Markets

Ministers from Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan have agreed to connect their energy systems. They will lay an energy cable along the bottom of the Caspian Sea to facilitate the sale of green energy to Europe.

A European consortium including Germany’s Fraunhofer ISE is researching suitable crop and PV system combinations, conducting tests under Nordic conditions, and developing software to expedite adoption.

Sunrun, a US-based residential solar installer, says nearly 1,800 customers have already signed up to its PowerOn Puerto Rico virtual power plant (VPP). The program deploys stored solar energy from customers’ batteries to the grid, preventing power supply shortfalls on the island.

Turkish developer YEO and Zambian sustainable energy company are constructing a 60 MW solar plant with a 20 MWh battery energy storage system in southern Zambia.

The state-owned Central Electricity Board of Mauritius has launched a tender for consultancy services at a 15 MW solar project. The deadline for applications is May 22.

The latest Sinovoltaics financial stability report ranking lists Tainergy, Eterbright, First Solar, Era Solar, and TSEC as the top five module makers. There was a slight reshuffling in the top ten, and seven new manufacturers were added to the ranking.

GCL Technology says revenue and profits fell in 2023 due to losses on certain assets, higher financing costs, and an uptick in R&D spending.

A World Trade Organization (WTO) official and several Italian lawyers recently spoke with pv magazine Italy about the timing of a potential Chinese legal challenge against Italy’s new solar measures, which exclusively provide incentives for high-performance PV modules produced in the European Union.

The so-called “network checker” will allow residential PV customers in Belgium to check if there have been any inverter failures in their local area. It comes after Belgian grid operator Fluvius launched a compensation scheme for those who are not reconnected within 30 working days of a curtailment.

University of Michigan researchers have found that the value of rooftop solar will increase by between 5% and 15% by the mid-century across a range of US cities under moderate climate change, and by up to 20% by the end of the century.