Modules & Upstream Manufacturing

At Bluewave, integrating solar technology with traditional farming practices isn’t just a concept, it’s the new standard. Jesse Robertson-DuBois, director of sustainable solar development, shares insights on the transformative journey of agrivoltaics within the industry.

The eight-day Electrek American Solar Challenge 2024 created three new champion solar car teams with the student-run University of Michigan team coming in first, followed by Canada’s École de technologie supérieure and the Illinois State University solar car team.

The Chinese cell maker said its unit Zhejiang Akcome Photovoltaic Technology has received the green light for restructuring. However, if the reorganization is unsuccessful, the company will proceed to bankruptcy liquidation.

Scientists in Finland have built a perovskite solar cell with a bio-inspired coating that reportedly improves light transmittance while providing self-cleaning properties. The film was able to improve the device efficiency by up to 6%.

Nigeria’s Minister for Innovation, Science and Technology has said the country is committed to replicating similar solar module assembling plants across all its geopolitical zones.

In its latest monthly column for pv magazine, SolarPower Europe explains how several European countries are moving away from support schemes for injections and towards the adoption of time-variant supply tariffs, which play a crucial role in reducing daily price fluctuations. This shift challenges the traditional business case for rooftop PV, which often relies on maximizing grid injections.

Chinese researchers claim to have developed an “ultrastable” perovskite solar cell based on a two-dimensional, Dion-Jacobson phase perovskite. The device was constructed with blade coating technology and is scalable, according to its creators.

Scientists in Malta have created an after-market cooling solution that can be fitted to existing standard PV modules. The system is based on a water chamber placed at the backside of the module and can reportedly provide a net electrical energy gain of more than 9%.

The National Irrigation Administration of the Philippines has launched a procurement project with a budget of around PHP 97 million ($1.66 million) for the development of two solar power-driven pump irrigation projects on the Loboc river.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, reports that the regions with the highest year-to-year variability in irradiance include Central and Northern Europe, East Coast Australia, Northern Argentina, and China, with Africa exhibiting the most stable irradiance year-on-year.