Japan

Developed by Japanese PV equipment provider NPC Incorporated, the solar module disassembly line is claimed to enable the reuse of frames, junction boxes, intact broken glass, solar cells and EVA sheets.

Thousands of Lawson shops will be powered by solar farms developed by West Holdings Corp with Mitsubishi stating the clean power will start flowing in April.

The Japanese authorities have released new guidelines for the development of agrivoltaics projects and have excluded installations that do not host crops or livestock in the planning phase. Analyst Takeshi Magami says that agrivoltaics can be developed under the feed-in tariff scheme, in the free market via PPAs, or through a rebate scheme covering 50% of initial investments.

The Paris-based body expects the world will have installed almost 160 GW of solar this year, a record number, but still not enough to keep the prospect of a net zero global economy by mid century in sight.

Proton Motor Fuel Cell and xelectrix Power have also developed a complete system that combines fuel cell and battery storage technologies and U.S.-based Plug Power is building a 100 MW electrolyzer in Egypt. Furthermore, Germany said it wants to deploy 10 GW of hydrogen capacity by 2030 and South Korea unveiled its hydrogen strategy.

Panasonic said the system is available in the U.S. with storage capacities of 17.1 kWh and 25.65 kWh. The product comes with a floor-standing battery cabinet and a hybrid smart inverter with 4 MPPTs.

Japanese energy company Sinanen offers a scalable solar carport that can host a minimum of four vehicles and can be deployed in the parking areas of factories and commercial buildings. The basic system is offered with a minimum capacity of 10.80 kW.

Scientists in Japan and Europe investigated the long-term stability of perovskite solar cells utilizing layers of mesoporous carbon, building on previous work demonstrating the strong potential of this approach. This latest work demonstrates a light-soaking effect, which allowed them to fabricate cells that retained 92% of their initial performance after 3,000 hours in damp heat conditions – which the researchers say is equivalent to 20 years in the field.

The app is currently available only in Japan and its developer – Change The World – is now planning to bring it to the U.S. market. The app is purportedly enabling annual investment return of around 7% for projects under Japan’s feed-in tariff scheme.

A 37 MW solar plant was built in Japan’s mountainous eastern Nagano prefecture. The project was developed by Singapore-based Vena Energy and constructed by Japanese contractor Airu.