2022

FlexGen, a US-based storage system integrator, has launched a new modular battery solution for the commercial and industrial market. The FlexPod energy storage system combines lithium iron phosphate batteries, a power conversion system, and HVAC in a single container solution, with a range of configurations.

China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL) has announced plans to invest €7.34 billion ($7.6 billion) to build a 100 GWh battery plant in Debrecen, Hungary. It will be the company’s second battery cell manufacturing facility in Europe.

A new report form analysts at IHS Markit notes that the market for module-level power electronics (MLPE) grew by 33% between 2019 and 2021, with around one-third of new residential solar installations now taking advantage of MLPE’s promise of improved safety, energy yield and fault detection. And with smaller, distributed generation systems expected to represent 43% of global PV installations between now and 2025, the opportunity for MLPE will only get larger.

Pacific Jeans Group has started generating solar power at one of its factories, in line with its plans to generate 33 MWh solar power per day on the rooftops of 10 plants by 2025.

REC, a Norwegian solar panel specialist, has revealed plans to exhibit the latest PV module in its REC Alpha line at the Renewable Energy India (REI) exhibition in September.

Scientists in Japan have developed black glasses grafted silicon microparticles as a negative electrode material to improve lithium-ion battery performance.

Scientists at Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) have investigated gallium-doping in p-type silicon wafers as a route to better performance. Testing these specially produced p-type wafers in TOPCon and heterojunction cell architectures, which several major PV cell manufacturers are gearing up to produce on more expensive n-type wafers, the scientists found that with gallium doping, the p-type wafers can achieve similar or even better cell efficiencies compared to those made so far with n-type wafers.

The Russia Renewable Energy Development Association (RREDA) said in a new report that investors are still interested in building new renewables projects in the country, despite harsh market conditions related to Western sanctions.

New Mexico-based Array Technologies is keen to emphasize the revenue benefits of buying Spanish rival STI Norland and said US President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act would also be good for business.

Texas-based FTC Solar said it expects a “significant rebound” in its business in the final three months of this year, if it can secure sufficient supplies of PV panels.