Balance of Systems

At the end of December, the Algerian government issued a tender for off-grid gas/diesel and solar projects in non-interconnected areas in the south of the country.

The European solar association has called on Europe to set up 5 GW of solar PV module manufacturing capacity to cater to the expected around 15 GW of annual demand.

Researchers from Berlin’s College for Technology and Economics have determined a ‘system performance index’ for 16 residential storage systems. The index ranks systems according to economic efficiency. The compilers of the index say many manufacturers lack transparency regarding system performance.

Agreement to wave requirement for chief shareholder FEFAM to conduct a full takeover paves way for shareholders to vote through a debt-for-equity swap that will reduce the historic battery maker’s debts by a reported 65% next Tuesday.

The French industrial equipment manufacturer expects to almost double turnover in solar by 2023. The company supplies materials for ingot production as well as providing electrical protection solutions such as fuses, fuse holders, heatsinks, wire management, disconnect switches, laminated busbars and surge protective devices.

EPC contractor Decmil Group has selected Nextracker’s NX Horizon solar trackers for the 255 MW Sunraysia Solar Farm, one of Australia’s largest solar farms located in New South Wales.

In pv magazine’s recent webinar, JinkoSolar laid out the case for using bifacial modules in large-scale solar plants, and the opportunities and challenges this can bring for project developers. Listeners raised plenty of interesting questions during the webinar, and now Andrea Viaro, Head of Technical Services for Europe has taken the time to answer some of those we couldn’t fit in. Further questions from the webinar will be answered later this week.

The Federal Ministry of Economics has published further details of possible battery cell production on a gigawatt scale. At the Networking Conference Electromobility 2018 in Berlin this week, Minister Peter Altmaier stressed the urgency of the project, for Germany and Europe to be independent of Asia and the US in storage technology.

The first annual Battery Performance Scorecard has turned up interesting findings, including the fact high temperatures can help or hinder power output – depending on the product, and seemingly in equal measure.

The global vertical integration of the PV tracker industry is accelerating, as players seek to build organizations that can provide manufacturing and support in multiple markets simultaneously. These partnerships tend to connect intellectual property assets with global manufacturing capability and construction and engineering teams that have the financial wherewithal to pursue international markets. The trend also is driving product line expansion, as in the case of Nextracker’s offering of energy storage as an integrated part of its tracker design.