Magazine Archive 02-2018

Rooftop PV: Distributed solar can arrive in many forms, from the typical small array installed on a family home, to vast, multi-megawatt installations atop large warehouses and factories. Each market sector faces its own challenges and opportunities, and pv magazine has identified five key questions that could well shape these various rooftop sectors throughout 2018 and beyond.

Netherlands solar installations: In January the annual Dutch Solar Trend Report was presented. The market in the Netherlands has grown remarkably. In 2017, 853 MW were installed, an increase of 60% over the previous year. Expectations for 2018 are even higher, and rightly so, since the report showed a potential of 500 – 700 GW.

About The megapolis of Tokyo ranks fourth in the world for the number of skyscrapers, has a metropolitan area larger than any other city on the planet, and effortlessly manages to combine a head-spinning mix of futurism and tradition in one easily-traversed cityscape. While the neon-lit billboards blaring obscure-sounding advertisements high overhead certainly fit the […]

Interview: Energy monitoring solutions are becoming smarter and more user-friendly with each new iteration. One particularly disruptive innovation comes from Belgium’s Smappee, which touts itself as the Shazam of home energy management. Company CEO Stefan Grosjean explained to pv magazine what that means.

8th World Future Energy Summit: Few solar events can rival the litany of high level attendees, the scale of projects, the glitz and production, and the sheer volume of announcements of the Abu Dhabi-based event – January 15 – 18. Host Masdar was front and center of proceedings as solar in the region moves beyond record-setting prices towards the building of an industry.

Special publication: Published in collaboration with Energy Storage Europe, the latest pv magazine Energy Storage special is a 32 page publication that will address some of the more technical, innovative, and upstream issues currently shaping the battery storage landscape.

China road trip, pt III: 2017 was a big year for China’s PV industry, with the 50 GW+ installation figure exceeding expectations. Against such a backdrop of growth, excitement for pv magazine’s third China road trip grew as we finalized details to visit key suppliers and see firsthand what developments might be in store for this year. Taking in n-type cells and modules, bifacial double glass modules and trackers developed specifically for such technology, this was Eckhart K. Gouras’ journey.

Utility-scale storage: The 100 MW Hornsdale Power Reserve was delivered by Tesla in under 100 days – a good thing as the company would’ve picked up the tab if it had failed to do so. But the project is also delivering grid services and demonstrating arbitrage trading at a pace and scale that is changing minds about the potential of utility-scale storage and the role of synchronous generation on Australia’s National Electricity Market.

Solar duties: India is planning to impose a safeguard duty this year to protect its domestic solar manufacturing sector. Many in the industry earnestly believe that if such duties were to be imposed, then a slowing down in market growth would be inevitable. However, the Indian Solar Manufacturers Association (ISMA) believes this will not be the case. Either way, this duty has created unwanted uncertainty in the market.