Residential PV

Slovenia recorded 400 MW of new PV installations in 2023, taking its total installed capacity to 1.1 GW, according to figures from the Ministry of the Environment, Climate and Energy.

Sharp has developed vehicle-to-home (V2H) electric-vehicle chargers for PV-powered homes, featuring 6 kW of charging/discharging rated power and an input DC voltage of 340 V. The wall-mounted devices are suitable for indoor and outdoor environments.

A Dutch research team has outlined a new method to assess the coefficient of performance of air-to-water heat pumps by considering ambient temperature and relative humidity. The model is based on the equalization of the so-called logarithmic mean temperature difference (LMTD), which determines the temperature driving force for heat transfer in flow systems such as heat exchangers.

California Assembly member Laura Friedman has introduced a bill to require the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to consider the costs and benefits of rooftop solar and its non-energy benefits when designing net-metering rates.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that almost all of Europe experienced 10-25% more irradiance than the long term January average. Spain, in particular, experienced significant rainfall and slightly below average irradiance, while parts of Northern Europe enjoyed clear and sunny days for much of the month.

In its latest monthly column for pv magazine, the European Technology and Innovation Platform for Photovoltaics (ETIP PV) presents the main findings of a recent whitepaper it published on the nexus of the socio-economic and technological challenges of solar deployment.

The Renewable Energy Sources of Croatia says the country’s total installed solar capacity now stands at 462.5 MW. It says the country will come close to entering the “gigawatt club” by the start of 2025.

Slenergy has introduced a new residential PV system package featuring 425 W solar panels, a hybrid inverter, a high-voltage battery, and a Slenergy-branded heat pump. The package incorporates Internet-of-Things hardware for real-time data collection and intelligent control strategies.

A French consortium has developed a roofing solution that integrates solar, storage, rainwater management, and the protection of vegetation. The group says plants under the PV modules can increase solar power generation by more than 10%.

While distributed solar and storage are advancing quickly in Puerto Rico, utility-scale solar and storage procurements ordered by regulators in 2020 have made little progress.