Chinese manufacturer Risen Energy will supply Malaysia’s Tokai Engineering with 20 MW of its new panels, unveiled in December. Risen claims its products can help reduce balance-of-system project costs by 9.6% and the levelized cost of energy by 6%.

A new, non-destructive method has been proposed by researchers in India who say identifying early-stage discoloration in EVA encapsulants can help detect degradation in solar panels before power output is affected. The scientists used an ultraviolet accelerated aging test during 34 days on three encapsulant samples.

The Barbados Water Authority is seeking proposals for three PV plants for a total 4.5 MW of generation capacity plus a 2 MW micro turbine. The installations will power pumping stations.

The Danish Energy Agency says there will be large scale PV projects in the Nissum Fjord area. One of the projects, under development by Better Energy in the municipality of Holstebro, has a planned generation capacity of 206 MW.

Researchers in Pakistan have evaluated the impact of shading on inverter set-ups to assess PV system performance. Tests were conducted on a 51 kW system featuring SMA inverter topologies but the researchers say the findings could be applied to products from other manufacturers. The results showed the number of maximum power point trackers is important but levelized cost of energy calculations are also crucial to selecting the right inverter configuration.

A Norwegian company has developed a way to melt snow on modules to avoid excess weight on roofs and panels, especially on large commercial and industrial arrays. A control system measuring snow density is linked to DC power supply units to warm the panels.

Despite the country’s difficult struggle with the COVID-19 outbreak, the Italian solar market is sending some encouraging signs. Italian lender Intesa San Paolo has awarded a €55 million credit facility to Canadian Solar for a portfolio of 12 unsubsidized solar projects.

The Swedish Energy Agency this week said solar power supplies will increase from 400 GWh in 2018 to 1.7 TWh in 2022. Total energy supply in the country is expected to decline from 551 TWh to 526 TWh in the 2019-22 period, due to the shutdown of several nuclear power plants.

Researchers from the United States have proposed a new electrode design for fractal solar panels that combines the typical aesthetic advantages of the technology with the efficiency of busbar design. The proposed pattern is based on the fractal tree structure known as H tree, or T-branching, which is a geometric shape consisting of a repeating pattern that resembles the letter H. The hybrid H-tree/busbar pattern showed power losses that are close to those of standard busbars.

The Ministry of Energy of Republika Srpska is seeking proposals for its first large-scale PV project. The solar park is planned to be located in Bileća, in Bosnia’s southernmost part.