Owners and operators of energy storage systems, as well as investors, need transparent ways to evaluate battery performance. They need certainty that the selected batteries for their ESS projects will perform reliably, have predictable life expectancies, and meet projected revenue and contractual obligations over their lifetimes. The economic viability of entire projects depend on this confidence, writes Michael Kleinberg of DNV.

This year will witness the end of the French program for PV tenders known as “CRE4”, which began in 2016. To date, they have enabled over 7.2 GW of solar capacity to benefit from a subsidized tariff (feed-in tariff or feed-in premium). A few months before the last CRE4 tenders and the launch of the PPE2 (or CRE5), Finergreen evaluates their impact on the French solar industry.

The performance ratio test is at the core of the handover from EPC to owner. Yet sometimes, even when best practice is applied – and without particularly demanding guaranteed values to be achieved – these tests fail good projects. This can lead to costly delays and wasted effort spent trying to find issues that might not exist. Everoze Partner Dario Brivio reviews the likelihood of this happening and considers ways to increase confidence in the precision of such tests, based on recent independent analysis of real-world projects.

The PV industry has experienced several rounds of price increases since the second half of 2020, from polysilicon to materials such as PV glass and films. Between July 2020 and February 2021, prices quoted for 3.2 mm and 2 mm glass surged by more than 60% per square meter. Prices for EVA and POE encapsulant films skyrocketed by more than 40% and 10%, respectively. Prices for silver paste also rose 7%, and have since remained stubbornly high. PV InfoLink Chief Analyst Corrine Lin examines the impact of silver’s recent price turbulence on PV cell manufacturing.

Annual battery storage installations will exceed 10 GW/28 GWh in 2021, following a particularly strong year in 2020, despite the challenges created by the global pandemic, writes IHS Markit analyst Mike Longson. Combined solar and storage will be a core focus for new deployment in 2021, as the front-of-the-meter and behind-the-meter energy storage markets are both expected to grow significantly in the months ahead.

But new ventures into coal-fired steam and petrochemicals products helped state-owned China Shuifa Singyes towards a significantly healthier balance sheet in 2020.

The polysilicon maker lurched from a $17m profit in 2019 to a $960 million loss last year, according to an unaudited extract from its overdue annual figures. Publication is being held up by an auditor enquiry relating to a $71m abandoned-production-project pre-payment which appears to be either owed by, or to, a GCL subsidiary.

More than 7% of the U.K.’s solar generation capacity is now unsubsidized, according to trade body Solar Energy UK, with the nation reaching more than 14 GW of photovoltaic projects during the first three months of the year.

West Africa hogged more than twice as much investment as the east in a year which saw stock market backing plunge an ‘alarming’ 46%, leaving donor grant funding and debt to pick up the slack during a Covid-hit year, according to off-grid industry body GOGLA.

Rising volumes of photovoltaic project capacity are increasing the incidence of negative price periods for electricity–and changing the times of day when they occur.

Germany might tender a total of 6 GW of solar next year if the authorities decide to move forward with plans to add 4 GW to the existing volume. An additional 100 MW could be tendered for agrivoltaics and floating PV.

Energy regulator Ofgem has announced it aims to bring in market-wide half-hourly settlement across the retail electricity market – from October 2025. The long timescale reflects a sluggish attitude at an inconsistent regulator which appears to be planning an unpredictable route to net zero.

UK-based Xlinks is planning to build 10.5 GW of wind and solar in Morocco and sell the power generated by the huge plant in the UK. This should be made possible by a 3,800 km high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line that would be connected to locations in Wales and Devon. The company’s CEO, Simon Morrish, spoke with pv magazine about the ambitious project, and on how it should become feasible.

A 90% clean grid with a transition to EVs would achieve lower electricity costs than one without, the study shows. Transmission investments would mainly be spur lines to new renewable generation.

The Anklam municipality approved the resolution for the project construction. The land-use planning for what could become the largest planned photovoltaic power plant in Germany to date can now begin.

A solar racking system’s strength is determined in part by the metal racking, but it also depends on the roof’s underlying structure. Rafters and any supporting structures must be strong enough to withstand your region’s maximum wind and snow loads.

The new budget will be devoted to private individuals only. The Swedish Energy Agency has so far devoted around $570 million to the solar rebate program, for the 2009-21 period.

The solar energy projects are expected to offset around one-third of the electric demand of Baltimore’s public buildings.

Soto Solar has submitted the project proposal to the Ministry of the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (Miteco). The solar plant could start production in 2023 or 2024 and will have a generation capacity of more than 2,000 GWh/year.

The feed-in tariff granted reduces each quarter, in line with how much solar capacity was installed in the previous three-month period.

Australia’s Renascor Resources has confirmed it has raised AUD 15 million ($11.6 million) to fund its Siviour battery anode material project up to the construction phase. The project will be the world’s first integrated mine and purified spherical graphite operation outside of China.

The Dutch consortium has achieved the record result by combining, in a four-terminal tandem configuration, an 18.6% efficient highly near-infrared transparent perovskite with a prototype of a c-Si interdigitated back contact (IBC) silicon heteroJunction (SHJ) cell developed by Japanese electronics manufacturer Panasonic. The perovskite cell was also combined with other kinds of solar cells and other remarkable record efficiencies were hit.

The Australian Energy Market Commission has released proposals to reward fast frequency services in the National Electricity Market for the first time.

Italian start-up Genius Watter has developed a solar desalination solution that is claimed to be particularly suitable for remote areas with no connection to grid electricity. The system is able to produce up to 1,000 cubic meters of potable water per day at an opex of €0.20 per cubic meter.

A new study from Australia has highlighted the potential of polysilicon passivated junctions for revolutionizing the commercial production of crystalline silicon solar panels. It also presented, however, the technical and economic hurdles that must still be removed to ensure its success, including the damage that this technology can produce for the polysilicon layers, due to the cell’s metallization process.

Before the official start of production, the Swiss photovoltaic manufacturer signed contracts with several suppliers that only use polysilicon produced by Wacker Chemie. Meyer Burger plans to start producing its solar modules and cells in Germany in the second quarter.

With production capacity expanded for solar wafers, cells and modules last year, and set to rise again in 2021, the giant is targeting shipments of 40 GW of panels this time around.

The state-owned PV glass manufacturer, which claims to be one of the world’s big three, hived off its distracting new materials, solar module, and solar project development businesses to focus entirely on its core output in 2020.

The vertically integrated factory is expected to be located near Sevilla, in southern Spain. The factory will be owned and operated by the newly created company Greenland Gigafactory.

Solar installer Jake Warner has received surprising feedback from his customers after he chose to transition his company, Penrith Solar, exclusively to microinverters two months ago. “What I found is actually the opposite to what I expected,” Warner told pv magazine Australia

The French energy company sold its 60.5% stake in Engie EPS to the Taiwan Cement Corporation for around €132 million.

An explosion occurred as firefighters were dealing with a fire in a 25 MWh lithium-iron phosphate battery associated with a 1.4 MW rooftop array at a shopping mall in the Chinese capital on Friday.

Oxfordshire-based Oxis Energy says it will produce the less flammable devices sought by the aviation industry using the same manufacturing processes as those used to make lithium-ion and conventional-lithium-sulfur products.

The two companies are initially planning to build a 200 MW pumped-hydro facility in the Bostanlyk district of Uzbekistan’s Tashkent region.

The automaker’s future Ultium-powered EVs are designed for Level 2 and DC fast charging. Most will have 400V battery packs and up to 200 kW fast charging capability.