Residential PV

Jörg Ebel, the president of German solar association BSW, spoke with pv magazine at Intersolar 2023 about the ongoing German solar renaissance, as the market has steadily recovered since its collapse in 2012. He sees growth across all segments, with untapped “opportunities” in the C&I market. However, he noted that Brussels needs to build trust, set a unified EU industry policy to support factory investments, and create the conditions for Germany to revitalize its upstream PV business.

US-based Savant Systems has developed a new lithium-ferro-phosphate battery and inverter kit.

PV Austria says that 1,009 MW of PV systems were installed in Austria last year, enabling solar to meet approximately 6.6% of total electricity demand.

New research from Serbia claims air-polluted urban climatic conditions may not only induce maximum power point (MPP) tracking problems in PV systems but also reduce power yield by up to 30%. The scientists also said that soiling may significantly affect the functionality of single-stage inverters operating in grid-forming mode.

Solinteg is offering nine versions of its new on-grid inverters, with nominal power ranging from 4 kW to 25 kW, an efficiency rating of up to 98.8%, and a European efficiency of up to 98.2%

Scientists led by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have designed panel-like photoreactors relying on a water-splitting photocatalyst that could produce hydrogen on rooftops or dedicated solar farms. They claim the photoreactors have high economic potential because of their ‘extremely’ low costs.

Switzerland had its best year in terms of new PV deployment in 2022, with more than 1,000 MW of installed capacity, according to provisional statistics from Swissolar. At the end of December, the nation surpassed 4.6 GW of cumulative installed solar capacity.

A British research group has investigated the economic feasibility of solar-powered heat pumps in China and has found that the country’s northern regions offer the lowest payback time of less than three years. As for the country’s southern regions, however, the adoption of PV-linked heat pumps was found to be “uneconomical.”

In another interview from the series held at Intersolar 2023, pv magazine spoke with Paolo Rocco Viscontini, president of the PV association Italia Solare. He said the Italian solar market is now inevitably poised to see more growth across all segments this year and during the current decade. He also spoke about market drivers, current demand, and the PPA business, as well as large-scale and small-sized storage.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, presents the solar irradiance data it collected for northern India last week. Cyclone Biparjoy had a significant impact on solar power generation in the region.