As the anticipation builds ahead of the big kick-off on Thursday, June 14, pv magazine, with the help of the International Energy Agency (IEA), has been crunching the figures to see if there is any correlation between PV performance and World Cup success – and the results might surprise you.

Physicists at MIT and in Haifa have come up with a theory for slowing down light that could dramatically improve solar PV cell efficiency – the question now is whether it will work in practice, and on silicon.

Researchers were able to effect electronic transitions at different frequencies, and through a different physical process, by altering the angle at which nanolayers of gold were positioned. Being able to predict and fine-tune the nature of such transitions could have a fundamental affect on solar PV cell efficiency.

With Palestinian developers keeping a low-profile since the advent of the Trump administration, Chinese government money is funding PV projects to support electricity supplies in the disputed nation’s crumbling infrastructure.

Vancouver-based B2Gold says the new facility up and running at its Otjikoto mine is “one of the first fully-autonomous hybrid plants in the world”. The Canadian company is mulling leaving the 7 MW scheme in place for the nearby community after the mine closes.

Business minister Greg Clark admitted in parliament yesterday the Conservative government is considering plowing billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money into the proposed Wylfa Newydd nuclear project in north Wales.

Greenko, backed by Singapore’s GIC and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, is set to buy the solar and wind portfolio of Orange Renewable. The move will constitute Greenko’s largest acquisition and will add 1 GW to its operational capacity to raise the company’s portfolio to 4.2 GW, just shy of the capacity held by ReNew Power Ventures, the country’s largest renewable energy company.

Planned wheeling station will be backed to the tune of up to $8.5m by a private equity fund and is expected to be operational by July next year.

LG’s 56 MW PV park is the group’s largest in Japan and will join the string of energy schemes feeding big data into the conglomerate’s Energy Optimization Center, when it opens this year.

Chief executive of Norwegian developer tells markets his company will deliver on 1.5 GW promise by the end of the year – by including any projects it has broken ground on.