An IEA-PVPS report finds that solar power above 60° North is not only viable but rapidly expanding, driven by cold-climate performance gains, bifacial technologies, and rising energy security needs. While challenges like extreme seasonality, snow, permafrost, and scarce data remain, Arctic PV is emerging as a critical—and technically distinct—frontier for global solar deployment.

Achieving a system cost of $0.65/W through the secondary market and do-it-yourself assembly demonstrates a viable pathway for US plug-in solar to provide immediate utility bill relief to renters and apartment dwellers.

An industry analysis argues that agrivoltaic systems using trackers or vertical designs can outperform conventional solar on both revenues and land use, challenging conclusions from a recent German study.

This week Women in Solar+ Europe gives voice to Irene Mihai, Policy Director at the Romanian Photovoltaic Industry Association (RPIA). She says her personal experiences show how mentorship, collaboration, and inclusive workplace practices are essential for attracting and retaining talent while empowering the next generation to contribute to a sustainable future.

Marine energy is renewable and generally predictable. It could thus compensate for the unplanned intermittency of solar and wind generation, its proponents argue. But several challenges still need to be overcome for the energy to become widely used.

Switzerland startup Evolium Technologies’ subscription-based business model offers residential battery owners a lifetime guarantee on second life batteries. The startup tests and remotely monitors each battery cell so it can alert customers when a cell is under-performing.

Latest figures from the International Renewable Energy Agency find solar contributed the majority of a record 692 GW of renewables capacity added worldwide last year. 

The French authorities announced they will assign 288 MW of PV in the 2026 tender for projects ranging from 100 kW to 500 kW in size and 925 MW in the procurement exercise for PV systems exceeding 500 kW. The tenders will include cybersecurity requirements as well as provisions to support European manufacturing.

A team from Nankai University and the Shanghai Institute of Space Power-Sources has developed a hydrofluorocarbon electrolyte enabling lithium-metal cells to operate at temperatures as low as -70 C.

The US solar industry may fall short of workforce needs as developers race to meet July 4, 2026 construction deadlines tied to federal tax credits.

The two major developers plan to establish a joint venture company with equal ownership that will be their sole vehicle for building, owning and operating both existing and future solar, storage and wind projects across nine Asian countries.

Midea has launched a compact indoor air-source heat pump for retrofit and space-constrained homes. The R290-based system offers up to 4.45 kW output, a coefficient of performance of 4.5 and smart PV-compatible controls.

The South African Photovoltaic Industry Association has welcomed the utility’s decision to extend its registration fee waiver for solar systems until the end of September, as it calls for the country’s municipal distributors to streamline their own processes for small-scale embedded generation systems.

China-based solar manufacturer Longi is shifting from a multi-vendor system design to a unified solar-plus-storage architecture built around in-house technologies.

Solar and wind accounted for nearly 90% of all new utility-scale generating capacity added to the US grid through December 2025, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).

The “lab” session at Battery Business & Development Forum 2026 made transparent how different stakeholders evaluate and view energy storage projects between standalone and co-located options, and where views diverged.

Research from Germany analyzed sentiment in online news coverage to explore how heat pumps are portrayed in German public discourse. It found that while public perception is generally positive, it is neither uniform nor stable, and dipped significantly during debates around Germany’s heating law in 2023.

France’s Association Environnement Juste has proposed a storage mandate for renewables projects exceeding 10 kWp in order to integrate flexibility at the source. The association argues European sodium-ion batteries could present an economically and environmentally viable solution, capable of stabilizing grids without depending on imported metals.

Available in 80 W and 108 W versions using high-efficiency SunPower Maxeon cells, the kit offers wind resistance up to 25 m/s and easy installation on unused boat surfaces, according to the manufacturer.

Latest analysis from Ember finds major grid bottlenecks in transmission and distribution networks across Europe, threatening the viability of both future utility-scale and smaller-scale residential solar in the most impacted countries.

Sassmann, a Germany-based company, has developed a modular “solar panel grid” system designed to prevent pigeons from nesting beneath photovoltaic modules.

Cornell University researchers demonstrated that tracking solar panels in agrivoltaic systems can protect crops from wind damage while allowing airflow, outperforming traditional single-row tree windbreaks. They also proposed a new lowered-first-row panel design that improves wind protection, achieving up to 86% reduction in shelter-zone wind speeds under extreme conditions.

Researchers in India demonstrated that ion beam implantation enables precise boron doping in silicon solar cells, reducing defects and improving charge transport. The proposed approach could support more efficient and reproducible p–n junctions, offering a pathway to higher-performance silicon photovoltaics.

UNSW researchers developed a chemically selective, nitrate-based, single-sided accelerated ageing method for TOPCon solar cells that replicates the mildly acidic environment inside EVA-encapsulated modules. The proposed approach enables rapid, physically meaningful screening of front-side metallisation stability, reliably predicting module-level degradation and reducing development time and costs, according to its creators.

Researchers in Brazil tested second-life polycrystalline PV modules for two years and found they retained 87–88% of their original power, with minimal degradation and stable performance. Despite strong sustainability and circular economy benefits, economic incentives remain limited due to the declining cost and short warranties of new state-of-the-art silicon PV modules.

Germany’s Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) is set to present a framework for future network fees in May 2026, with industry discussions highlighting how these charges could interact with flexible connection agreements and affect battery energy storage system (BESS) returns.

As Europe prepares to roll out 200 GWh of battery storage over the next five years, discussion at the Battery Business & Development Forum 2026 turns to how financing models are rapidly shifting. Bankers, developers and stakeholders shared key pain points with the audience, as well as practical advice.

Swiss analytics firm Pexapark says the latest developments in the Middle East are having a visible effect on long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) valuation in Europe, as the market begins to reprice the coming years.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev has inaugurated a major battery energy storage system (BESS) project as part of a 500 MWh rollout to strengthen grid stability and support renewable energy integration.

Investors at the Battery Business & Development Forum (BBDF) 2026 signaled continued confidence in the energy storage market, while warning that regulatory uncertainty, particularly around grid fees in Germany, could affect project economics and investment decisions.