In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, presents the solar irradiance data it collected for North America since early May. The province of Alberta saw close to 100 wildfires raging from the beginning of the month and solar asset operators throughout the impacted regions can expect reduced efficiency from both the irradiance impacts and increased panel soiling.

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.

In the third week of May, negative or zero hourly prices were registered in most of the European electricity markets, especially during the weekend. In the Nord Pool market, the value of -€5.67/MWh registered during an hour on Sunday May 21, is the lowest one in history. For the week as a whole, prices decreased in every market, due to the decrease in demand and gas prices, and also to a higher solar and wind energy production than that of the previous week in several markets.

Solar electricity will have to compete with biofuels in the urban mobility landscape. Biofuels, however, have a very low energy productivity per hectare, as well as high requirements for fertilizers, pesticides, and water.

Frank Haugwitz arrived in China in June 2002 as technical adviser to the solar-focused Sino-German Renewable Energies in Rural Areas Program. He has directly observed the nation’s rise to solar superpower status.

The first post-pandemic update on the state of the world’s off-grid solar industry has painted a picture of domination by European companies, but highlighted the potential for new startups in West Africa and an increasing use of PV as a backup to unreliable grid supplies.

The off-grid solar sector has shown resilience in the face of pandemic-related challenges, with 70 million people gaining access to electricity from early 2020 to the end of 2021. However, the ability to pay for solar energy kits has taken a hit.

The African Development Bank has announced that European and US donors will provide $20 million of concessional loans to support pay-as-you-go solar companies in sub-Saharan Africa.

With comparisons with a Covid-hit 2020 inevitably offering a string of positive numbers, there was also little to concern the board of the inverter and battery manufacturer from the returns generated in the last quarter.

The latest edition of a clean power jobs survey produced by IRENA and the International Labour Organization has stressed the important role which will need to be played by the public sector if the energy transition’s employment benefits are to be shared equally.

The Italian authorities have allocated 368.2 MW of renewables capacity in the nation’s latest procurement exercise for clean energy. Developers have offered a maximum discount ranging between 2% and 2.8% from the auction ceiling price of €0.065 ($0.070)/kWh.

Australia’s push to become a green hydrogen superpower has gained new momentum with the federal and Queensland governments teaming up with consortium partners to deliver AUD 117 million ($76 million) for a 3 GW renewable hydrogen project.

India’s Gautam Solar is expanding its solar module production capacity to 1 GW by adding a 500 MW tunnel-oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) manufacturing line from Jinchen. The new line will start production by September.

Portugal will auction off five projects with a combined capacity of 4.5 MW. They require a total investment of around €4.3 million ($4.6 million).

The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has published a new report focusing on core benchmarks for PV prices, deployment, and imports.

A new study has evaluated the development of agrivoltaics in India, analyzing the challenges and opportunities involved in scaling up such projects, and exploring their potential for commercialization.

Norwegian startup Over Easy has validated the wind resistance of its vertical PV system for rooftops by using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Wind tunnel tests conducted by I.F.I. Institut für Industrieaerodynamik GmbH confirm that the system can function without ballast or fastening to the rooftop.

The mayor of Bilbao, Spain, has attributed the recent collapse of a local sports center’s roof to heavy rains and the presence of numerous solar panels, according to local news outlets.

Australia’s largest grid-connected urban microgrid has been officially commissioned with a new rooftop solar-powered system on Ikea’s store in Adelaide. It already delivers more than 70% of the store’s energy needs and provides grid support for the South Australian network.

About 70 Katahdin breed sheep were dropped off at the Oberlin College campus in Ohio last week. They will graze through mid-June, stomping grass and weeding the solar field in a move aimed at reducing operations and maintenance costs.

The European Solar Test Installation (ESTI) has confirmed the results of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology’s (KAUST) new perovskite/silicon tandem solar cell. The 1 cm2 device also achieved an open-circuit voltage of 1.974 V, a short-circuit current density of 20.99 mA/cm2, and a fill factor of 81.3%.

TSUN’s new microinverter series has an input current of up to 18.5 A and an efficiency rating of up to 97.2%. The manufacturer claims it is particularly suitable for complex installation environments.

An international research team in China has used Czochralski n-type c-Si wafers from China-based Sichuan Yongxiang to build textured wafers with a thickness ranging from 65 μm to 55 μm. They have used the wafers in heterojunction solar cells ton hit efficiencies close to those of devices cells based on conventional wafers.

A Japanese consortium is now testing a 100 kW fuel cell system in Tokyo. The system uses green hydrogen and waste plastic hydrogen to provide heat to an industrial building. The demonstration aims to establish an urban hydrogen energy utilization model that combines global and local hydrogen sources.

The perovskite solar race is heating up, with a cue of manufacturers forming to test products at the US Department of Energy’s (DoE) PV commercialization facilities, and academics on both sides of The Pond announcing new advances in recent months.

A new solar company has entered the PV market, pv magazine learned this week at SNEC in Shanghai. The company sells everything from PV modules and inverters to racking and wallboxes.

The compact bifacial glass-glass modules are to be delivered from the third quarter. They are available in two different variants with an efficiency of 22.02 and 21.76%.

China’s Eging has unveiled a new line of bifacial TOPCon solar panels based on n-type wafers and 182 mm cells. The modules have a temperature coefficient of -0.30% and efficiencies ranging from 21.67% to 22.45%.

Solarge, a Dutch panel manufacturer, says that its new factory will make two types of lightweight mono-PERC panels with low carbon footprints. It says it will design them to be reused at the end of their 25-year lifespans.

The new series comes in seven versions, with power outputs between 560 W and 590 W. The power conversion efficiency ranges between 21.7% and 22.8%

China-based Sofar has unveiled PowerMaster, a new modular utility-scale battery based on lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry. 

German investors have agreed to back a hydrogen project in Namibia, while Plug Power and Thyssenkrupp Nucera have announced separate hydrogen-related deals in Sweden.

The Allgäu company has expanded production at its headquarters in Wildpoldsried and can now produce around 120,000 systems a year. Sonnen’s move to accelerate expansion reflects the sharp rise in demand for PV home storage systems in Germany.

The IQ Battery 5P works in conjunction with the Enphase Energy System and can be configured for self-consumption, savings, or full backup functionality.

NEOM Green Hydrogen Company has secured an exclusive 30-year off-take agreement with Air Products for what they claim will be the world’s largest green hydrogen plant, while Germany’s EEX has launched the world’s first market-based hydrogen index.