This week Women in Solar+ Europe gives voice to Sara Kapeller, CEO of Germany’s Twistor GmbH. She says building impactful careers in the renewable energy landscape requires courage, curiosity, and inclusion, turning setbacks into growth and empowering more women to lead technical innovation and shape the future.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, provides a June–August 2026 outlook indicating mostly neutral to positive solar irradiance globally, with stronger gains in regions like Australasia, South Asia, West Africa, and Central America—patterns consistent with a developing El Niño. Negative anomalies are limited and mostly early-season, while Europe and the U.S. show modest or mixed signals, with improvements or neutrality dominating as the season progresses.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.

UK-based consultancy Ricardo, part of the WSP Group, explains how solar PV has compounded at 17% annually since 2016, defining the EU’s clean-energy trajectory. However, straightforward merchant returns are disappearing, and battery storage and grid expertise are now essential.

In 2025, solar and wind dominated global energy growth, delivering around six times more new capacity than all other power sources combined and supplying nearly all new electricity demand. With rapid expansion led by countries like Australia and several European nations, solar and wind are now the fastest-growing and central drivers of the global energy transition.

BPDB has launched a tender for 495 MW of grid-tied solar power projects across 10 sites in Bangladesh, with capacities ranging from 25–100 MW and full private investment required. The bid structure, which places land acquisition and financing risks on developers, has drawn investor concerns over bankability and limited project attractiveness.

CATL has completed a roughly $5 billion share sale in Hong Kong on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Chinese inverter and battery manufacturing giant Sungrow is making a second attempt at an IPO after its initial listing bid, launched in October 2025, lapsed.

China’s first large-scale salt cavern hydrogen storage demonstration project has been commissioned in Henan province. The 1.5 million m³ facility validates geological hydrogen storage technology and supports renewable energy integration.

Supported by Toshiba, Bulgarian utility NEK is working to restart its 864 MW Chaira pumped-storage hydropower plant, the largest of its kind in Southeastern Europe. The facility has been offline since March 2022 following a turbine failure.

Cox has acquired Iberdrola México for $4 billion, adding 2,600 MW of capacity and becoming Mexico’s largest private power supplier with a 12 GW renewable project pipeline.

A Vietnamese research team has developed a low-cost passive cooling system for PV modules based on hydrogel-coated paper that combines water flow and interfacial evaporation to reduce operating temperatures. Outdoor tests showed temperature reductions of up to 14 C and efficiency gains of up to 16.8%, with stable operation achieved using both freshwater and natural seawater.

Huaneng has commissioned the 5.43 GW Xiaowan Hydropower–Solar Hybrid Project in Yunnan, combining 4.2 GW of hydropower and 1.23 GW of solar under a coordinated “hydro–solar intelligent control” system integrating 16 PV plants.

The Indian manufacturer said its new all-black panel series features a power conversion efficiency of up to 23.32% and a bifaciality factor of up to 85%.

Nusku has developed a prototype of a fully integrated air-source heat pump system that combines the heat pump with a hot water cylinder and controls into a single outdoor unit. The design aims to simplify installation and reduce space requirements by replacing separate indoor and outdoor components with one pre-packaged system.

Through an agreement with Overview Energy, Meta is seeking to bypass terrestrial grid constraints by beaming near-infared light from space to terrestrial solar plants to power high-density AI workloads.

Researchers in Canada found that 69%-transparent crystalline silicon semitransparent PV modules can improve tomato greenhouse yields by up to 38% while maintaining healthy plant growth through beneficial partial shading. Their simulations also showed that combining rooftop agrivoltaics with heat pumps can fully eliminate fossil fuel heating.

The iSkim Ultra utilizes a 24 W monocrystalline solar array and a 10,000 mAh battery to provide 24/7 surface cleaning through an autonomous dual-path navigation system.

The Chinese manufacturer said its TOPCon-compatible hybrid back-contact solar cell achieved a power conversion efficiency of 28.0%. The result was confirmed by Germany’s Institute for Solar Energy Research Hamelin (ISFH).

Oxford PV has joined Nissan’s SUITE consortium, advancing perovskite-silicon tandem solar tech that could boost vehicle-integrated solar EV range by an additional 3–5 km per day and push total daily solar driving range toward 15–20 km.

The research team developed a plasma interface engineering method to improve indium tin oxide layers, solving adhesion, contact resistance, and stability issues for copper electroplating. The optimized process enabled uniform copper metallization and boosted device efficiency to 25.2%, significantly outperforming untreated reference cells.

The U.S. Department of Commerce has issued preliminary anti-dumping determinations for three key solar-exporting nations, establishing duties of up to 123% on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate of the Netherlands has identified a planned polysilicon factory in the country as of strategic importance under the Net Zero Industry Act.

The four-terminal tandem device relies on FAPbI₃ nanoparticles and a spectral splitting design, combining a 24.4% wide-bandgap top cell and a 21.5% narrow-bandgap bottom cell to reach 30.2% efficiency. The system improves light utilization by directing different wavelengths to optimized subcells.

The Swedish thin-film solar specialist produces 50 MW of modules at its Bari facility, using its proprietary DUO system for cell manufacturing. The company says it sources all materials from the EU and other countries in the global North.

DK Electronic Materials (DKEM) plans to raise up to CNY 3.0 billion (USD 413 million) via a private placement to fund PV paste, metal powder expansion, R&D, and debt repayment. The company is advancing high-copper PV paste toward volume production for TOPCon 3.0 cells.

A market alert for the attention of installers, distributors and traders in the solar and storage market.

Australia’s Energy Market Commission says introducing a new distribution planning framework and undertaking enhanced data reporting will help to reduce rooftop solar curtailment.

The European Commission’s AccelerateEU energy crisis plan endorses a 200 GW battery storage target for 2030 but proposes no dedicated financing mechanism to reach it, according to SolarPower Europe (SPE), which is calling for a separate EU-wide auction funded by emissions trading revenues.

Colombia has launched a 15-year auction scheme to procure solar, storage, and hybrid capacity, with delivery starting in 2030. The mechanism introduces time-of-use products and aims to improve reliability while expanding renewable energy uptake.

Airengy Ltd., listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, has signed a memorandum of understanding to acquire a 51% stake in Green-Go, an Israeli PV developer and engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) contractor with expertise in agrivoltaics.