Policy uncertainty paralyzes large-scale Down Under
While rooftop solar is powering ahead, large-scale projects are at a standstill in Australia. Less than 200 MW of large-scale renewable projects were approved this year.
pv magazine weekly news roundup: Nov 14-21
Impressive efficiency breakthroughs, big-ticket collaborations and encouraging PV development in India… welcome to the past seven days.
UK government refuses to intervene in solar farm plans
Secretary of state Eric Pickles refused to be drawn into the planning application for a 15-16 MW farm in Cumbria but is very much an interventionist when it comes to applications in the Tory heartlands in the south east of England.
Walmart to install up to 400 more solar PV systems over the next four years
Projects built under this latest announcement build on Walmart’s installation of 105 MW of solar PV to date in 260 locations. SunEdison and SolarCity will install the systems.
Daimler: Deutsche ACCUmotive to offer stationary PV storage
The German auto giant plans to offer batteries for industrial and stationary storage in addition to the batteries it uses for its electric and hybrid vehicles.
EIA: South orientation yields 11% more energy
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released a study Wednesday showing that a south-oriented fixed-tilt PV system will yield 11% more annual energy than a flat fixed system. In contrast, the study showed that a dual-axis tracker would yield 48% more energy than a flat orientation.
LG Chem partners with Siemens on battery storage systems
Just days after Daimler announced that it would halt production of its in-house battery cells and instead use LG Chem cells for its electric and hybrid vehicle batteries as well as for stationary storage solutions, the South Korean chemical giant said it would collaborate with another major German player on industrial battery storage systems.
Serbia inaugurates 2 MW solar farm while rejecting PV
While the country’s solar PV tariff is very good, a separate renewable energy production law allocated an extremely low quota for PV plants, including 6 MW for ground-mounted installations and 4 MW for rooftop, by 2020.
Spain's Mondragon Assembly takes over Gorosabel Group's solar business
Mondragon plans to increase the development of new products in the Gorosabel range while offering technical support and repair services to the equipments already installed around the world.
Inside Meyer Burger's new HJT pilot line
Interview: On Monday the Meyer Burger Group and the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology (CSEM) inaugurated their Swiss-Inno pilot line for heterojunction technology (HJT) in Neuchatel, Switzerland. Christophe Ballif, head of the CSEM’s PV-center, will lead research efforts on the line, representing the culmination of a decade’s research into the technology in the Swiss town. Ballif spoke to pv magazine about the project.
