secured the funds from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC). The special glass is hydrophobic and is claimed to be able to reduce the accumulation of dust and residue, thus reducing the need for maintenance.

The Limburg section of the network could face congestion problems for a decade, according to transmission system operator Tennet, prompting talk of offering auction-determined incentives to clean-power generators to reduce their output.

A scoping study has found that Global Energy Ventures’ compressed hydrogen ship is technically feasible and ‘highly competitive’ to transport the hyped future fuel at distances that conveniently connect Australia to Asian markets.

Just as Australia thought its pioneering days were over, it has become the first country in the world to sell General Electric’s new solar inverters.

Since summer 2018, a 25% charge has been levied by the EU on steel-product import volumes in excess of historical norms. European manufacturers say there is still a global steelmaking glut and the U.S. is showing no signs of lifting its restrictions.

The poly maker is making significant investment pledges into new production lines in Sichuan and Inner Mongolia.

PV systems are unique among electronic devices, as they are expected to survive outdoors for at least 25 to 30 years. This makes module and system quality one of the cornerstones of guaranteed returns on investment. Potential-induced degradation (PID) is a critical failure mode with a potentially high financial impact. New research from imec and Hasselt University looks at the damaging impact that PID can have on bifacial technology, writes Michaël Daenen, a professor at EnergyVille and Hasselt University.

The thin-film module manufacturer achieved a turnover of $2.7 billion and a profit of $400 million last year. The company also revealed that it is evaluating further U.S. manufacturing expansion, “contingent on the right policy environment.”

According to the German manufacturer, the TS-I HV 80 can combine a wide variety of applications such as optimized self-consumption and intelligent peak load capping.

Porous nanostructured microspheres made of copper, iron, and iron oxide were used by an international research team as negative anode material in lithium-ion batteries. The new technique is claimed to provide three times more capacity than batteries based on graphite anodes.

Sun Cable’s ambitious 13 GW Australia-ASEAN Power Link, which is designed to export solar electricity from Australia’s Northern Territory to Singapore, continues to shine bright, with the Australian government including the mega-project on its Priority Initiative List.

German energy company Steag is helping Thyssenkrupp decarbonize its steel production site in Duisburg-Walsum. Green hydrogen generation is expected to be powered by a mix of wind and solar power.

Relectrify said its new storage system is suitable for commercial and industrial applications and is designed for installations in the 120 kWh to 2 MWh range.