Ready for takeoff
Airport PV can provide an instant boost to emission-reduction efforts while work continues on sustainable aviation fuels. Developing solar projects at or near airports, however, is not as straightforward as typical ground-mount installations.
Vertical PV for clean energy and crop production
Researchers and project developers throughout the world are increasingly looking at agrivoltaic installations with vertically oriented solar panels.
Grid congestion continues to increase in Netherlands
Solar project developers see fewer opportunities to build PV facilities in the northern Netherlands, as grid bottlenecks are becoming worse.
US to add 63 GW of PV by end 2024
Solar and wind generation are expected to reach 16% of the US grid’s supply this year, doubling the 2018 total, said the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). By 2024, renewables will account for more than one-quarter of electricity generation in the United States.
Key takeaways from Abu Dhabi’s World Future Energy Summit
The World Future Energy Summit showed that Middle Eastern solar markets are still driven by utility-scale PV, although the C&I sector shows signs of growth. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates are the most promising markets for big solar projects, with huge pipelines under development, while Lebanon and Yemen show promise due to chronic energy shortages.
Spain installed 2.5 GW of distributed PV systems in 2022
Spain’s cumulative PV capacity under its self-consumption regime hit 5.24 GW at the end of December.
Adapting agrivoltaics to different climates, crops
An international consortium led by Italy’s Eurac Research launched the Symbiosyst project to adapt PV modules, mounting structures, and maintenance technologies to the needs of various crops in agrivoltaic installations in different climates.
Assessing vibrations in solar modules due to robot cleaning
Qatari researchers have looked at the degree to which cleaning robots could threaten the physical integrity of solar panels. They found that cleaning machines have a very minimal impact and that modules of similar sizes tend to exhibit roughly the same amount of vibration.
Weekend Read: Giga and giga
pv magazine Australia’s Natalie Filatoff reports on the benefits of planning vast solar project pipelines, and the barriers faced by those who dare to dream big.
New model to predict safety of floating solar arrays
South Korean scientists have developed a way to determine when a floating PV system is safe to install in the field.
