The seventh session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development convened on the theme of “Building forward better towards a resilient and green Africa to achieve the 2030 & 2063 Agenda” and promote the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.

A few years ago, fluctuations and complex storage solutions were the main factors hampering solar growth. Today, the sector is poised to leverage technologies to make a decisive leap. With a sustainable future around the corner, it will be innovative battery storage that will drive solar PV to become more powerful and efficient than ever before. But what are the latest developments in PV and energy storage, and which innovations are poised to transform the industry?

840 million people still don’t have access to electricity today, according to the World Bank. But the radical decrease in the cost of the green technologies of solar and battery storage provides an unparalleled opportunity to close this gap and achieve universal electricity access by 2030.

Spanish law firm Rödl & Partner provides an update on distressed solar power purchase agreements (PPAs) in Spain, focusing on the impact, and economic and legal consequences, of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Despite the supply and demand challenges that PV faced in 2020, the U.S. solar market had its largest installation year to date, writes IHS Markit’s Maria Chea. More than 22 GW of PV installations were completed last year, with utility-scale projects representing 77% of that volume. A renewables-friendly administration, an extended ITC schedule, increasingly competitive pricing, and a massive late-stage project pipeline will drive strong growth for the United States in 2021.

A record number of defaults last year has spooked some lenders, according to Solargiga, but the solar manufacturer has announced ambitious plans to ramp production capacity this year and next.

The Greek government has published its plan for a post-Covid economic recovery. The strategy aims to mobilize at least €10 billion towards the green energy sector, with the prospect of further EU loans on top.

That was just one of the revelations of the latest Dentons’ Guide to renewables investment in Europe, which also noted solar plants could be switched off in Slovakia, Ireland could go either way on clean power pricing, and Luxembourg is struggling with a surprising headache.

The bailed-out solar company has seen its fortunes reverse since state-owned Shuifa rode to the rescue but it still has some assets frozen as the result of civil cases.

Patrik Huber, co-founder and managing director for East Africa at renewables leasing company Solarise Africa, has spoken to pv magazine about the company’s take on how the region can prime for a green recovery. Huber explained Solarise’s contribution to the recovery includes recent expansion into three new countries.

U.S. company Group14 Technologies today announced the launch of a factory capable of producing 120 tons per year of its innovative silicon-carbon-based anode material for lithium-ion batteries. The factory is located at Group14’s headquarters in Woodinville, Washington and is the first of several planned by the company.

Risen will sell 50,000 metric tons of poly to Shangji Automation and Zhonghuan Semiconductor has raised the prices of all its wafer products.

The solar industry faced headwinds in March, writes Jesse Pichel of Roth Capital Partners, thanks to rising interest rates and, in California, concerns over increasing grid access fees. Despite this, the recent earnings season reveals strong fundamentals and a healthy outlook for most players.

With Cape Town-based solar crowdfunder The Sun Exchange having generated $1.4 million for a 510 kW solar-plus-storage facility for Zimbabwean food company Nhimbe Fresh, pv magazine has spoken to the heads of both businesses–Sun Exchange CEO and founder Abraham Cambridge and Nhimbe executive chairman Edwin Moyo–about the fundraising exercise. First up is The Sun Exchange founder…

A new study from the Lappeenranta University of Technology predicts solar may even achieve a 69% share for total primary energy supply by the end of the first half of the century. In terms of price, solar PV is expected to achieve a capex of €246/kW-installed for utility scale projects, and of €537/kW for residential arrays by 2050. The levelized cost of energy (LCOE), however, is expected to remain constant over the next three decades, as the energy transition will also be implemented with storage technologies, increased flexibility and the production of synthetic fuels.

India’s Larsen & Toubro has announced plans to provide EPC services to support the deployment of 300 MW of solar in Saudi Arabia, under a contract with a consortium involving Masdar, EDF Renewables, and Saudi Arabia’s Nesma.

The two companies are seeking proposals to provide power to Sasol’s synthetic fuel plant in Secunda, Mpumalanga.

Furthermore, Michelin said it wants to become a world leader in hydrogen fuel cell systems and ScottishPower aims to build a green hydrogen plant at a wind power complex. Moreover, a study led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory suggested new strategies to design perovskite materials to speed up the oxygen evolution reaction (OER), a process that frees up molecular oxygen from water and is key for hydrogen production.

Axter, a French waterproofing specialist, has revealed a new mounting process for the installation of rigid solar modules on several types of buildings, including concrete, metal, and wood surfaces.

Larsen & Toubro is set to work on the 1.5 GW Sudair plant – the largest solar project in Saudi Arabia to have a signed power purchase agreement in place. Upon completion, it will also be one of the biggest PV installations in the world.

Australian Vanadium filed a patent application this week for its vanadium processing route, while rival TNG signed a deal to commercialize vanadium redox flow batteries.

Greater dispatchability will be required from solar as it becomes increasingly mainstream worldwide, or investors could experience diminishing returns as a victim of the technology’s success at bearing down on electricity prices.

Scientists in the U.S. claim to have successfully upcycled PET waste bottles into an electrochemical active-carbon material that functions as a double‐layer supercapacitor substance. They said that this achievement may lay the ground for the production of more sustainable batteries. Devices built with the proposed technique would not store as much energy as lithium-ion batteries but they could charge much faster.

The Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin (ISFH) is testing if renewables can cover 80% of electricity and heating demand combined in some town districts in southern Germany.

A Chilean startup is using solar energy to produce high-quality drinking water from the humidity in the air. The first plant is located in Chile, but there are plans in the works to expand to Colombia and Peru.

The panel was unveiled in October and is the most powerful product the company has brought to the market to date. The Chinese-Canadian manufacturer expects to reach, for this product, a 10 GW capacity by the end of the year.

The n-type TOPCon solar module manufacturer is preparing to invest in a joint venture with state-controlled local partner PT Len Agra Energy to set up 1 GW of annual cell and panel capacity.

The Chinese manufacturer said its new panel series features a power conversion efficiency ranging from 20.93% to 21.32%. The panel is claimed to be suitable for both distributed generation and utility scale projects.

Trading in the Hong Kong-listed company stock, which was supposed to resume this morning following publication of the overdue 2020 figures, remains suspended.

Lithium-ion battery products will be sold by the group’s storage and autoglass business to its solar glass operation–for use in solar project development–and its float glass manufacturing unit.

The solar-plus-storage facility will reduce heavy fuel oil consumption by 13.1 million liters per year.

With the World Bank celebrating the success of a solar home system installation program which has provided electricity to an estimated 20 million people, an NGO has floated a near-$12 million environmental investment which could drive further PV capacity.

The contest is over. Faster, cheaper, more flexible than gas turbines – battery energy storage must be the future peaking energy service provider of choice, according to a new paper by Australia’s Clean Energy Council.

The nascent hydrogen economy has seen a good amount of developments in a week that showed an increasing number of players taking part in the game. In the UK, British Airways has invested in hydrogen-electric aircraft developer ZeroAvia with a focus on hydrogen-electric power solutions for 50-plus-seat aircraft. In Brazil, Petrobras has joined forces with Siemens to develop green hydrogen solutions. In Portugal, the government and the European Investment Bank signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding for hydrogen cooperation.

A homegrown technology developed by the University of Newcastle and Southern Green Gas has seen the development of a novel green hydrogen fuel and carbon-neutral green methane. The fuel was demonstrated in Hyundai’s Nexo hydrogen fuel cell SUV in Sydney.