Residential PV

Australia’s consumer watchdog is being urged to ban the unsolicited sale of solar products with a national advocacy group saying the “harmful” practice is degrading trust in the solar industry and government schemes and discouraging people from participating in the transition to clean energy.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) says cumulative solar installations are expected to double from 91 GW to 182 GW from the end of 2023 to the end of 2026. Meanwhile, battery energy storage capacity is expected to grow 70% in 2025 alone.

India added 23.8 GW of new solar capacity in fiscal 2025, up 58.5% year on year, according to JMK Research.

Since 1993, the World Energy Outlook (WEO) of the International Energy Agency (IEA) has been an authoritative report on energy statistics and guiding future energy supply and demand developments. An examination of these reports, however, indicates that even the most progressive of WEO scenarios has vastly underestimated the growth of renewable energy technologies, especially solar PV.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that irradiance across England, the Benelux region, Denmark, northern France, northern Germany, and northern Poland surged well above long-term March averages. In the UK, aggregated solar irradiance reached its highest March value since 2014.

Scientists in Spain have simulated the combination of power-to-heat-to-power storage systems with lithium-ion batteries to supply energy needs and heat pump production of an electrified dwelling. PV self-consumption was found to increase by up to 20% and levelized cost of energy decrease by 7%.

The system consists of a reversible compressor connected to a storage unit that can be installed indoors or outdoors. The compressor must be connected to the solar panels, with the whole system being controlled by an application that optimizes self-consumption.

Colombia’s energy regulator has approved new regulations allowing the creation of energy communities, aiming to add at least 1 GW of renewable capacity to the national grid.

The Chinese manufacturer said its new heat pump system can continuously and stably provide hot water up to 75 C. At a temperature between 35 C and 55 C, the new product can reportedly achieve a seasonal coefficient of performance (SCOP) of 4.6 to 5.23, with COP values ranging from 3.86 to 5.63.

Octopus Energy Services has responded to the government’s decision to slash the payments made to solar home owners for their excess electricity by launching its SolarPlus, home solar-plus-battery product.