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.

Meyer Burger says it might launch US solar cell manufacturing, and is now in talks with Sunrun and Sunnova

German wafer manufacturer Nexwafe is currently trying to commercialize its highly efficient monocrystalline wafer technology.

Queensland-based flow battery company, Redflow, has commissioned a 30 kWh zinc-bromine flow battery for the Brisbane City Council.

For every dollar invested in fossil fuels, 1.7 dollars are invested in clean technologies. Five years ago, it was a one-to-one ratio, said the International Energy Agency.

Longi said today it cut the prices of its wafer products by 30% and Trina announced it will build a 25 GW monocrystalline ingot factory in the Sichuan province. Furthermore, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that the Chinese PV industry produced 39.92 GW of solar cells in April, and Datang Group unveiled the results of a tender to procure 8 GW of solar panels.

Hail events have historically posed a considerable risk for utility-scale solar projects, with weather creating up to $100 million in damages at large installations in US states such as Texas.

India’s Livsol has released 300 VA, 1 kVA, 2 kVA, 3 kVA, and 5 kVA versions of its new wall-mounted lithium battery inverters, with operating voltages of 12.8 V, 12.8 V, 25.6 V, 51.2 V, and 48 V.

European Energy, a Danish independent power producer, said it will build its new 250 MW close to a substation owned by Italian grid operator Terna in Sicily. It will occupy a surface of around 200 hectares.

New data from Afry Management Consulting suggests that Spain’s solar power producers could face prices below €20/MWh before 2030 if renewable penetration continues to increase. Such low prices would render power purchase agreements (PPAs) and merchant projects unprofitable.

Poland added around 4.7 GW of new PV capacity in 2022, according to new data from research institute IEO. It predicts that 2023 could be another record year, thanks to another 6 GW of new solar power.

Brisbane-based Li-S Energy has developed a 20-layer battery cell utilizing semi-solid state lithium sulfur battery technology. The company claims the new cell displays nearly double the gravimetric energy density and a comparable volumetric energy density to lithium-ion cells.

An international research team has crafted an innovative solar cell design. By employing a top absorber consisting of methylammonium lead iodide (MAPbI3), a lead-halide perovskite, and a bottom absorber composed of FA0.5MA0.5Pb0.5Sn0.5I3, a perovskite material, the cell maximizes light absorption across a broad spectrum.

Daikin Applied Americas has developed an air-to-water heat pump that can produce 91.2 kW of heat and 23.58 tons of cooling. The new device can be used as a cascade system with water-to-water heat pumps, and can switch between cooling and heating modes, depending on temperature requirements.

Chinese manufacturer SPIC Solar says its new PV modules have power outputs ranging from 450 W to 460 W, and power conversion efficiencies ranging from 22.9% to 23.4%.

China-based researchers have developed a model for photovoltaic pavement, achieving a potential electrical output of 0.68 kWh/m2 and an efficiency of 14.71%. Through simulations across 255 Chinese cities, they have determined that electricity potential ranges from 0.70 kWh/W to 1.83 kWh/W.

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%.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Plug Power has revealed plans to develop three green hydrogen production plants in Finland, while Statkraft is set to increase its investments in the German hydrogen market.

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.

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.

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.