Magazine Archive 2024

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, identified with fossil fuels for decades, wants to be part of the energy transition. Battery raw materials commentator Phoebe O’Hara says the energy storage supply chain can become the region’s fastest-growing industry.

As bifacial modules proliferate, estimations of albedo are becoming more important and with developers not prepared to install weather stations to assess solar resource, a popular option has become third-party, on-site measurements over periods as short as a day. Is this an acceptable compromise between costly on-site measuring and less accurate satellite data? Everoze’s Stefan Mau discusses the potential benefits and limitations of this approach.

The smarter E Europe event returned, in June 2024, to Munich, Germany, and broke records as the continent’s largest energy industry platform. pv magazine joined more than 3,000 exhibitors from 55 countries for the three-day exhibition. Our editorial team members from across Europe and beyond were out in force to catch up on the latest developments on the show floor.

Well-structured tariffs can make investment in new energy assets attractive for households. As the switch to electrified appliances moves beyond early adopters, tariff innovation will be crucial to mass adoption in Europe.

Quality is paramount in solar applications and never more so than in floating PV installations. The combination of water and electricity harbors obvious challenges and there are many other factors, such as the constant movement of the arrays, that must be considered. Failures at a recent project highlight these issues.

By Arieta Gonelevu Rakai, team lead for the International Renewable Energy Agency’s (IRENA) small-island developing states (SIDS) Lighthouses Initiative.

Piotr Mrowiec, a lawyer and energy policy expert, looks at Poland’s “connection on a commercial basis” approach to relieving renewables-driven grid congestion.

Larger wafer and module sizes have had a profound influence on module power output in recent years but standardization appears to have taken hold, with no further increases evident in module data, according to Molly Morgan, a senior research analyst at Exawatt, which is now part of the CRU Group.

Where we’ve been: European Heat Pump Association Heat Pump Forum, Brussels, Belgium Paul Kenny, the director general of the European Heat Pump Association, opened the two-day Heat Pump Forum in September 2024 by acknowledging that Europe’s heat pump sector is “not in a good place,” with sales down 47% year on year across 13 European countries. […]

The first entry window for the pv magazine Awards 2024 attracted more than 100 entries – an outstanding response. It’s clear that our expert jury panels will have their work cut out for them as they choose between so many innovative products and projects. While our jurors deliberate over the first batch of entries, catch up on some of the submissions that have piqued interest among pv magazine editors. If you missed our first entry window, don’t worry, there will be one more chance to submit during the summer.