As primary silver grades decline and solar demand surges, the industry must transition from viewing retired panels as waste to treating them as high-grade mineral reserves essential for the energy transition.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that January in South America featured dramatic weather contrasts with persistent floods and cloud cover in northern regions sharply reducing solar irradiance, while extreme heat, drought and wildfires in the south boosted sunlight yet also generated aerosol smoke that complicated irradiance outcomes. Severe storms, tornadoes and industrial fires further punctuated the month’s highly variable irradiance patterns across the continent.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.

This week Women in Solar+ Europe gives voice to Charmaine Coutinho, Director – EMEA Energy Transition at UK-based FTI Consulting. She says the energy transition requires inclusive systems that actively involve underrepresented groups, ensuring diversity and equity at all levels. Drawing on decades in the sector, she emphasizes intentional mentorship, sponsorship, and transparent leadership as essential for meaningful change and career impact.

Whatever decision the U.S. Department of Commerce makes on polysilicon imports, some market segments are in for a bumpy ride in 2026 as the expiration of tax credits and other policy levers change the trading environment faced by residential installers and others. Jesse Pichel and Lev Seleznov of Roth Capital assess what lies ahead for U.S. solar.

The Texxecure PV Quality Rating evaluates solar modules, inverters, and entire projects using uniform technical criteria, condensing technical risk into a single AAA-to-D score for developers, investors, banks, and insurers.

EcoFlow has unveiled the single-phase Ocean 2 all-in-one battery inverter at Key Energy in Rimini. The system features a more compact 5 kWh LFP battery stackable up to 30 kWh and offering 100% depth of discharge, 3.4 kW discharge power, and IP66 protection.

The Iraqi Customs Authority has cut customs duties on solar energy systems from 33% to 5% – covering PV panels, inverters, cables, and lithium batteries – to accelerate solar adoption, following financing support from the Central Bank of Iraq.

Group Surya has launched a 500 MW G12R solar module production line in Odisha, India, with plans to double capacity to 1 GW within months.

Output from Australia’s large-scale renewable energy sector continues to climb with the nation’s utility PV and wind assets generating a total of 5.0 TWh in February, delivering an 11% increase on the same time last year.

Moldova had a record year for solar deployment last year, taking cumulative capacity to 710 MW. There is now just under 1 GW of renewables installed in the country.

Singapore has increased its 2030 solar target by 1 GW after surpassing the original 2 GW goal before the end of last year.

France’s Engie has introduced Enermap, a free online platform that lets users evaluate the potential for solar, wind, hydroelectric, biogas, and battery projects at the municipal and regional level using government and research data.

The Natec Home has a nominal capacity of 7.68 kWh and a power output of 3.8 kW, and allows parallel connection of up to 15 units. The reference price is set at €3,990.

Daikin has introduced two new propane heat pump lines for industrial and district heating applications, combining monobloc units from 20 kW to 85 kW with modular systems scalable up to 2 MW.

The new heterojunction solar module concept is based on co-extruded EVA/POE/EVA (EPE) encapsulant with UV downshifting (UV-DS) films, which convert harmful UV light into blue light, protecting cells and slightly boosting short-circuit current by 1.5–1.75%.

Researchers at ICMS in Seville have developed a hybrid perovskite solar cell that generates electricity from both sunlight and raindrops, using the photovoltaic and triboelectric effects. A fluorinated CFₓ polymer layer enables water resistance, triboelectric energy harvesting, and high light transparency without reducing solar cell efficiency.

SERIS researchers developed a 16-cm² perovskite-silicon tandem solar cell with a double-sided TOPCon bottom cell, enhancing passivation, reducing recombination, and increasing voltage and fill factor.

The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) will place sodium batteries at the center of its work on the EU’s industrial strategy and is calling for swift action. pv magazine has compiled a list of manufacturers developing this technology in Europe.

Researchers in Spain have developed a dual-condenser air-to-water heat pump that shifts domestic hot water production to daylight hours, maximizing PV self-consumption. The prototype boosted solar energy use from 9.9% to 55.5% and achieved a peak coefficient of performance of 7.59 under PV-assisted operation.

The transaction is the latest big announcement in a hot market for US power and utilities mergers and acquisitions, as companies jostle for position in anticipation of AI-driven demand spike.

Silver prices have resumed their climb, reaching $95 per ounce this morning. Silver analyst Philip Newman tells pv magazine that escalating tensions in the Middle East are expected to continue driving investment demand for safe-haven assets such as gold and silver.

The transparent four-terminal perovskite solar cell employs an ion-modulated spiro-MeOTAD hole transport layer, which passivates interfacial defects, enhances carrier dynamics, and allows for a tunable work function in wide-bandgap perovskites. When integrated into mechanically stacked 4T tandems with an n-TOPCon cell, the device achieved an overall efficiency of 28.4–30.2%, along with improved open-circuit voltage and fill factor.

Premier Energies Ltd today unveiled India’s first zero-busbar (0BB) TOPCon solar cell at Intersolar India. The 0BB design marks a structural shift from traditional 10BB and 16BB architectures, replacing thick silver busbars with a dense matrix of ultra-fine silver lines to collect current.

The China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association (CNMIA) says polysilicon production has fallen to 32% of capacity, sustaining oversupply, while wafer prices weaken as post–Chinese New Year demand fails to recover.

Aurora Energy Research says uncompensated PV curtailment will remain elevated in 2026 and 2027, reaching 3.05 TWh next year and 3.38 TWh in 2027, as grid constraints persist despite planned reinforcements.

The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence say US battery installations reached a record 57.6 GWh in 2025, up 30% year on year, as the industry enters what they describe as a new phase of sustained, high-volume deployment.

Osaki Electric says it has signed an agreement to formalize joint development of its AI-based energy management system (EMS), integrating solar generation and lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery storage. It aims to sign a final contract by December 2026.

HydrogenPro says its 220 MW ACES Delta project in Utah is nearing completion, with all electrolyzers operating at full load, while the hub will store hydrogen in salt caverns with energy capacity two to three times that of all US grid-connected batteries combined.

A survey of more than 800 Spanish C&I PV installations following the 2019–2022 self-consumption boom found significant administrative, technical and monitoring deficiencies in all audited systems, with 13.2% of businesses reporting savings far below expectations.