United States

Through the deal SunPower gets $25 million and stock; however the bigger deal may be Enphase’s right to be the company’s exclusive residential inverter supplier.

Thanks in no small part to modules stockpiled before the Section 201 tariffs hit, both the utility-scale and “non-residential” market segments grew year-over-year in Q1. And while the duties are expected to play a greater role in 2019, there are other factors supporting ongoing market growth.

A new study from University of California, Riverside, uses electric dipoles to accelerate electron in one direction, whilst completely stopping it in the other. The discovery, according to researchers, could lead to improvements in solar cell and other energy conversion technologies.

The plant is the second-largest planned in the Western Hemisphere, and will triple the thin film module maker’s manufacturing capacity in the United States.

Arizona’s largest power user has approved a 20-year power contract with a 30 MW solar project at 2.49¢/kWh, the lowest price for a public solar power contract to date. The deal also involves shutting down a coal plant.

A team from Rice University and Los Alamos National Laboratory has been able to observe electronic properties of perovskites at the quantum scale, and made discoveries likely to impact the development of perovskite solar cells.

Xcel Energy’s 120-day report to Colorado regulators includes an additional 1.1 GW of wind at 1.1-1.8¢/kWh. Solar power bids have come in at 2.2-2.7¢/kWh, and solar+storage at 3.0-3.2¢/kWh.

Despite recent developments in China, the European solar association believes global newly installed PV capacity this year will reach 102 GW, only 5 GW lower than its previous guidance.

Physicists at MIT and in Haifa have come up with a theory for slowing down light that could dramatically improve solar PV cell efficiency – the question now is whether it will work in practice, and on silicon.

Researchers were able to effect electronic transitions at different frequencies, and through a different physical process, by altering the angle at which nanolayers of gold were positioned. Being able to predict and fine-tune the nature of such transitions could have a fundamental affect on solar PV cell efficiency.