Installations

The Chinese solar developer, which has sold off four-fifths of its PV project capacity to state-owned entities, wants the permission of the holders of $420 million of 2024 senior notes to change the terms of their investment so it can buy Ethiopian natural gas from a connected business.

SUN Energy’s 100 MW Merredin Solar Farm in Western Australia has emerged as the country’s best performing utility-scale PV project in 2021. International consultancy Rystad Energy says it has delivered an average capacity factor of 29.6% for the calendar year.

A massive solar noise barrier in the US state of Massachusetts is expected to generate 802,000kWh of electricity per year, or the equivalent of annually supplying 120 homes with power.

A preliminary ruling by the European Court of Justice states panel makers should not be responsible for electrical waste management costs in a seven-year period as the rules in place before the EU’s WEEE directive entered force, in 2012, permitted member states to place the obligation on panel users instead. The resulting change in law, in some states, cannot be applied retroactively, under EU legal rules.

In the next ten years, according to Milanese consultant REF-E’s simulations, storage in Italy will mostly be driven by opportunities in the ancillary services market. After 2030, when renewables will provide most electricity, REF-E believes the price spread between different hours of the day should be high enough to cover the cost-per-cycle of energy-intensive storage. Energy expert Virginia Canazza discussed the topic with pv magazine.

Allen Cao, General Manager of International Business at Arctech speaks to pv magazine about the solar supply chain challenges experienced in 2021 and how he believes the market will evolve this year. Overall, he says the industry could see a sharp rise in year-on-year PV installation capacity as prices start to come down. BIPV is also discussed as being a hot topic for the Chinese highly power-consuming industries.

The 120MW facility is selling power to State Grid Corporation of China at a price of RMB0.453/kWh ($0.0762). It relies on 21.2%-efficient JT SSh(B) 450W/455W high-efficiency dual-glass panels provided by Chinese manufacturer Jetion.

With solar water pumps, farmers have access to high-quality power available for irrigation. These systems are portable and can be assembled at any preferred location. With the growing utilization of these systems, the costs have decreased substantially, making them an efficient, convenient and cost-effective solution for grid-isolated rural areas.

According to BloombergNEF, electrolyzer shipments may reach up to 2.5GW in 2022, up significantly from 458MW last year. China and the United States will become the world’s first and second markets, respectively.

In a recent media brief, new Enel Green Power CEO Salvatore Bernabei said the company’s heterojunction solar module factory in southern Italy will be scaled up from 200MW to 3GW by mid-2024. He also revealed that another factory may be built abroad, with the United States being a possible location.