With the release of second quarter financial results, the rankings of global module shipments in the first half of the year can be confirmed. JinkoSolar shipped 4.8 GW to take first place in this period.

By 2025, Taiwan aims to reach a cumulative installed solar PV capacity of 20 GW. However, by mid-2018, just 11.2% of this goal had been met. TrendForce analyst, Rhea Tsao, examines the situation and discusses what needs to be done to reach the target.

Module degradation tests are essential not only for effective plant operations, but also to ensure an optimum ROI. However, fixed laboratories, where such tests are usually carried out, involve transportation issues, while it is not always economically feasible to send in mobile laboratories. So how can degradation in these instances be measured? Leonardo Enrique Pérez Abreu, Technical Manager of the Testing & Optimization department at Enertis discusses this issue.

World Overshoot Day marks the day the world has used up its annual budget of the resources it could have sustainably consumed. Despite efforts in relevant sectors, the date is creeping forward every year. Twenty years ago, it was in late September.

India is currently the second largest market in the world for PV module demand. With China’s domestic demand frozen since the 31/5 notification, the country’s total module demand in 2018 will likely only achieve 32-34 GW. This will allow India, which may surpass 10 GW in annual demand, to reach 13% of global PV demand this year. As a result, the future of India’s trade war has become an influential factor in the global PV industry.

The Floating PV NV company has secured €2m for a floating solar plant on a site owned by Belgian raw material provider Sibelco. The funding is part of a €6m plan to support floating PV in Flanders.

The power supplier is cooperating with the University of Tokyo, Mitsubishi UFJ Bank and Unisys, testing how solar power can be traded between solar prosumers and electricity consumers, while conducting transactions using a blockchain platform.

Montenegro’s Ministry of Economy said the consortium provided the best conditions for the number of newly created jobs and lease payment, and in terms of technical and financial ability to build the plant.

In this interview with pv magazine, the president of integrated monocrystalline PV maker Longi Solar gives his perspective on market and policy changes in China, Europe and the United States, as well as giving an update on his company’s very rapid growth.

In the jargon-heavy world of solar-speak, C&I handily condenses Commercial and Industrial into a snackable sub-section of the PV industry. But as sub-sections go, the C&I space has perhaps the greatest scope for flexibility, offering a raft of possibilities from ground-mount through to ingenious use of rooftop space. For module manufacturers, C&I also means something else: Challenges and Innovations, writes Ian Clover, Manager Corporate Communications, Hanwha Q Cells.

The European Bank of Redevelopment and Construction (EBRD) will provide financing for an up to 28 MW solar PV park, to be developed by Nomad Solar in Kazakhstan.

Italian, Spanish and Portuguese scientists have published a study about energy consumption and the environmental footprint of the use of solar-hybrid irrigation systems in olive plantations in Portugal and Morocco.

The Norwegian developer had 357 MW of PV projects in operation and 1,057 MW under construction at the end of the third quarter of this year.

On October 25, pv magazine will host a webinar, powered by JinkoSolar, in which the China-based manufacturer will present the case for using bifacial modules in large-scale solar plants, and discuss the influencing factors and their impact on bifacial PV tracking. In the following Q&A, JinkoSolar’s Andrea Viaro, Head of Technical Service Europe, JinkoSolar, and Colin Caufield, VP of Sales North America, Soltec provide a sneak peak into the technology and the advantages tracking can bring to bifacial technology.

Four PV projects totaling 170 MW were selected in the first of a series of RE auctions to be held this year. Overall, the Kazakh government is planning to assign 290 MW of solar and a total of 1 GW of renewable energy capacity.

A Japanese research team claims to have tailored an electron-accepting unit, which has been successfully used in an organic semiconductor applied in a solar cell device that showed high PV performance.

The tipping point, where the world shifts from oil and gas to renewables, will be the year 2035, says Wood Mackenzie. This is when renewables and electric-based technologies converge, with around 20% of global power needs being met by solar or wind, and roughly 20% of miles traveled by cars, trucks, buses and bikes using electricity. Will the transition come soon enough, however?

The Munich-based company will receive up to €2 million for a large-scale storage facility in southern Germany. The system will consist of 52 lithium-ion car batteries –which are also used in the BMW i3 – and will be coupled with a wind farm.

Electrifying the global energy system with clean energy is the only way to reach the targets set by the Paris agreement on climate change and avoid the catastrophic scenarios outlined by the recent IPCC report. In an interview with pv magazine, Christian Breyer – Professor of Solar Economy at Finland’s Lappeenranta University of Technology – explains a 100% renewables model is not only technically feasible, but also the cheapest and safest option. With solar and storage at its core, the future energy system envisaged by Breyer and his team will not only stop coal, but also nuclear and fossil gas, while seeing solar reach a share of around 70% of power consumption by 2050. By that time, PV technology could cost a third of its current price.

The farming sector alone offers a potential $40bn marketplace, thanks to rice transplanting, pesticide spraying and grain harvesting – says the Council on Energy, Environment and Water thinktank.

The company has stopped operations, and says that it is installing tools to increase its U.S. module manufacturing to 500 MW per year, while moving to all mono, half-cut cells and five busbars.

Tesla is planning accelerated development and construction of this new battery and EV plant, which will mark the company’s first soirée into international production.

Toshiba Corporation has announced it will invest JPY 16.2 billion (around US$144 million) in a second Japanese manufacturing facility for its SCiB rechargeable lithium-ion batteries.

Analysts at Taiwan-based EnergyTrend and China’s PV Infolink have reported a further increase in demand for monocrystalline solar cells and modules in recent days. Their respective analyses on multi-crystalline products, however, do not match.

The CIS thin film solar module maker was taken over, together with its parent company Japan’s oil and gas group, Showa Shell Sekiyu, by Japanese oil refiner Idemitsu.

The project, under development by Gasunie, Tennet and Thyssengas, will convert wind power into green hydrogen. The plant commissioning should take place gradually starting from 2022.

For renewables to claim a more sizable share of the global energy mix, the adoption of energy storage would need to pick up pace and the rapidly increasing size of the EV fleet will offer a scalable way to ramp up such access, says Fitch Solutions.

Lithium Werks has ambitious plans for a global chain of utility-scale production lines that has secured the backing of the Netherlands government and PM Mark Rutte, as EU leaders contemplate a post-US trade future.

Mercedes Benz execs join Eguana Technologies to help drive Calgary-based business’ global expansion plans.

According to a UC Berkeley study, the falling costs of storage technologies will make it possible for Sub-Saharan countries to rely on decentralized systems based mainly on solar-plus-storage, bringing access to electricity to more than 600 million people.