A Carbon Tracker report estimates 60% of the world’s technical solar potential – enough to produce 3.5 exawatt-hours of clean electricity per year – would already be cheaper than fossil fuel if installed. Of the remainder, most would be in sub-Saharan Africa, a region which has the potential to be a global solar and wind powerhouse.

The virtual 7th Asia-Pacific Climate Change Adaptation Forum was hosted in March by Japan’s Ministry of the Environment, together with the Asia Pacific Adaptation Network (APAN) Secretariat. The theme was “Enabling Resilience for All: The Critical Decade to Scale-up Action” with the goal of formulating National Adaptation Planning for science and technology, and energy and fiscal policies that consider the interlinkages between climate change, health, and biodiversity. These nature- and ecosystem-based policies will serve as the basis for the Asia-Pacific region’s contributions to the “Leaders’ Summit on Climate” in the United States; the United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP 15) in Kunming, China; and the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 26) in Glasgow, United Kingdom.

Owners and operators of energy storage systems, as well as investors, need transparent ways to evaluate battery performance. They need certainty that the selected batteries for their ESS projects will perform reliably, have predictable life expectancies, and meet projected revenue and contractual obligations over their lifetimes. The economic viability of entire projects depend on this confidence, writes Michael Kleinberg of DNV.

This year will witness the end of the French program for PV tenders known as “CRE4”, which began in 2016. To date, they have enabled over 7.2 GW of solar capacity to benefit from a subsidized tariff (feed-in tariff or feed-in premium). A few months before the last CRE4 tenders and the launch of the PPE2 (or CRE5), Finergreen evaluates their impact on the French solar industry.

The performance ratio test is at the core of the handover from EPC to owner. Yet sometimes, even when best practice is applied – and without particularly demanding guaranteed values to be achieved – these tests fail good projects. This can lead to costly delays and wasted effort spent trying to find issues that might not exist. Everoze Partner Dario Brivio reviews the likelihood of this happening and considers ways to increase confidence in the precision of such tests, based on recent independent analysis of real-world projects.

While solar, wind and hydro generated 80 TWh more electricity last year than in 2019, coal and oil use fell in every EU member state, and Greek energy emissions fell almost 19%.

The $18bn worth of sustainable finance instruments floated in the nation last year marked a retreat from previous highs but, with most of the bonds issued from July onwards, the recovery is under way, according to the IFC, which is anticipating a more-than-$100 billion sector in emerging markets over the next three years.

With Chinese manufacturers having warned they will pass on escalating component costs, and shipping expenses soaring since last summer, the rising price of solar is forcing some installers to redraft quotes, pv magazine has discovered.

Covid-19 disruption has been cited as the chief culprit as imports from China, Thailand and Vietnam slumped from April to January, but safeguarding duty also appears to have had an impact, with unaffected imports from nations such as Myanmar, Chad and Russia on the rise and Malaysian trade keeping steady.

But new ventures into coal-fired steam and petrochemicals products helped state-owned China Shuifa Singyes towards a significantly healthier balance sheet in 2020.

China-based wind turbine manufacturer Mingyang Smart Energy wants to build a heterojunction module factory with a capacity of 5 GW. Both Longi and Tongwei have raised the prices of their wafers and cells, respectively.

Grid congestion issues are increasing in the Netherlands and several Dutch farmers claim to have remained without access to the grid despite having completed their rooftop arrays.

The Golomoti solar plant is expected to come online by the end of the year. The plant will be used to provide grid stability and reduce national dependence on diesel generators and hydroelectric generation.

India’s production-linked incentive scheme for battery storage is designed to facilitate the construction of 50 GWh of cumulative advanced chemistry cell (ACC) capacity and 5 GWh of “niche” ACC production facilities in India.

Oxford-based Habitat Energy uses machine learning algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI) and its own trading platform and software to maximize profits from utility scale storage facilities. A Canadian Solar statement about the arrangement, issued today, contained no financial details about the co-operation.

Aurora Energy Research reports that the size of electrolyzers is increasing. Furthermore, Chile moves forward with its first green hydrogen project and German car manufacturer BMW said it would unveil a hydrogen fuel cell SUV in 2022.

The Spanish utility said agrivoltaic projects and solutions will be evaluated based on costs, technological maturity, crop diversity, and level of digitization among other things.

Lightsource BP plans to build a new PV hub in the Australian state of New South Wales.

Sheep and solar farms can exist symbiotically, and the American Solar Grazing Association says that now is the time to convert that relationship into a full-scale industry.

Record investment in solar and wind farms across the National Electricity Market has helped to quell concerns that Victoria and South Australia will face increased risk of blackouts later this decade following the impending closure of the Yallourn coal-fired power plant.

New research from Australia has shown that singlet fission solar cells do not only have the potential to raise the theoretical efficiency of the PV technology to unexpected levels but also to provide a better temperature behavior and longer duration compared to conventional PV devices. The scientists believe that this technique may help conventional crystalline silicon solar cell technologies reach efficiencies close to 30%.

US scientists have created a new design for lithium-metal, solid-state batteries that should avoid the formation of dendrites that grow into the electrolyte. Their multilayered battery could potentially recharge electric vehicles within 10 to 20 minutes.

Australian farmer Thomas Blair is expanding the horizons of his industry to cultivate green hydrogen.

In the third interview of a series, pv magazine spoke to Prof. Arvind Shah of École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne and Associate Prof. Alessandro Romeo from the University of Verona about the challenges and opportunities of cadmium telluride (CdTe) PV tech. They said there is still potential to ramp up efficiency and cut costs, and claimed that the toxicity of cadmium should not be seen as a serious concern.

A Chinese-Finnish research team has identified composite membranes as the best future option for non-aqueous redox flow batteries.

The polysilicon manufacturer has once again rejected allegations of forced labor by opening the doors of its factory in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to international investors and journalists. Video footage of the event was published by the company on its website.

Developed by a French-Canadian research group, the triple-junction cell is based on indium gallium phosphide (InGaP), indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) and germanium (Ge) and has an active area of only 0.089 mm2. It can be used for applications in micro-concentrator photovoltaics (CPV).

It’s claimed the decentralized desalination system can deliver a levelized cost for desalinated water of US$0.7-4.3/m3, depending on PV costs and electricity prices. It was built with several concentrated photovoltaic/thermal (CPV-T) collectors, a hot water tank, a V-MEMD module, a seawater feed tank, and a distillate tank.

India is targeting 280 GW of solar by 2030, of which 240 GW has yet to be built, but India Ratings says the country’s production-linked incentives will only cover up to 13% of future deployments.

GAF Energy has announced plans to set up a new manufacturing facility in California. It currently produces BIPV panels in South Korea.

Nigeria and Ghana-based Starsight Energy has spent an undisclosed amount to acquire a half stake in the Kenyan subsidiary of East African peer Premier Solar Group.

With South Africa holding 63,000 of the world’s estimated 69,000 metric tons of platinum reserves – according to the Statista.com website – and Russia and Zimbabwe a further 5,100 between them, the European Commission has cited the metal as an example of a potential supply chain bottleneck that could handicap its grand plans for renewables-powered hydrogen production.

Scientists in the U.S. used sophisticated imaging techniques to observe previously unknown defects in the crystalline structure of a solid-state electrolyte. The scientists theorize that these defects could play an important role in the electrolyte’s performance, and that designing them more carefully into the material could have impressive results.

The new electrolyser with anion exchange membrane technology is expected to produce 450 kilograms per day and will be available on the market in 2022.

Australia’s Redflow has unveiled its new Energy Pod Z module.