Mountains to climb – 05-2026
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Table of content
Mountains to climb – 05-2026
2026
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Mountains to climb – 05-2026
2026
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Excerpt from the magazine
Oil in turmoil, solar stays stable
Soaring energy costs have grabbed headlines around the world the past two months, but prices across the solar supply chain are marching to their own beat, writes Hanwei Wu of OPIS. Oversupply in Asia continues to distort markets, with either sharp price falls or tepid price gains.
May 25, 2026
Integrated ESG
For years, due diligence in solar and battery energy storage systems (BESS) focused on a familiar set of technical and commercial risks: resources, the grid, permitting, contracts, equipment reliability, and financial assumptions. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, despite their obvious influence on asset behavior and value, were often treated as a separate workstream. But that distinction no longer reflects how projects actually perform, argues Ragna Schmidt-Haupt, partner at Everoze.
May 11, 2026
Long-duration storage on a compressed timeline
For most of its history, not much changed in compressed air energy storage (CAES). The first plant was deployed in 1978, but the technology never really caught on. Now, with a sudden flurry of record-breaking utility-scale plants coming online in China, increased deployment in Europe, North America and Australia, and growing calls to get off gas, might CAES finally have its moment in the sun?
May 11, 2026
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BBDF 2026: financing, grid fees, flexibility and growth
More than 530 delegates from across Europe’s fast-growing battery energy storage system (BESS) sector gathered in Frankfurt for the second annual Battery Business & Development Forum (BBDF), jointly organized by pv magazine and ESS News, Conexio-PSE, and SolarPower Europe. Engaging presentations, lively discussions and the chance to connect with industry leaders from across key markets made this year’s event a major success.
May 11, 2026
Reshaping storage revenue in Shandong
China’s pioneering electricity spot market offers a case study on what market liberalization might mean for the country’s energy storage revenues. Storage mandates are out and markets are in. With the additional support of a new capacity mechanism, Yujia Han examines what it might mean for standalone battery energy storage system (BESS) revenues.
May 11, 2026
The Philippines’ PV and storage mega-project
The MTerra solar project in the Philippines is set to become one of the world’s largest integrated solar-plus-storage facilities once fully completed. Ajay Mullangi, principal at global infrastructure investor Actis, which is developing the project alongside partners, updated pv magazine on progress since the groundbreaking in November 2024 and explains why the development is integral to the Philippines’ future energy security.
May 11, 2026
Mongolia’s solar opportunity
About 25% of Mongolia’s total energy consumption today comes from Russian and Chinese imports. As the country’s economy and population expand, energy demand is growing by 15% to 20% per year, leading to shortages. Momentum in the country’s small but growing renewable energy sector is driven by efforts to diversify its coal-based energy mix and tap export opportunities in neighboring China.
May 11, 2026
Powering design
There is a lot of focus on the challenges of building data centers and obtaining grid connections for power, but what about design considerations? As chips become more powerful and compute tasks more demanding, data center developers’ ability to adapt their facilities to an uncertain energy future will distinguish them from competitors.
May 11, 2026
China’s policy reset
Document No. 136 (DN136) has ushered in a fundamental change in China’s energy policy. Just over a year after its introduction in February 2025, the country’s solar industry is now beginning to grasp the consequences of a shift that has effectively rewired its understanding of returns, capital allocation and risk. pv magazine’s Vincent Shaw reports that while Chinese solar and storage are still growing, neither has quite the same swagger as before.
May 11, 2026
Policy risk and capital friction
As the US solar industry continues to adjust to life under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), Jesse Pichel and Lev Seleznov of Roth Capital Partners note two risks that are drawing attention across the market. These include the potential for a second reconciliation bill that could reopen elements of solar policy, and continued friction in tax equity and tax credit transfer markets tied to unresolved Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) and Prohibited Foreign Entities (PFE) guidance. Taken together, these issues show that policy risk has not disappeared for US solar – in some respects, it is evolving.
May 11, 2026
Asia speeds up solar
Airstrikes by US and Israeli forces hit targets in Iran on Feb. 27, 2026. The ensuing conflict has brought about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and damage to major fossil fuel production sites across the Gulf region – kicking off what is still unfolding as the most significant supply shock the world’s energy system has seen yet. pv magazine looks at the impacts already playing out across Asia, where many countries rely heavily on fuels transported through the Strait.
May 11, 2026
Cuba tackles crisis with solar
Cuba is going through one of the most severe energy crises in its recent history, with prolonged blackouts and a partial collapse of the electricity system. This situation is the result of structural factors accumulated over decades and an adverse geopolitical context. Solar is emerging as the central pillar of the government’s strategy to stabilize the electricity system and reduce energy vulnerability, as Luis Ini reports.
May 11, 2026
Spain speeds up grid reliability efforts
One year on from the Iberian Peninsula blackout, technical analysis and new regulations are reshaping security of supply in Spain. Far from being an isolated incident, reports from the Spanish government, grid operator Red Eléctrica, and industry association ENTSO-E have all concluded that the incident was the result of operational and structural issues. The incident on April 28, 2025, highlighted vulnerabilities in managing an energy mix dominated by renewables, but work is under way to strengthen the system.
May 11, 2026
Pakistan’s net metering debacle
Desperate times can promote poor decision making, and the steadily worsening economics faced by Pakistan’s electricity system saw the industry regulator approve a retroactive rate cut to net-metered solar installations in February 2026. Public outcry was immediate and political intervention swift, but the policy debacle reveals the real pressure that can come from rapidly scaling distributed generation in a country with soaring electricity tariffs and a falling base of ratepayers
May 11, 2026
PV manufacturing diversified
The solar manufacturing landscape is today comprised of three key countries trying to create profitable operations across the value chain from polysilicon to modules: China, India and the United States. Each of these countries faces different challenges, shaped by legacy investment levels and policy initiatives. Finlay Colville, founder of Terawatt PV Research, examines the factors that are driving capital expenditure and technology selection in 2026.
May 11, 2026
Emerging markets for solar and storage
The global solar and storage sectors have already faced pivotal moments in 2026. China’s PV market is contracting due to policy reforms, data centers are emerging as new consumers of storage capacity, and geopolitical conflicts are driving distributed generation. For S&P Global Energy’s Josefin Berg, global dynamics can rapidly change expectations.
May 11, 2026
The best laid plans
Elon Musk made the latest in a series of ambitious claims about his business plans on a stage in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, in January. He said SpaceX and Tesla teams are working separately to build 100 GW a year of solar manufacturing capacity in the United States, a process that he expects will take about three years. pv magazine USA’s Ben Zientara assesses the likelihood of these plans coming to fruition.
May 11, 2026
Powering up perovskites
Perovskite solar devices continue to move closer to large-scale manufacturing in 2026, with encouraging results from outdoor testing and megawatt-scale pilot lines. pv magazine spoke with Yang Chen, director of overseas business development at Chinese perovskite startup Microquanta, about the direction and prospects for perovskite PV in 2026.
May 11, 2026
