2023

The typical volume of excess clean power wasted daily on the island has rocketed since last year. With a fossil fuel industry veteran heading the energy department after February’s presidential election, what prospect is there of a green transition?

German and Greek electric utilities have decided to build 280 MW of new solar capacity in Greece’s former coal region in Western Macedonia. This is in addition to solar farms the two utilities are already jointly building in the country, in pursuit of their 2 GW solar target for former Greek mines.

Enel says it will work with Italian startup Reiwa to develop a robot for waterless cleaning of PV plants. The innovative device features brushes and can autonomously navigate across panel rows, eliminating the need for human intervention.

Daqo and Longi report that lower polysilicon prices have affected their earnings. Aiko Solar, meanwhile, has announced a 120% year-on-year increase in its net results for the first half, with shipments reaching 18.7 GW.

Norwegian researchers say blue and green hydrogen could complement each other in the future, but early adoption of green hydrogen could result in increased hydrogen production and emissions.

Scientists in the United States applied quantum computing techniques to the study of singlet fission – a little understood phenomenon that carries the potential to greatly increase solar cell efficiency. For now, the study reveals more about potential applications for quantum computing than for solar cells. But the techniques demonstrated could eventually helps scientists identify better materials for highly efficient solar cells.

New research has shown that Israel has the technical potential to deploy 172.5 GW of photovoltaics, of which 132.1 GW would be from conventional installations and 40 GW from agrivoltaics. If deployed, this full potential would require energy storage with a capacity of at least 500 GWh and strong development of vehicle-to-grid technologies.

The Brazilian town of Vale do Jequitinhonha (MG), which stands out worldwide in mineral production, is the stage of a multisectoral program for the use of Brazilian lithium. The government is now exploring the opportunities of the area in the energy transition.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, presents the solar irradiance data it collected for Europe in July, The data show that solar irradiance averages across Europe maintained fairly typical monthly totals, despite the month being punctuated by weather extremes. “This reaffirms nature’s remarkable equilibrium amidst a period of significant weather fluctuations,” Solcast says.

Scientists in India have proposed to use solar modules at the end of their lifecycle as a building material for low-cost small housing units. With solar module recycling currently not viable economically, the researchers said their approach makes conventional solar panels into BIPV products without any modifications.