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The Chinese PV company, which is preparing to move its headquarters to Changzhou city this month, has revealed details of the legal dispute which prompted its auditor to resign a fortnight ago.

A report says India’s energy investment commitments over the last 14 months largely feature measures for power transmission and distribution that could benefit greenhouse-gas-producing fuels more than renewables.

Patrik Huber, co-founder and managing director for East Africa at renewables leasing company Solarise Africa, has spoken to pv magazine about the company’s take on how the region can prime for a green recovery. Huber explained Solarise’s contribution to the recovery includes recent expansion into three new countries.

A 5 MW / 3.6 MWh solar-plus-storage plant is being built with sodium-sulfur batteries provided by Japanese specialist NGK Insulators in Mongolia’s Zavkhan Province. The project developer, Japan-based contractor JGC Holdings, wants to bring the facility online in the spring of next year.

The tender is aimed at procuring 2 GW of capacity in response to the chronic short-term electricity supply gap that is affecting the country and its mining sector. The South African government has selected three LNG projects that may secure around 60% of the awarded capacity and several renewable energy projects including solar, wind and storage. The procurement exercise attracted a lowest bid of $ 0.0998/kWh.

A US-Taiwanese research group has created a new spin coating method which they claim can be applied in the mass production of mini perovskite panels. The scientists used sulfolane as an additive in the perovskite precursor to convert the perovskite phase via a new reaction route. They demonstrated a mini-module with a power conversion efficiency of 16.06% and an active area of 36.6 cm2.

Have we reached a tipping point, from building the case with mining companies for deploying renewable energy … to where renewable energy is helping to build the case for mining?

Suppliers of encapsulant materials – plastic sheets that are heated to laminate together the components in PV module stacks – are rapidly expanding to keep pace with module manufacturing in Asia and other parts of the world. Ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) continues to dominate the market, but new developments in module technology are driving a slow shift to more costly polyolefins.

Solar module developers have long recognised the detrimental effects heat has on cell performance but West Australian company Sunovate has pointed to solar PV-thermal (PVT) technology as an opportunity to value add by improving efficiency.

The Indian developer has secured the revolving fund from 12 international banks. It will use the amount to initially finance its 1.69 GW hybrid portfolio of solar and wind projects to be set up in the Indian state of Rajasthan.