IEA-PVPS is poised to launch a new format for expert engagement. It will include an action group on agrovoltaics, as well as a collaborative effort to match agriculture and solar generation. It aims to unlock the potential of agrivoltaics, optimize land use efficiency, enhance agricultural resilience to climate change, and foster social consensus for solar development.
Global solar demand will continue to grow in 2024, with module demand likely to reach 492 GW to 538 GW. Amy Fang, a senior analyst at InfoLink, looks at module demand and supply chain inventories in a market still affected by oversupply.
In a new monthly column for pv magazine, the International Solar Energy Society (ISES) explains how solar and wind are dominating power plant construction.
In another article of a series, Women in Solar Europe (WiSEu) gives voice to Zoraida Bejarano, the Head of Talent Management at NextEnergy Group. She says the underrepresentation of women in recruitment processes in the solar energy industry complicates efforts to showcase inclusivity and address unconscious biases.
In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that, despite record rainfall in the middle of April, areas of the Arabian Peninsula still saw above-average irradiance through April, with the UAE and parts of Saudi Arabia seeing irradiance about 5% above normal.
Japan’s Leapton Energy has developed EH-A05, a 20.48 kWh residential battery featuring storage capacities starting at 5.12 kWh, with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries.
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.
The Office of the President has turned its focus to solar panels, announcing the removal of the bifacial solar panel Section 301 tariff exclusion and addressing issues of stockpiling during trade cases, alongside promoting the nation’s manufacturing base.
CGM Power Group Ltd., an independent power producer (IPP), is requesting expressions of interest from engineering, procurement and construction companies for the development of a 50 MW on-grid solar plant in northern Zambia.
The 17th edition of the German-African Energy Forum in Hamburg this week drew more than 300 participants from over 30 countries. The continent’s green energy transition and how to finance it were among the topics on the agenda.
Researchers from China have suggested to use the so-called improved snake optimizer (ISO) algorithm for maximum power point tracking in PV systems. The proposedly algorithm can reportedly achieve a higher PV system performance and better accuracy than the simple snake algorithm.
Germany added approximately 1 GW of new solar capacity in April and 4.9 GW in the first four months of this year, according to the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur). The country’s total PV capacity now stands at 87.6 GW.
The new government coalition in the Netherlands says the nation’s current net-metering scheme will be maintained until the end of 2026. The previous Parliament had rejected a proposal to cancel the scheme by the end of 2025.
SolarPower Europe has developed an agrisolar digital map showcasing more than 200 projects across 10 European countries, with a total capacity exceeding 15 GW.
Spanish consultancy AleaSoft Energy Forecasting says France, Germany, Spain and Portugal all broke records for daily PV energy production in the second week of May, as prices in all major European electricity markets, except for the French market, continued to increase.
Zhongchu Guoneng Technology Co., Ltd. (ZCGN) has switched on the world’s largest compressed air energy storage project in China. The $207.8 million energy storage power station has a capacity of 300 MW/1,800 MWh and uses an underground salt cave.
Researchers at the German research institute have found that indirect gravure printing for metallization of silicon heterojunction solar cells reduces silver consumption and cycle times to below 0.5 seconds per cell, while still enabling conversion efficiencies of up to 20.7%.
US-based Quilt has unveiled a residential heat pump with a coefficient of performance (COP) of up to 4 and noise levels of 27 dBA to 47 dBA. The startup recently raised $33 million (€30 million) from a group of investors.
Atess Power has developed a new series of battery energy storage system (BESS) containers. The Chinese manufacturer is offering 20 HC and 40 HC containers, as well as battery-only containers with storage capacities up to 3,440 kWh.
A Chinese-Canadian research group has utilized for the first time a cadmium iodide doping technique to stabilize the blade coating process in the manufacturing of solar cells based on formamidinium lead iodide (FAPbI3) perovskite. The academics built a cell showing a considerable increase in efficiency compared to an identical device without cadmium doping.
With solar module oversupply triggering a price freefall in 2023 and no recovery in sight, market consolidation, inventory pile-up, technology shifts, and challenges to reshoring PV manufacturing are set to affect all levels of the solar supply chain.
Intensified trade measures against China via higher tariffs on imported solar and battery cells are a significant policy step, but the impact is clouded by global manufacturing shifts, price decreases and looming US Department of Commerce trade complaints.
A Chinese-Canadian research team proposed a new PV mounting solution relying on two types of spacers and two types of clamps that can be printed with common printing materials. The cost of the different solutions presented varies from CAD1.50 ($1.10) to CAD3.83.
Praveer Sinha, CEO and managing director of Tata Power says the company’s 4 GW solar cell factory in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu will be commissioned from next month. It will reach peak production capacity of 4 GW over a period of three months.
The administration of US President Joe Biden has raised tariff rates on PV cell imports from China from 25% to 50%. It has also increased the tariff rates for semiconductors, electric vehicles, and EV batteries from China, among other goods.
China Southern Power Grid has deployed a 10 MWh sodium-ion battery in China’s Guangxi Zhuang region. It is the first phase of a 100 MWh project.
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the US Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and German battery analysis specialist Twaice have jointly evaluated 26 battery fires between 2018 and 2023. They say that the diversity of components plays a critical role in igniting fires.
A startup spun out of the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has secured a grant to build a 5 kW electrolyzer that will be deployed at a UK power plant operated by French energy utility EDF.
UNSW scientists have suggested to use dual-fuel reciprocating engines for adding gas-to-power operations in large scale production of hydrogen based on PV power. The preliminary findings of their research show that the proposed system is still achieving a too high LCOE for commercial maturity. Decreasing electrolyzer costs, policy interventions and changing energy market dynamics, however, may more than halve the LCOE values in the future.
Japan’s Asahi Kasei is testing a new alkaline water electrolyzer, while China has started developing its first 100 kg vehicle-mounted liquid hydrogen system.