Cooling PV modules with plants, coir pith
An Indian-Malaysian research group has investigated the effectiveness of several passive cooling techniques for solar panels, including the placement of plants around the modules or coir pith underneath them, both of which, surprisingly, offered good performance in terms of temperature reduction and power yield.
Bidders plan to use ‘brown power’ to balance intermittency of solar in Singapore’s clean power tender
Solar developer NEFIN and electric company Tuas Power have tabled a joint bid to secure the rights to supply 100 MWh of ‘zero-carbon electricity’ from Malaysia to Singapore and said they initially intend to use “brown power” to secure supply during non-solar-generation hours.
Nanocomposite films for 13.57%-efficient organic solar cell
Scientists in Malaysia have used, for the first time, nanocomposite films based on zinc oxide and polyvinyl alcohol in organic solar cells. These films were able to improve the efficiencies of the PV devices by up to 3.5%.
Malaysia’s commercial and industrial PV segment is thriving
The Malaysian Photovoltaic Industry Association (MPIA) has urged the country’s government to allocate more capacity under the metering scheme, as all installed power for commercial and industrial PV was already assigned a few months after the scheme’s launch.
New renewables cheaper than legacy coal or gas for almost half the world’s population
Electricity bill payers in nations as diverse as Germany, Greece, India and China should be aware new solar projects can now generate electricity cheaper for them than legacy coal and gas-fired plants.
Risen Energy plans 3 GW cell, module factory in Malaysia
China-based Risen Energy is expanding its global footprint with plans to construct a $10 billion production facility in Malaysia.
India’s solar imports dipped 75% in ten months
Covid-19 disruption has been cited as the chief culprit as imports from China, Thailand and Vietnam slumped from April to January, but safeguarding duty also appears to have had an impact, with unaffected imports from nations such as Myanmar, Chad and Russia on the rise and Malaysian trade keeping steady.
OCI increases production capacity at Malaysian polysilicon factory
OCI has revealed plans to invest $55 million to expand production at its Malaysian manufacturing facility from 30,000 to 35,000 metric tons.
Malaysia’s 1 GW PV tender attracts lowest bid of $0.0429/kWh
Through the fourth tender of the LSS program for large scale PV, the Malaysian authorities have pre-selected 30 solar projects with a combined capacity of 823 MW. The lowest bid came in at MYR0.1768/kWh ($0.0429) and the highest at MYR0.2481/kWh.
Korean poly maker’s figures dragged down by idled production lines
The Covid-19 pandemic helped ensure chemicals business OCI could not put its idled polysilicon lines in Gunsan back into use last year, as had been hoped, prompting another hefty assets impairment which weighed on the group even as it expects supply of the raw material to be kept tight by rising demand.
