Commercial & Industrial PV

Four expert panelists shared their views at the recent pv magazine Roundtables US 2023 live event on the California rooftop solar market. They said that energy storage will need to play an increasingly important role.

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s southern region is primed for “huge” utility-scale solar development, Assistant Professor Farooq Sher tells pv magazine. He came to this recent conclusion after two years of researching the Balkan country’s current renewable energy capacity and potential.

The US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has determined that Antora Energy’s solar-plus-storage system meets the US military’s stringent standards, as it significantly outperforms emergency diesel generators in survivability probabilities.

Optimizing PV systems in partial shading conditions presents a multifaceted challenge, demanding a comprehensive understanding of the interplay between power electronics and PV technology. Shading scenarios exert a significant influence on system performance, with practical insights tailored to various shading conditions, offering guidance for stakeholders in PV planning. Collaborative efforts within the PV industry are directed at enhancing planning tools, seeking to streamline and improve the accuracy of PV system designs, and ultimately contribute to a more sustainable energy future.

Scientists in the UK have utilized data from two different satellites – Sentinel-2 and MODIS – to develop a new and more accurate approach to estimated albedo for bifacial PV systems in complex landscapes. The novel methodology reportedly achieved a much lower normalized root mean square error than reference methods relying on MODIS only.

Ensol, a French startup serving the residential PV and home energy solution market, has raised €3 million in venture capital from Paris-based investors, Otium Capital, a fund that backs early-stage companies, and BetterAngle, a business angel group.

Store Norske Energi AS has installed a PV system in the Svalbard archipelago, the last inhabited strip of land before the North Pole. The company told pv magazine that the system could reduce the use of fossil fuels by 70% and potentially become a model for the Arctic transition to renewables.

As the cost of generating clean energy continues to fall, producing green hydrogen in Europe, rather than importing it from Africa – with all the transport costs and raised carbon footprint that would entail – is beginning to look like an increasingly viable option.

The Italian market set a record high of 846 GWh of wind energy generation during the first week of November. Meanwhile, European electricity demand decreased over the same period and the MIBEL market registered 19 hours of €0.00/MWh ($0.00/MWh) prices.

An international research group has assessed the economic feasibility of exclusively powering remote villages in Pakistan with off-grid solar-plus-storage projects. They said that their proposed system configuration has a “justifiable” net present cost.