Germany

Ecoligo has launched another financing round for the installation of a rooftop solar PV system at a flower farm in Kenya. The system is set to reduce the farm’s grid electricity demand by 50%, and lower its OPEX.

The Chinese battery manufacturer has said it will establish a fab in Germany’s Thüringen with an annual capacity of 14 GWh. The battery cells will be primarily produced for the electric vehicle (EV) industry. Up to 600 jobs are expected to be created. In related news, BMW has entered a €4 billion long-term partnership with CATL.

The cell uses a novel approach that increases its conversion efficiency and longevity at the same time. Researchers claim it is a new world record for this type of application and highlight its importance in storing renewable energy in hydrogen to compensate for output and demand fluctuations.

The new shareholder obtained business operations, and shares in the German solar PV company. This transition finalizes Schletter’s financial recovery.

TS Group GmbH has taken over the entire business of the insolvent PV manufacturer. All of the German company’s 130 workers will continue to be employed. Production of cadmium telluride thin film PV modules at the Bitterfeld-Wolfen site, near Berlin, will continue.

The PV module manufacturer started negotiations with Jabil, after the U.S. introduced duties on solar imports. Recom plans to restart manufacturing activities with Jabil’s 700 MW production equipment in the first quarter of 2019. Where exactly this will take place, however, has not been disclosed yet.

A team of researchers from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany has published research into a physical-chemical process known as singlet fission, which it says could boost solar efficiency by as much as 50%.

In particular, the rooftop PV segment continues to drive the market in Germany. For ground-mounted systems, newly registered PV capacity for May was approximately 37.5 MW.

The German-based company delivered 26 battery inverters for lithium-ion storage with a capacity of over 50MWh. The facility is one of the largest of its kind and will provide reserve capacity to compensate for deviations in the power supply.

Both solar companies are closely linked with the Chinese state-owned company, CNBM and they now want to work together to develop the next generation of CIGS manufacturing facilities.