The Swiss Federal Office of Energy says the number of PV installations registered for subsidies with Pronovo, a Swiss government agency, rose 81% year on year in the first three months of 2024.

A collaborative project led by German battery supplier Varta aims to develop industrial-scale sodium-ion battery technology. The final product of the three-year, €7.5 million ($8.08 million) project will be a small series of round cells for electric vehicles and stationary storage systems.

Ministers from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan have agreed to connect their energy systems. They will lay an energy cable along the bottom of the Caspian Sea to facilitate the sale of green energy to Europe.

Sunrun, a US-based residential solar installer, says nearly 1,800 customers have already signed up to its PowerOn Puerto Rico virtual power plant (VPP). The program deploys stored solar energy from customers’ batteries to the grid, preventing power supply shortfalls on the island.

Turkish developer YEO and Zambian sustainable energy company are constructing a 60 MW solar plant with a 20 MWh battery energy storage system in southern Zambia.

The state-owned Central Electricity Board of Mauritius has launched a tender for consultancy services at a 15 MW solar project. The deadline for applications is May 22.

The so-called “network checker” will allow residential PV customers in Belgium to check if there have been any inverter failures in their local area. It comes after Belgian grid operator Fluvius launched a compensation scheme for those who are not reconnected within 30 working days of a curtailment.

University of Michigan researchers have found that the value of rooftop solar will increase by between 5% and 15% by the mid-century across a range of US cities under moderate climate change, and by up to 20% by the end of the century.

Equinix and Sembcorp Power have signed two long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) in Singapore. Sembcorp will supply 105 MW to Equinix’s data centers in Singapore, including 75 MW of solar, for up to 18 years.

China’s Kaisheng New Energy Technology has agreed to produce a new line of thin-film solar panels for rooftops under an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreement with Sweden’s Midsummer. The modules will be exclusive to the European rooftop market through Midsummer.