Commercial & Industrial PV

While investigating on the effects of wildfire smoke on rooftop PV installations, a group of scientists in Australia has discovered that solar arrays, due to their sensitivity to smoke, could serve as an early warning detection of wildfires by providing temporal and spatial information on the presence and approximate concentrations of smoke.

Pairing electricity production with snow drift barriers to protect roads is being evaluated by the Minnesota department of Transportation.

Chinese manufacturer TSUN says its Titan series of microinverters can handle 15 A of continuous input DC current. They also feature a 97.2% efficiency and four maximum power point tracking (MPPT) channels.

In partnership with utility Pacific Gas and Electric, the residential solar installer enrolled distributed batteries to serve the grid during times of peak demand.

China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) has revealed that China’s cumulative PV capacity reached 609.49 GW at the end of 2023.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that, last year, large regions were 10% or more above long term trends for solar radiation, including Western and Northern Europe, Eurasia, much of China, Southern Australia, the Midwestern and Southern US, Central and most of South America.

Fred. Olsen has completed a 124 kW pilot project to serve as a testing ground to refine its Brizo floating solar solution. The tech is designed to address challenges posed by wave and wind loads.

Saudi Arabia has laid out an ambitious vision to establish itself as a renewable energy hub for the Middle East and beyond. The market is growing rapidly, with solar generation capacity more than tripling in 2023. But obstacles remain for the Kingdom to continue on this PV pathway, and these challenges were up for discussion this week in Riyadh at the SunRise Arabia conference, organized by Solarabic and pv magazine.

Spain’s Ingeteam has released four new three-phase hybrid inverter models in 10 kW, 15 kW, 20 kW and 30 kW variants. All of them have two photovoltaic maximum power point trackers (MPPTs).

Tata Power Renewable Energy has commissioned a 1.04 MW solar system for the Chengmari Tea Estate in India. The installation features 1,900 bifacial PV modules.