Work in progress – 04-2023
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Excerpt from the magazine
More acceptance through dual use
Doubling up on land use by adding solar to agricultural sites sounds like a great idea. But what is the right method? pv magazine Deutschland’s Cornelia Lichner compares ground-mounted solar and agrivoltaic systems in Germany and discovers that some of the relevant regulations do not appear to be justified.
Apr 05, 2023
Pathfinders for grid stability
Non-synchronous renewable energy affects grid stability but storage-as-transmission (SAT) assets offer grid companies a trump card. Whether it’s “virtual transmission” in Australia, Germany’s “Grid Booster” program, or the giga-scale pipeline of projects emerging in the United Kingdom, energy storage is finding a way.
Apr 05, 2023
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The human touch
While it is easy to dismiss opposition to solar as small-minded local activism, doing so fails to recognize the emotional thread tying together communities wary of seeing fields of solar panels, and ignores missteps often made by remote developers. pv magazine Australia’s Bella Peacock reports on how solar companies can do better.
Apr 05, 2023
The green jobs promise
Promising to replace fossil fuel jobs with an identical number of clean energy roles in coal-dependent communities is overly simplistic and ignores the fact that communities need to be brought onside with credible expectations of better-quality employment, says Raul Alfaro-Pelico, a senior director at the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI).
Apr 05, 2023
Getting real on forced labor
While few can doubt the emission-reduction might of solar; forced- and child labor in clean power supply chains is becoming a hot issue, which is why the EU is mulling a ban on goods proven to have traces of such labor practices. Diana Zadorozhna, a partner at renewables consultancy Everoze, looks at what companies can do to prepare for forced labor legislation.
Apr 05, 2023
Speed and accuracy
When faced with a crisis, speed is of the essence. At the SolarPower Summit in Brussels in March, International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Fatih Birol delivered a “bravo” to EU member states, policymakers, and companies for what they had managed to achieve in the face of the energy crisis caused by Russia’s invasion of […]
Apr 05, 2023
Producing the goods
Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) is demonstrating how a solar-powered refrigeration unit and dryer could be self-sustaining and improve food security in Kenya. Project managers Alexander Morgenstern and Norbert Pfanner say that they hope the system will be the first of many.
Apr 05, 2023
C&I solar feels the IRA effect
Factors such as net-metering rules, solar system size limits, and state electricity prices can render commercial and industrial (C&I) solar less than straightforward in the United States but the boost provided by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is clear, explains S&P Global’s Alex Kaplan.
Apr 05, 2023
Remembering Shri Pranav Mehta
National Solar Energy Federation of India (NSEFI) founder and chairman Pranav Mehta died on Dec. 15, leaving a void in the industry. His vision helped establish India as a global solar leader and his contribution to the sector laid the foundation for the world’s fastest-growing solar economy. He is remembered by NSEFI Chief Executive Subrahmanyam Pulipaka.
Apr 05, 2023
pv magazine Awards: Enter now!
We have been accepting entries to the 2023 pv magazine Awards since the beginning of March and we have already received close to 50 across all categories. Here we preview a few of the most intriguing early entries to the all-new “Projects” category (details below). Remember, you can apply through to the end of April, with a second application window opening later in the year.
Apr 05, 2023
Bigger modules, bigger headaches?
The debate continues over whether super-sized, high-power solar modules are a good thing for the industry and they appear to be here to stay. Vicente Parra and James Whittemore, from Enertis Applus+, consider the pitfalls to avoid when designing high-power solar projects.
Apr 05, 2023
Ensuring fab quality
With a plethora of new production lines announced in the wake of the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – and European Union legislators following president Joe Biden’s example – renewables developers should be wary about the high defect rates associated with new fabs, reports Jörg Althaus, director of engineering at Clean Energy Associates.
Apr 05, 2023
Game(sa)-changing
The 2022 pv magazine Award for inverters was awarded to Gamesa Electric’s Proteus central product – a powerful inverter that presents a new answer to the question of central vs. string devices for utility scale solar. Gamesa CEO Juan Barandiaran sat down to discuss the inverter landscape.
Apr 05, 2023
Solar and the SVB banking crisis
While the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank sparked a domino effect in the United States and Europe, driving fears of another global banking crisis, state-side PV developers are sanguine about any fallout for their projects, as pv magazine USA’s Michael Schoeck explains.
Apr 05, 2023
Caught in the crossfire
The Invesco Solar ETF, an exchange-traded fund that tracks the MAC Global Solar Energy Index, under-performed relative to the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) in March. Jesse Pichel, of Roth Capital Partners, attributes this to the worsening situation for US module imports from China.
Apr 05, 2023
New turf for thin films
Thin-film technologies have long promised to make a major impact on the solar industry but have largely been constrained to niche applications and research labs if they were not shredded by the market. After several false starts, current trade dynamics and promising research programs may help solar thin films find their place in the sun, as Blake Matich reports.
Apr 05, 2023
