Policy

Storage has long been expected to be the handmaiden of a renewable energy world and its long awaited advances started to finally emerge in the third quarter as researchers posited R&D achievements ranging from potentially potent tungsten disulfide nanotubes to the business case for 10-year solar panels.

Tesla finishes 2019 on a high note amid a flurry of year-end EV funding, news and optimism on longer-range electrics.

After an extensive process and a raft of documents, the European Commission has laid the groundwork for legal measures aimed at a more sustainable solar industry. Don’t expect a revolution.

Intersolar Europe is always a key date in the solar calendar but this year’s show had it all, including three panel-smuggling arrests. Elsewhere, wafers were getting bigger, efficiency records were tumbling and new technologies were emerging. There was also more news on the solar car ports fad and Hanwha’s ongoing legal tussle.

A monastic community on the Mt Athos peninsula this year installed a solar-storage-diesel mini-grid which is set to be augmented by a biomass combined heat and power system in March.

The first part of pv magazine’s review of 2019 considers Q1, when solar early adopter Italy offered an optimistic start to the year by fleshing out its plans for PV but uncertainty still clouded the world’s biggest solar market. The potential for household solar installations to rocket the world over – helped by ever cheaper panels – prompted strategic decisions in the inverter market and analyst expectations were confounded as the cobalt and lithium price plummeted, bringing the EV revolution a big step nearer.

Greece’s energy regulator has announced the results of the country’s latest round of tenders for renewable energy, which saw the incumbent utility offer the country’s lowest bid for a solar PV project.

Evergen, a solar and battery optimization specialist, and battery supplier Solar Service Group have joined forces to connect thousands of residential batteries across Australia. By delivering significant benefits to consumers, the joint venture hopes to boost the uptake of home batteries across the nation.

Oman Power and Water Procurement Co. has named eight of the nine bidders vying to develop twin 500-600 MW solar plants in the sultanate, but the energy off-taker has sown doubt by claiming that the contracts will be awarded to private sector entities.

The government claims 292 MW more solar was installed than in the same period of 2018. Taipei reported solar power generation increased 51.7% year-on-year for January-to-October.