Highlights

The Dutch association of national-regional electricity and gas network operators, Netbeheer Nederland, is leading a plan to deploy up to 2 million hybrid heat pumps by 2030. The plan should be supported by a subsidy scheme by the government and enable the installation of at least 100,000 heat pumps per year from 2024.

In a statement to pv magazine, the global vice president of Chinese solar manufacturer JinkoSolar, Dany Qian, said that polysilicon prices are not expected to drop for at least six months. The company’s general manager for South & Central Asia, Daniel Liu, stated that Jinko is not backing out from any of the signed deals with its Indian customers due to the raw material supply shortage and the rising prices, as reported by unspecified false reports.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.