Finance

Swiss PV manufacturer Meyer Burger hit its 321 MW production volume target last year, and its expansion into the gigawatt scale is already underway, as it recently completed two additional purchase agreements with major customers. It has also applied for hundreds of millions of funding support from the EU Innovation Fund, with a final decision to be made in the summer.

PV deployment is gathering pace in the EU member state but grid capacity shortfalls and unpredictable shifts in government policy need to be addressed if the nation is to harness its full solar – and European energy security – potential.

US Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) closed down Silicon Valley Bank last week after its share price plunged due to ongoing bond-market losses, triggering $42 billion of withdrawals.

With increasing capital commitments, there is now a shift to minority investments and emergent technology subsectors. pv magazine evaluates the M&A outlooks provided by CohnReznick Capital and FTI Consulting.

Indonesia is a coal-dependent country in which conventional power grids are problematic. The archipelagic nation is turning to floating PV (FPV) to help accelerate its energy transition. Sorta Caroline takes a look at the state of play for water-borne solar and the problems that still need to be overcome.

Chinese polysilicon supplier Daqo sold 132,909 tons of polysilicon last year, from 75,356 tons in 2021.

An international group of researchers has designed a new hybrid photovoltaic-liquid air energy storage (PV-LAES) system. Their economic evaluation for the proposed 2 MW PV-LAES project showed that the investment payback period can be within 10 years, and the accumulated net profit can reach up to $2.2 million from a life-cycle perspective.

Battery energy storage saw a major increase in contracted capacity in British auctions this year, with many utility-scale projects securing long-term deals. The business case, however, is not as strong for all storage durations.

Rgreen Invest and Echosys Invest have raised €87.5 million ($92.7 million) through the Afrigreen Debt Impact Fund. They said they will use the money to finance on-grid and off-grid solar projects for small- and medium-sized commercial and industrial customers in Africa.

Sono Motors, a solar electric-vehicle manufacturer in Germany, has terminated its Sion passenger car development program, as it has failed to secure enough funding to support pre-series production. It says it will now focus exclusively on retrofitting and integrating its patented solar technology into third-party vehicles.