Canada

Researchers at MIT say the immense hydropower resources of the Canadian province could be used as storage to even out the supply of intermittent renewables generation in New England and New York state.

The Chinese-Canadian module manufacturer will supply panels to the U.K.-based developer over several years. The modules are destined for projects in the United States and Australia.

The luxury car maker is betting on the timely development of market-ready solid-state batteries. Mercedes will work with the Canadian research institute to quickly integrate new technology into field applications to cut development cycle times.

The project will operate at a profit in part thanks to an emissions scheme introduced by the province of Alberta on January 1. The plant will be able to sell its carbon certificates.

The ‘deep photovoltaic nowcasting’ project developed by Chile’s Institute of Engineering Sciences of the University of O’Higgins, Canada’s Laval University and Japan’s Kyoto University, seeks to make short-term, high-resolution projections of solar energy generation.

A list compiled by a British price comparison website draws upon data from German company Statista which shows clean energy – including hydro – made up 12.74% of the nation’s power mix at the end of September.

Intersolar Europe is always a key date in the solar calendar but this year’s show had it all, including three panel-smuggling arrests. Elsewhere, wafers were getting bigger, efficiency records were tumbling and new technologies were emerging. There was also more news on the solar car ports fad and Hanwha’s ongoing legal tussle.

The province’s Alternative Energy Resource Authority is seeking proposals for three utility scale PV projects ranging in generation capacity from 800 kW to 4 MW. Two of them should be coupled with large scale batteries with a total storage capacity of up to 2.4 MWh.

GCL and Canadian Solar provide further proof of the solar boom that is gathering pace around the world even as attention focuses on the Chinese market.

The Chinese-Canadian manufacturer reported a 1% decrease in sales in the third quarter, with net profit falling 19%, to US$55.2 million. Quarterly shipments were up significantly year on year, from 1.59 GW in July-to-September last year to 2,387 MW this time around. The company expects to ship up to 8.5 GW of panels and achieve turnover of up to US$3.16 billion this year.