Asia

India added about 6.5 GW of new utility-scale solar capacity in 2023. Capacity additions from rooftop installations hit 3 GW, according to JMK Research.

Scientists have used remote sensing to analyze the effect solar farms have across 116 sites worldwide. They found that the cooling effect is higher during the daytime, with albedo decreasing by 0.016 for most facilities.

Researchers in China have developed an optimized version of the whale optimization algorithm that reportedly indentifies the optimal area ratio of rooftop PV systems and solar collectors used in combination with air source heat pumps. They demonstrated that the installation area of photovoltaic modules and collectors affects both the power side and the thermal side.

JSW Energy says it will expand its renewables footprint in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu with an investment of $1.44 billion, including 1 GW of pumped storage and 1 GW of wind power.

Chinese module maker DAS Solar says it aims to raise $351.7 million through an initial public offering (IPO). It will use the funds to expand its cell and module capacity.

Italian module manufacturer FuturaSun has big expansion plans in China, with the first phase of a 15 GW silicon cell fab due online in Huai’an in the first quarter of 2024, in addition to 1 GW of module production in Taizhou. Erik Eikelboom, technical adviser to FuturaSun, offers a closer look at the project.

Mitsubishi’s monobloc Hydrolution EZY can reportedly produce domestic hot water up to 60 C when outdoor temperatures reach -25 C. It is available in two versions, with outputs of 10 kW and 14 kW.

The Italy-based solar module manufacturer said it is progressing with its previously announced transition from module manufacturer to a vertically integrated manufacturer with 12 GW of cell capacity. It also said the project to build a module factory in Italy is going through a “complicated process.”

Researchers in China have assessed the impact of using up to 50% of the Sahara desert for the deployment of large scale solar power plants and have found these may impact the global cloud cover through disturbed atmospheric teleconnections. This, in turn, would impact solar power generation itself in North Africa, Southern Europe, the Southern Arabian Peninsula, India, North Asia, and even Eastern Australia.

Developed by scientists in Korea, the so-called ACIGS cell is intended for applications in perovskite-CIGS tandem PV devices. Their work demonstrates correlations between element diffusion behavior and notch-point formation in ACIGS films.