Chinese PV Industry Brief: January-October PV installations hit 142.5 GW
China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) says the nation installed 142.5 GW of solar in the first 10 months of this year, bringing it to nearly 540 GW of cumulative installed PV capacity by the end of October.
Record-high PV energy registered in Spain, massive wind in Germany
According to data collected by Aleasoft Energy Forecasting, roughly 84 GWh of solar energy was recorded on one day in Spain while Germany recorded 910 GWh of wind energy generated on another November date.
Daikin lauches new air-to-air heat pumps
Intended for applications in commercial buildings, the new VRV 5 heat pumps have reportedly a 9.1% higher seasonal efficiency compared to the company’s previous models. The new products use difluoromethane (R32) as the refrigerant.
Enphase introduces commercial-scale microinverter
Enphase’s new IQ8-3P solar microinverter offers peak power output of up to 480 W.
Brazil’s oldest PV system turns 26
Prof. Ricardo Rüther, the coordinator of the Strategic Solar Energy Research Group at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC), installed a solar energy system at the university 26 years ago. It currently operates at about 80% of its nominal power.
We need a ‘Domestic Renewable Energy Production’ standard for PV installations in Europe
The threat of catastrophic climate change, as well as increasingly obvious economic benefits, make it advisable, indeed essential, to convert our entire energy system to a sustainable system, based on renewable energy (RE) as soon as possible. The two main pillars of our future RE-based energy system will be power generation from PV and wind. In Germany alone, according to detailed studies by Fraunhofer-Institut für Solare Energiesysteme ISE, we will need at least about 300 GW of PV and an equally large amount of wind power.
Using air conditioning to cool down PV modules, dry dishes
An international research team has investigated how air conditioning may be used to reduce the operating temperature of PV panels. The researchers not only found that the proposed approach is technically viable, but they also tested the use of excess heat from the panels for drying dishes.
India’s residential rooftop solar potential estimated at 637 GW
The Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) says in a new report that residential rooftops in India could accommodate 637 GW of solar capacity.
Fenice Energy unveils microinverters for high-power solar panels
Fenice Energy, formerly SunEdison, has developed single-phase and three-phase microinverters for residential and commercial solar installations. The microinverters support up to 670 Wp+ PV modules, with a maximum input current of 20 A.
‘Cool roofs’ increase power yield in bifacial rooftop PV systems
A Spanish-Algerian reserch group has tested how “cool roofs” could help increase power yield in rootop bifacial PV systems. Cool roofs are based on coating materials with high reflectance properties.
