Manufacturing

The deployment of standalone power systems in Australia’s National Electricity Market is expected to accelerate, as the Australian Energy Market Commission has published new rules allowing distributors to install renewables-based technologies in the nation’s five market jurisdictions.

International express shipper DHL is topping its trucks with solar to limit fuel usage by powering lift gates and ancillary devices.

A recent report from HTW Berlin and Verbraucherzentrale NRW reveals that, between 2020 and 2021 alone, around 128.000 new plug-in solar arrays, totaling 51MW of generation capacity, were installed in Germany.

Developed by a French start-up, the robotic mower can be used in a 50-unit herd across a property of around 50 hectares and a radius of 20 km. It is powered by polycrystalline cells and equipped with battery storage. The system can operate with a maximum slope of 15% and reach a speed of 300m/h.

Scientists in Australia have developed an optimization framework for building-integrated photovoltaics that allows the selection of design variables according to user preferences. Their model considers PV-related features such as tilt angle, window-to-wall ratio (WWR), PV placement, and PV product type, as well as objective functions and constraints such as the net present value and the payback period.

Plans to reestablish a thriving European solar manufacturing base are underway. As part of the UP Initiative’s upcoming Q2 2022 theme on the topic, pv magazine spoke to Johan Lindahl, secretary general of the European Solar Manufacturing Council to understand the challenges and opportunities for domestic manufacturers, and to discover how they could reach the target of forming a full 100GW solar value chain by 2030.

Two industry experts have provided analyses of the current polysilicon price scenario in a chat with pv magazine and both agreed that polysilicon demand is still growing faster than supply. The price may decrease starting from the second quarter and reach more reasonable levels by the end of the year.

The closing of the Alabama-based facility comes in tandem with the announcement that LG will be folding its solar module business by the end of June.

Australia’s only solar panel manufacturer, has launched its first module designed specifically for utility-scale projects, the 545W Karra module. Australia-made, the module boasts a 23.1% cell efficiency with a low cell-to-module loss rate of 0.07%.

HyET Solar and the Delft University of Technology are developing a photovoltaic foil technology that is claimed to be suitable for any type of surface. The solar foil has a 12.0% conversion efficiency and is based on hydrogenated amorphous silicon and nanocrystalline silicon in a tandem cell configuration.