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As the world responds to the climate crisis and ramps up investment in solar energy, the industry is still struggling to address sustainability. A new Arup Group report on Australia looks at how the country can apply circular economy principles to current and future PV waste management.

A former employee is suing the U.S. company over allegations that she was terminated once she informed management about her high-risk pregnancy.

With the country’s first procurement exercise for bigger projects, the Togolese government intends to develop solar parks with a combined generation capacity of up to 80 MW. The tender is being held under the umbrella of the World Bank’s Scaling Solar initiative.

Researchers from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology have created flexible solar cells made of crystalline silicon. They claim to have stretched a crystalline silicon cell’s surface by around 95% while maintaining conversion efficiency of around 19%.

The French non-governmental organization, which provides solar kits to refugee camps and disaster affected communities, won the energy category of the 12th Zayed Sustainability Prize. The award will bank Electriciens sans frontières $600,000.

The Japanese electronics giant has unveiled three monocrystalline half-cut cell modules said to provide 2-3% better performance than standard, full cell panels. The claimed efficiency of the modules exceeds 19.5% and Sharp says power output ranges from 330-395 W.

French thinktank the Institut Montaigne says Africa is absent from the global solar revolution for several reasons including a lack of suitable financing tools, the small size of projects and a systematic recourse to tendering. Removing artificial price signals set by ever more competitive tenders could be a step towards a more mature market, ready for large scale solar tenders.

Of 169 pre-selected projects, one is a project for landfill gas production; the remaining 348.5 MW of generation capacity comes from solar projects. The auction’s final results are expected in spring.

Some of the world’s most cost-competitive solar arrays have been built among the rolling dunes of the vast Arabian Desert. While some government policies appear to be targeted at breaking records, nobody expects the oil-rich Gulf region to bring about truly sharp changes in pricing for solar PV plants.

Insolvency proceedings have been under way for the separate Solibro GmbH division since late summer and business operations have long been suspended there. With Chinese thin-film manufacturer Hanergy having told pv magazine it pulled out of that business in 2015 – despite apparent evidence to the contrary – this week another Hanergy subsidiary, Solibro Hi-Tech, declared insolvency.