Beyond solar – 08-2023
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The Solar+Storage Exclusive Forum 2023
In a new cooperation, pv magazine is partnering with Turkish event company Solis and the country’s solar industry association Güneş Enerjisi Sanayicileri ve Endüstrisi Derneği (Gensed), on a cutting-edge conference program at the Solar+Storage Exclusive Forum. The event is a part of the Solar+Storage Next Generation Fair in Istanbul on Aug. 31 and Sep. 1 and it is shaping up to be a key knowledge-sharing opportunity for the country’s solar and energy storage industries.
Jul 25, 2023
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Much more than Goodenough
The world would have been a different place today had John Goodenough accepted the Shah of Iran’s $7 million offer, in 1974, to carry out solar research. Instead, he secured a job as the head of inorganic chemistry at the University of Oxford. During his tenure, he made a lithium-ion battery discovery that would affect the lives of almost everyone.
Jul 25, 2023
pv magazine Award: Highlights
The show goes on! And we continue to highlight a few of the most intriguing entries from the 115 received so far. This time, the modules, manufacturing, BOS (balance-of-system) and BESS (battery energy storage system) categories are under the spotlight. And there’s still time to enter: We’ll be accepting entries again in August before our independent jurors start work on their final shortlists.
Jul 25, 2023
In Conversation: ‘Reliable solar has a lot to offer’
With a career built on going places few humans would dare – including the North Pole and South Pole and the seven highest mountain peaks – adventurer Sibusiso Vilane understands how important power can be in remote places. Having recently returned from the Everest Base camp, 20 years after he became the first black African to summit the world’s highest mountain, Vilane says his understanding of how solar can light up lives is only growing.
Jul 25, 2023
In Conversation: 100% solar offgrid, 100% on wheels
Jason and Kara are Canadian overlanders from the “Everlanders” channel on YouTube. Overlanding is self-reliant travel on the road, driving to remote places across international borders. pv magazine caught up with Jason between legs of their latest road trip.
Jul 25, 2023
In Conversation: Staying cool in Kenya
Germany’s Solar Cooling Engineering GmbH (SCE) has developed a new solar-powered cooling technology based on a climate-friendly refrigerant. Through its PV Cool Kenya project, it has rolled out the technology to various industries in the agricultural sector, via a business model that aims to empower farmers and entrepreneurs while also training technicians in Kenya and relying on locally sourced materials for manufacturing.
Jul 25, 2023
In Conversation: ‘It powers everything’
The promise of an unencumbered life drew retiree John Robert away from landlocked Minneapolis, Minnesota, and to a life aboard his sailboat. While docked for a period of repair and renovation, pv magazine caught up with him to learn about the ways in which onboard solar is allowing him to live life where the wind takes him.
Jul 25, 2023
In Conversation: Swedish steel’s green hydrogen play
Cutting emissions and making use of renewable power represent a big departure from the way things have long been done in heavy industries such as steel manufacturing. In Sweden, the Hybrit initiative is taking the lead in developing a green steel industry, making use of the country’s high share of renewable energy, and partner SSAB expects to deliver fossil-fuel-free steel to market by 2026. pv magazine spoke with two of the project’s partners: Martin Pei, executive vice president and chief technology officer at steel producer SSAB, and Mikael Nordlander, director for industry decarbonization at energy producer Vattenfall, about the project and the steel industry’s growing ties to renewable energy.
Jul 25, 2023
In Conversation: Power to the polymers
The start of July 2023 saw the establishment in Germany of the Helmholtz Institute for Polymers in Energy Applications (HIPOLE), a collaboration between Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) that will apply expertise in polymer science to various energy-related applications, with a strong focus on developing sustainable, recyclable polymer materials. pv magazine met with Ulrich S. Schubert, founding director of HIPOLE, to discuss the new institute’s work and the many exciting crossovers between the fields of polymer science and renewable energy.
Jul 25, 2023
In Conversation: Beyond solar
As solar and renewable energy grow, our industry finds itself coming more frequently into contact with people from radically different industries and walks of life. Occasionally these crossovers have led to conflict but, for the most part, solar is expanding decarbonization and energy access. In turn, the new interactions result in innovations and insights that feed back into the PV and energy storage industries.
Jul 25, 2023
In Conversation: Solar e-commerce takes off
Sometimes it takes an outsider, someone with fresh eyes, to see the true state of play. Agata Krawiec-Rokita feels the solar sector lacks transparency, making sales processes overly complex amid both shortages and oversupply. She set out to build a pan-European platform to facilitate transactions for buyers and sellers.
Jul 25, 2023
In Conversation: A sea of modules floats all boats
Developers have deployed vast amounts of solar capacity in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais in recent years. Winning community approval for large-scale solar has been a challenge in some places but many Brazilians have welcomed the solar opportunity, reports Priscila Brandão, a journalist who traveled to the towns of Pirapora, Várzea da Palma, and Quem-Quem, in Minas Gerais, to capture their stories.
Jul 25, 2023
Hopes washed away
The Ukrainian solar industry had hoped that a long-anticipated counter-offensive against the Russians would help reclaim PV assets on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. The brutal reality is that the destruction of the Kakhovka dam has likely severely damaged solar plants in the affected territories, reports Ian Skarytovsky.
Jul 25, 2023
Records fall, market stalls
The solar industry sat up and took notice when Portugal held two record-breaking national PV auctions in 2019 and 2020, setting new global low prices for solar energy. However, sluggish progress on those much-heralded projects is now weighing on the nation’s clean energy ambitions.
Jul 25, 2023
Chaotic leadership leaves South Africans in the dark
Extensive load-shedding, lack of grid capacity, failing coal-fired power stations, lack of progress in clean power procurement, and even vandalism have prompted various South African government departments to take renewables generation into their own hands, seemingly without any overarching plan, as Bryan Groenendaal reports.
Jul 25, 2023
In pictures: The smarter E Europe 2023
The smarter E Europe trade show returned to Munich in June for its biggest edition ever, with 106,000 attendees over three days. pv magazine was at the show, running a liveblog, recording video interviews, and much more as the renewable energy industry from Europe and beyond came together once again.
Jul 25, 2023
Deployment trumps manufacturing in EU priorities
A lack of clear policy support, raw material dependency, and higher production costs are inhibiting the localization of European solar manufacturing, despite strong demand, writes Edurne Zoco, executive director for clean energy technology at S&P Global.
Jul 25, 2023
South African decarbonization falls short
Renewable energy will account for just 20% of South Africa’s power mix by the end of this decade, writes Rystad Energy’s Nivedh Das Thaikoottathil. South Africa had targeted lifting the share of renewable energy in its power generation mix from 11%, currently, to 41% by 2030 by increasing onshore wind and solar capacity, both of which have shown significant growth in recent years.
Jul 25, 2023
California slowdown
During the month of June, the Invesco Solar ETF (exchange-traded fund), an ETF that tracks the MAC Global Solar Energy Index, under-performed relative to the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). Jesse Pichel, of Roth Capital Partners, points to a decline in sales for California as the industry digests the impacts of the Net Metering 2 (NEM2) rules for exporting self-generated electricity to the grid. Longer term, however, the Inflation Reduction Act presents ongoing opportunity right across the solar supply chain.
Jul 25, 2023
Fresh contacts, fresh perspectives
With one terawatt of solar having been installed globally, a milestone that was reached last year, it should come as no surprise that many new people are coming into contact with our technology each and every day. And with the second terawatt destined to take only a handful of years to be achieved, it is […]
Jul 25, 2023
