Israel

Huawei and SolarEdge have settled all of their pending lawsuits in Germany and China through a global patent license agreement.

The solar cleaning system moves horizontally and cleans the panels vertically, while a patented auto-switch allows the robot to clean from either side of the module row, which the manufacturer said minimizes cleaning time. The device weighs up to 50 kg and has a cleaning speed of 22 m per minute.

SolarEdge has reported record revenue in its latest three-month update and expects to have even more business in the second quarter, even if gross margin and profit has declined.

Electricity generation in the Middle East and Africa could soon support the development of an interconnection between Greece, Cyprus, Israel and Egypt. Ilias Tsagas examines the landscape for this infrastructure mega-project, and the possible benefits for solar.

Researchers from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology have presented the results of a low-cost method of generating carbon-free hydrogen. In other news, Norwegian fuel cell producer Nel ASA said it was ready to increase its electrolyzer production capacity to meet the European Union’s raised ambitions for renewable hydrogen, while oil giant Petronas Eneos announced plans to set up a hydrogen production plant in Indonesia.

Conflicts are arising within the Israeli government on how much land should be further allocated for ground mounted PV installations. According to the local renewable energy sector, more land is needed, inevitably, if the country’s renewable energy targets must be met.

Developed for applications in BIPV, vehicle-integrated solar and smart glasses, the solar cell was built with an ultra-thin, semi-transparent, triple-cation perovskite film and gold nanorods (Au NRs). The device achieved an open-circuit voltage of 1097.1mV, a short-circuit current of 17.11mA/cm² and a fill factor of 73.12%.

With comparisons with a Covid-hit 2020 inevitably offering a string of positive numbers, there was also little to concern the board of the inverter and battery manufacturer from the returns generated in the last quarter.

The project is the fourth floating solar array that Belectric develops and builds in Israel.

Selected projects will be awarded a fixed tariff of ILS 0.2091 ($0.06.708)/kWh over a 23-year period.