Western Europe

The evaluation confirmed the outstanding system efficiency of European inverter manufacturers, in particular. It also found large differences in efficiency of certain hybrid inverters from the maximum efficiency specifications provided by the manufacturers on the data sheets.

Swedish manufacturer Aira launched its heat pump in Europe in 2024. The company told pv magazine it is now developing a full home energy management system proposition to integrate heating, solar, battery energy storage and electric vehicle charging.

A team of German researchers has developed a miniaturized solar cell experiment for nanosatellites. It was used to test samples of new mutlijunction solar cells developed by Azur Space, including novel triple-junction metal wrap through solar cells.

A German research team has investigated the feasibility of a large-scale PV-powered seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant in Jordan and has found that keeping the concentrate flow constant is the most appropriate desalination operating mode.

The University of Konstanz and Chinese panel maker Longi have assessed the impact of gettering on LeTID in industrial Czochralski grown gallium-doped p-type silicon ingots and have found that defect density depends on impurity concentrations in the melt, which are observed in the case of interstitial iron concentrations.

IEA-PVPS has conceived a new test method and analysis of the impact of curvature in vehicle-integrated photovoltaics (VIPV) surfaces. Over the course of an 8-day summertime trial in south-eastern France, the researchers found that the curvature triggered irradiance and temperature non-uniformity of up to 261W/m² and 13 C, respectively.

Cheap, safe, widely available sodium could be used for battery energy storage alongside photovoltaics. The Sodium-Ion-Battery Germany (SIB:DE) Research project is investigating whether sodium-ion technology can be affordably integrated into lithium-ion battery production facilities.

Landus and TalusAg have launched commercial green ammonia production in Iowa, backed by US federal clean hydrogen tax credits, while Iberdrola España and BP have started building Spain’s largest green hydrogen project, with 25 MW of capacity.

N-ink, a spinoff of the Linköping University, has developed conductive inks that can be used in the charge extracting layer of organic solar cells and in transport layers of perovskite solar cells.

France’s 2025 Budget Law exempts energy communities with projects up to 1 MW from excise duty on electricity consumption. The measure applies retroactively from Jan. 1, 2025, and remains in effect until Jan. 1, 2027.