Clean Energy Associates (CEA) has calculated the price premium that solar developers will swallow in return for the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) savings offered by the latest generation of high-efficiency PV panels.

Saudi Arabia aims to add 10 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2027, with solar to account for the lion’s share. The Middle East Solar Industry Association (MESIA) describes the main market drivers that could make this target achievable.

PV deployment is gathering pace in the EU member state but grid capacity shortfalls and unpredictable shifts in government policy need to be addressed if the nation is to harness its full solar – and European energy security – potential.

Despite the ever-growing number of nations committing to attaining a net-zero economy, there appears little prospect yet of a future free of fossil fuels, as Roger Lewis, an environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) expert at Downing LLP explains.

A new report by IEA PVPS Task 18 provides a blueprint guide on how to conduct feasibility studies for off-grid and edge-of-grid power systems. The optimal system size and specifications vary depending on the client’s priorities. The desired project outcomes can be identified using pure financial analysis (NPV, IRR) or additionally taking environmental performance into account.

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.

The International Renewable Energy Agency’s latest annual report on the progress towards UN sustainable development goal seven estimates 670 million people will still lack electricity in 2030, and more than 2 billion will be reliant on unhealthy, polluting cooking methods.

The European Commission wants to introduce legislation to back semiconductor research and to address the immediate problem of supply chain bottlenecks by drumming up more than €43 billion, with member states and the private sector expected to contribute.

The input costs of the two biggest contributors to solar plant development expense have gone through the roof since the world began to come out of Covid-19 lockdowns, to leave project developers with some difficult choices.

The South African government is looking for independent power producers to build and operate floating or ground-mounted PV projects at selected government waterworks infrastructure or damns. The projects should be operational for 20 years.

Enel Green Power says it has started working on the largest agrivoltaics plant in Italy. It will feature bifacial PV modules mounted on trackers. Olive trees will grow around the solar panel rows.

Germany’s grid authority has reported that the country added 874 MW of solar in January and 746 MW in February.

Gensol Engineering has acquired Indian solar tracking specialist Scorpius Trackers for $16.42 million.

The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) says that just 86 GW of power projects based on fossil fuels are awaiting interconnection, while 1,700 GW of solar, wind, storage remain delayed.

Scientists from the United States and Brazil have developed four different ways to estimate the temperature of floating PV modules. They validated the models with temperature measurements from a floating solar plant in Brazil.

Sunmaxx says Fraunhofer ISE has confirmed the 80% efficiency of its new photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) module. It consists of 108 PERC half-cells in M10 format, with 400 W of electrical output and 1,200 W of thermal output.

Swedish manufacturer Qvantum has developed a 6 kW heat pump for apartments connected to district heating systems. It uses propane (R290) as the refrigerant.

China reached a cumulative installed PV capacity of 314 GW by the end of February, according to new figures from the National Energy Administration (NEA).

Swiss researchers have looked at whether storage could be cheaper than curtailment in medium-voltage distribution networks with significant amounts of PV capacity. They considered storage costs, operational costs, grid constraints, electricity costs, PV generation models, and loads.

While shingled cells have been around for a while, Tongwei’s adoption of the technology is notable as it is a manufacturer with considerable scale. If shingling can overcome some hurdles, it could prove a welcome solution as unshaded sites for PV become elusive in mature solar markets.

Austrian scientists have created a lab-scale, solid-state, oxygen ion battery based on mixed ionic electronic conducting (MIEC), which is a special class of non-flammable electroceramic materials. The battery has around 30% of the energy density of lithium-ion batteries but can purportedly achieve a longer lifespan.

South Korea’s SDN has developed new bifacial solar modules based on M10 wafers. It claims the new panels are the largest to be produced in South Korea.

The New Zealand government will investigate the viability of establishing a pumped hydroelectric facility on the South Island. The project could provide up to 8.5 TWh of annual generation and storage capacity to support the nation’s transition to 100% renewable electricity generation.

Researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a free, web-based application that calculates the savings and energy efficiency of residential ground-source heat pumps compared to gas heating.

Hanwha Advanced Materials Georgia has agreed to supply EVA encapsulant film to Qcells, in addition to supporting Qcells’ plans to develop a fully integrated solar supply chain in the United States.

Swiss PV manufacturer Meyer Burger hit its 321 MW production volume target last year, and its expansion into the gigawatt scale is already underway, as it recently completed two additional purchase agreements with major customers. It has also applied for hundreds of millions of funding support from the EU Innovation Fund, with a final decision to be made in the summer.

EnergySage says Qcells is now as the most quoted solar panel maker in the United States.

Solarix, a building-integrated PV (BIPV) manufacturer in the Netherlands, has developed a white variant of its facade solar panels. It says demand for white BIPV products is rising across Europe, especially among architects.

SolarinBlue has deployed the first units of an offshore PV pilot plant in the Mediterranean Sea, 1.5 km off the port of Sète, France.

HDF and ZETDC have signed Zimbabwe’s first utility-scale green hydrogen power plant, with 178 GWh of expected annual electricity production. Rystad Energy, meanwhile, says Africa’s total electrolyzer pipeline has hit 114 GW.

Phaesun and Solar Cooling Engineering have developed a PV-powered cold room for small-scale farmers in Africa. The solution, which has been installed at a farm in Kenya, includes a 2.8 kW solar array and vapor compression heat pumps.

Bureau Veritas tells pv magazine that there is a great deal of interest in hydrogen certification schemes in Europe, Australia, the United States, and the Middle East.

The European Heat Pump Association has compiled an up-to-date overview of subsidies for residential heat pumps in the European Union, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Switzerland.

Rather than using solar or wind to power electrolysis, researchers are testing the competitiveness of photoelectrochemical cells to produce emissions-free hydrogen fuels.