Revamping Italian PV
Italy regulations: As one of PV’s pioneers, Italy dove headfirst into murky solar waters without any points of reference and often under strict installation deadlines. Coupled with first generation PV components, it is hardly surprising that vast portions of the nation’s installed solar capacity are less than optimum. Now, though, the authorities have introduced clear regulations designed to enable a total PV revamp.
Module replacement as a last resort
Repowering: The German Renewable Energy Act (REA) places strict limits on exchanging solar modules to restore profitability to PV plants. Plant operators should contact the network operators in advance to preserve the old feed-in tariff and avoid having to pay back tariffs already received. Proving solar panels are defective can be very complicated.
Top dog no longer
Stock analysts often perceive a shiny new corporate HQ as auguring poorly for a company’s future. Overexuberance on the back of one or more years of strong performance can lead to overspend, overreach, and trouble down the road if market conditions sour. The same can be said of parties during trade shows. Many who have […]
A matter of scale
Inverter selection: When it comes to selecting inverters for large-scale solar projects, EPCs are increasingly putting the next generation of string inverter solutions through their paces. But although the uptake of string-at-scale has been noteworthy, so too has the pushback from the central inverter sector.
Uncertainty in every direction
Solar supply and demand: The U.S. market for utility-scale and large commercial installations is booming, while the country’s residential application slows in the face of net metering headwinds and the potential of yet another tariff dispute.
Pinpointing when a microcrack was caused
Fault detection: With a portable device, researchers at the Institute for Solar Energy Research (ISFH) in Hameln analyze modules in the field for microcracks. In contrast to the electroluminescence method, the new technique can determine the age of the damage following a hailstorm.
Hold firm, Europe
European solar: The landscape for European PV has never looked so barren. An industry largely created and financed – at least in the early stages – by EU member states is increasingly dominated by China, but smarter policies can bring back the dynamism and innovation that first helped European solar soar, believes Gäetan Masson, Director of the Becquerel Institute.
Quantifying Risk: CEA introduces benchmarking
Quality assurance: Having been involved in assuring quality with over 16 GW of PV installations, Clean Energy Associates is putting its experience to good use. Its new Supplier Benchmarking Program brings together its proprietary data set with an analytical methodology, delivering a tool to judge the ability of PV module suppliers’ ability to deliver on promises of durability and reliability. Director of Technology and Quality George Touloupas sets out the program.
Solar arrives at world’s largest industrial show
Hannover Messe: The time for solar and storage is now. The message from pv magazine’s Solar Premium partners at the 2017 Hannover Messe was simple but compelling, and it made for an irresistible proposition for attendees at the landmark event.
Emerging fix for LID in multi PERC
Cell technology: PERC is nothing new, but a full understanding of the defects behind the “nasty” light-induced degradation in multicrystalline cells is. Researchers from the University of New South Wales claim to have made significant progress in both identifying, testing for, and mitigating these defects, in a development that may turn the multi versus mono competitive dynamic once more on its head.
