The booming large scale and rooftop PV market in 2018 is providing reasons to be optimistic about the future of solar under the Australian sun. Reflecting on his six-year tenure as CEO at ARENA ahead of his departure in August, Ivor Frischknecht points to the role the agency played in bringing down the costs of large scale solar as ARENA’s greatest achievement.

In the face of actual and threatened tariffs in the US and India, the world’s biggest solar manufacturers may have to set up shop in the protectionist nations in question ahead of a predicted cooling in their home market

For decades, hydrogen has been sold to us as the energy carrier of the future. You might not want to hear it anymore, because the future never seems to start. But times will change as recent developments in Germany indicate, writes Berlin-based renewable energy consultant, Stephan Franz.

As global economies develop, and uses for renewable energy diversifies, new pressures are being placed on the electric network. Yet, utilities are sitting on a wealth of data that can reveal better insights into their operations, writes Dan Beasley, Director, Utilities, Cyient.

Alexander Schönfeldt of energy storage specialists, Younicos examines the growing trend of energy storage-as-a-service, and explains why the sector is growing at such a rate.

According to a new report released by Climate Action Network (CAN) Europe, no single EU country is performing sufficiently in both showing ambition and making progress in reducing carbon emissions, thus casting a long shadow over the Paris Agreement objectives. Sweden is leading the charge in fighting climate change, followed by Portugal and France.

Three manufacturers with Canadian module assembly have had no luck in trying to get a preliminary injunction against the Section 201 tariffs.

German-based Innogy SE’s US subsidiary will gain exclusive rights for the acquisition of 13 solar PV projects currently owned by Birdseye Renewable Energy LLC. The projects have a cumulative capacity of 440MW and are at various stages of development.

Under the new scheme, set to come into force in 2020, homeowners and small businesses investing in solar and other renewables can expect a payback period of around seven years. They will also be exempt from paying energy taxes and the ODE (Opslag Duurzame Energie), a levy on power consumers that finances the country’s renewable energy programs, for self-consumed electricity,

Solar has covered 5.8% of Italy’s power demand so far this year. Newly installed PV capacity for the first four months of this year, meanwhile, has reached 116 MW, around 6.4% up from the same period in 2017.

Lightsource BP has announced the completion of its first solar project in India. The 60 MWp solar farm is located in Wagdari, Maharashtra.

The Guañizuil II A project was selected by Argentina’s government under phase two of the third round (Ronda 2) of the country’s renewable energy program, Renovar.

Greece-based Metka has signed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the development of the 300 MW Talasol solar PV farm, in Spain.

The Italian solar developer will provide inverters through its unit Elettronica Santerno.

The Japanese government is steadily working toward the release of the country’s fifth strategic energy plan, but it needs to work with the private sector more effectively to promote the deployment of solar over the coming decades, according to a new report. 

The planned cell is to be based on the so-called norbornadiene-quadricyclane storage system.

Researchers from Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) and Oxford PV have presented a new record perovskite tandem solar cell, with a 25.2% conversion efficiency, independently verified by Fraunhofer ISE. Bernd Stannowski, from HZB presented the results this week at the World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC-7) in Hawaii.

Citing the need for ancillary grid services, due to increasing amounts of variable renewable energy assets being installed in the U.K., the two comapnies are stressing the stability this project will bring to the country’s grid.

Australia is set to quadruple its utility-scale PV capacity with 2 GW pipeline. The effects are now beginning to show. So far just 0.1 MW are fully operational, but by July this is going to change.

A new study from University of California, Riverside, uses electric dipoles to accelerate electron in one direction, whilst completely stopping it in the other. The discovery, according to researchers, could lead to improvements in solar cell and other energy conversion technologies.

The new round of IT-related tariffs could make it more expensive for any manufacturers planning to import cells from China for module production in the United States.

With the acquisition by Golden Square Capital the German-based PV company can finalize the plans to improve its financial status. Providing a two-digit million figure the Investor ensures that product- and business development units can improve their activity in the future. Yet, cutting jobs in Germany is inevitable.

Global solar PV demand this year will be less than in 2017, on the back of China’s latest policy decision, says TrendForce. Overall, it sees new installs dropping 40% in China to 31.6 GW. The protectionist measures taken by the U.S. will also be weakened by the resulting falling module prices.

Through the deal SunPower gets $25 million and stock; however the bigger deal may be Enphase’s right to be the company’s exclusive residential inverter supplier.

The plant is the second-largest planned in the Western Hemisphere, and will triple the thin film module maker’s manufacturing capacity in the United States.

Indonesia has reached a milestone, having inaugurated its first three solar+storage mini-grids, thus enabling three remote villages to enjoy uninterrupted, off-grid access to electricity for the entire day.

Germany’s RCT Power will start manufacturing lithium-ion-phosphate battery storage modules in eastern China this week. The fully automated facility in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, has an initial annual production capacity of 18,000 units.

ABB, ElectraNet and ARENA are coming together to deliver a microgrid and large scale battery storage solution to South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula. The commercial-deployment phase of the Energy Storage for Commercial Renewable Integration (ESCRI) project will strengthen the Electranet transmission system in the area, and will deliver increased resilience in the event of interstate connector failure.

India’s PV sector is expanding at a serious pace, creating jobs and further securing energy supply for many businesses. Yet, sourcing battery cell technology at the current rate resulted in annual foreign exchange of $150 million creating deficits, that hopefully can be averted in the future.

Subsidy-free solar PV plants have generated buzz in the UK, with some plants commissioned and others planned to be developed outside of any public remuneration scheme. pv magazine explores whether the UK solar industry is ready to embrace the trend in bulk soon.