Highlights

An industrial area of the southern region of Occitanie has been identified for the construction of a 2 GW factory. The local development agency is currently seeking potential investors.

The U.S. International Development Finance Corp. has offered debt financing to support a 3 GW module manufacturing facility that thin-film PV manufacturer First Solar plans to build in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

New research from Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson seeks to remove any doubts about grid stability in a world powered entirely by renewable energy. The latest study models 100% wind water and solar powered grids across the United States, finding no risk of blackouts in any region and also broad benefits in cost reduction, job creation and land use.

Falling electrolyzer costs driven by economies of scale, increased automation of production and the modularity of such systems will bring green hydrogen to a competitive cost with its fossil-fuel powered variants in a dozen markets by 2030, according to WoodMac.

The International Energy Agency said the four nations are on track to contribute 85% of the 18 GW of global renewables capacity which is set to be dedicated to green hydrogen production by 2026. Elsewhere, the Port of Valencia has unveiled a plan to install a green hydrogen supply station in the new year.

Shuangliang has secured supply agreements from Xinchao PV, Canadia Solar and SF Solar. Petro China wants modules for 4.5 GW of solar projects across 24 provinces.

Scientists in the Netherlands fabricated a heterojunction solar cell with a layer of hydrogenated nanocrystalline silicon just three nanometers thick. The cell’s efficiency was measured at 22.2%, below the highest achieved with HJT cells, however, the researchers note that successfully incorporating this material into the cell stack will open many new doors for improvement.

The Italia Solare Forum event held in Rome last week has shown, once again, that permitting for both large scale and distributed generation projects remains the main barrier to remove to make Italy get the benefits of its huge solar potential. Despite recent progress, new provisions, and a slight increase in new PV capacity, the Italian market may be, again, unable to surpass 1 GW this year.

Gujarat-based solar manufacturer Solex plans to have 1 GW of cell and 3.7 GW of module capacity operational in 2023.

The European Union’s statistics body said three-quarters of the solar modules imported to the bloc last year came from China.