World

The International Renewable Energy Agency’s annual review into employment finds solar held over 43% of global jobs in the renewable energy sector in 2024. 

A first-of-its-kind agrivoltaic pilot in Fujairah, developed as part of a joint research project between the Fujairah Research Center and AE Solar, shows how solar panels above native plants can improve soil health, boost crop resilience, and optimize land use – demonstrating a scalable approach to tackling a desert region’s energy, food, and water challenges.

Solar manufacturers are facing rising cost pressure as silver paste now accounts for up to 30% of total cell production costs. OPIS analyst Hanwei Wu tells pv magazine that module producers currently have limited ability to raise panel final prices, which is accelerating efforts to reduce silver use across all mainstream cell technologies.

A new Perspectives research study on the future of the global PV supply chain outlines how module prices, performance, and lifetimes could evolve over the next 25 years. The work reflects a collaboration among leading solar research institutions worldwide. One of the study’s authors, the director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE), told pv magazine that solar module and cell efficiencies could exceed 35% by 2050, with panel prices expected to drop by a factor of two.

RWE has started commissioning a 100 MW electrolyzer in Germany to supply renewable hydrogen under long-term contracts, while Hydrogen Utopia International and Hydrogen Systems are advancing plans to build waste-to-hydrogen plants in Saudi Arabia.

Wood Mackenzie’s 2026 market outlook for hydrogen expects non-biological origin hydrogen to gain momentum and ammonia crackers to reach commercial scale but predicts the Middle Eastern market to retreat and the EU to abandon its industrial hydrogen mandates.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.

With a 2 MWp floating solar PV plant and a 3 MWh battery storage system, the Soneva Secret resort project will result in 900,000 to 1,000,000 liters of diesel savings per year, leading to 2,000 plus tons of CO2 emissions reduction.

Wood Mackenzie’s first-half 2025 solar inverter ranking finds the top 10 leading inverter manufacturers have a 71% global market share.

Wood Mackenzie’s first-half 2025 solar module ranking places JA Solar and Trina Solar jointly at No. 1 and introduces a new “Grade A” benchmark aimed at procurement and project finance decisions.