Commercial & Industrial PV

Australia’s rooftop solar installation rate has continued to cool for a second consecutive month with national market volumes in September down about 3% on August when 273 MW was installed.

Lithuania-based Soliport has built what it claims to be the largest solar carport in the Baltic states. The 250 kW system is connected to 44 electric vehicle charging points and injects only a small portion of the electricity it generates into the grid.

The French energy company said its 100 kW agrivoltaic facility linked to cow farming in France’s Puy-de-Dôme region has not modified meadow functioning and animal behavior.

Solar powered water pumps are one of the most important ways for off-grid communities to gain access to water cheaply and cleanly. Standards are required to enable this market to continue growing and the IEC is working on the appropriate specifications.

In its latest monthly column for pv magazine, IEA PVPS provides a comprehensive overview of the recently released fourth edition of the “Best Practices Handbook for the Collection and Use of Solar Resource Data”. The 530-page handbook, developed by IEA PVPS Task 16 in collaboration with NREL, elaborates on methods and models for accurately collecting solar data to plan and operate energy projects effectively.

A new report rom Fraunhofer ISE shows that the cost of PV systems in Germany is currently between €700/kW and €2,000/kW. The study also shows that the levelized cost of energy of solar-plus-storage spans from €0.06/kWh to €0.225/kWh.

The U.S. heating specialist said its Vilter VQ95 heat pump is an ideal solution for district heating and industrial processes. It has a heating capacity of 1 MW to 5 MW per skid and can reportedly provide a temperature of up to 95 C.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that this winter brought dry and warm conditions to most of South America, resulting in higher-than-normal irradiance across the continent. The conditions have been particularly dry in the Amazon basin, favoring wildfire activity, and the resulting smoke has reduced solar irradiance along the plume’s path.

Swiss startup Sun-ways is planning to build a 18 kW pilot PV system between the racks of a 100-m linear section of a railway line in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel.

Norway’s Volue has launched an automated trading tool for solar and wind operators covering most European power markets . The Volue Position Closer is a subscription-based tool targeted at renewable energy producers, portfolio managers, and municipal utilities.