Can Israeli PV tenders preserve competition in a concentrated market?
Researchers have studied Israel’s clearing price method for PV tenders and raised concerns about its potential for long-term dominance. They examined how power abuse and technological inefficiencies lead to market inefficiencies, concluding that a duopoly best suits the Israeli market.
Germany adds 960 MW of solar in September
Germany installed 960 MW of solar in September, bringing its cumulative PV capacity to more than 94.52 GW.
Japan’s Toyo plans 2 GW solar cell factory in Ethiopia
Tokyo-based Toyo Co. says it will invest $60 million in a new 2 GW solar cell factory in Ethiopia, to mostly serve the US market.
Sweden’s first large-scale agrivoltaic park inaugurated
Production is now underway at Sweden’s first large-scale agrivoltaics park, owned and operated by Svea Solar. A power purchase agreement is in place with a local vertical farmer for the electricity produced, while the farm underneath the solar panels will produce rapeseed, ley and wheat on a rotational basis.
UK’s largest PPA to date signed for 373 MW solar park
Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners announces two long-term agreements covering 100% of solar power generation at Cleve Hill Solar Park. British supermarket retailer Tesco has signed a 15-year agreement covering 65% of generation and Shell will manage remaining capacity under 10-year route-to-market deal.
Germany wraps up ‘innovative’ tender with average price of €0.0709/kWh
Germany has concluded a new renewables tender, securing 583 MW of capacity at an average price of €0.0709 ($0.0771)/kWh.
TNO researchers build world’s first bifacial PV window
The new multifunctional PV window concept aims to produce electricity while providing over-heating protection for better indoor thermal and visual comfort. It consists of an insulating glazing unit with bifacial crystalline silicon solar cells strips and embedded venetian blinds that act as reflectors for the rear side of the cells.
Organic PV module based on ultra-narrow interconnections achieves record-breaking efficiency of 16.1%
New research from China shows that ultra-narrow interconnections may considerably improve organic PV performance. The scientists built a 11.08 cm2 panel with an impressive geometric fill factor of 98%.
France’s Carbon involved in patent case with JA Solar
France-based PV manufacturer Carbon is currently involved in patent proceedings with JA Solar over tunneling silicon oxide (SiO2) layers, doped polysilicon layers, and electrodes in tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) solar products.
PV fault detection method based on deep learning of aerial images
Conceived an international research group, the proposed model uses the convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture U-Net for image segmentation and the the CNN architecture InceptionV3-Net for fault classification.
