China

DMEGC has revealed plans to build a 20 GW solar cell factory in Sichuan province, while Daqo said it has secured long-term polysilicon supply agreements with Longi and another undisclosed Chinese company.

Th International Energy Agency (IEA) says unsubsidized heat pumps are already competitive with gas boilers in mature markets like the United States, Canada, Japan, Italy, and China. It says global sales will soar to record levels by 2030.

Chinese scientists assessed water evaporation on plots of land covered by two different kinds of agrivoltaic arrays and managed to significantly reduce evaporation in both cases. They looked at the relationship between cumulative surface evaporation and evaporation time.

Following a disappointing COP27 climate change summit in November, solar industry veteran Philip Wolfe reviews the contribution utility-scale PV is starting to make to emissions reduction.

China’s Bslbatt said its new product has a storage capacity of 5 kWh and a nominal voltage of 51.2 V. It measures 670 mm x 540 mm x 88 mm and is 90 mm thick.

IEA-PVPS says that China added around 58 GW of new PV capacity in the first 10 months of the year, bringing cumulative installations to 364.44 GW. It says up to 100 GW of new capacity could be deployed by the end of this year.

South Korean scientists have developed a highly selective palladium composite membrane on porous metal supports to cut the ammonia content of the permeated hydrogen stream. Dutch researchers, meanwhile, have presented two alternatives to this strategy – increasing the thickness of the membrane selective layer, or using a purification unit in the permeate of the membranes.

TCL Zhonghuan has announced wafer price cuts, Shenzhen Energy unveiled a plan to build a 2 GW solar-storage project, and the Chinese authorities have announced measures to expedite grid connections for new solar and wind plants.

Longi has lowered the prices of all wafers, and JA Solar has unveiled plans to build a new 10 GW factory. PV InfoLink, meanwhile, says polysilicon prices are clearly starting to fall.

Chinese researchers have modeled the impacts of clouds and aerosols on PV potential in southern China and northern India, which are similar in terms of latitude and elevation. They found that China offers lower PV potential due to a higher cloud effect.