World

Almost half of the workers were employed in China, around 280,000 in North America, over 260,000 in Europe, and some 50,000 in Africa, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). The vast majority of workers were employed in manufacturing and installation of new capacity, with solar jobs paying lower wage premiums than the nuclear, oil, and gas industries.

As the pace of solar installations quickens, developers are racing to find the best remaining sites and optimize their position in interconnection queues. But what if the best investment opportunity is hidden in a site built a decade or more ago? Time gets the better of us all, and many early solar sites no longer perform as expected. Yet those sites generally sell power at prices today’s developers can only dream of. Chris Chappell and Stephen Shirey of Clean Energy Associates examine what can be done to unlock the value in these legacy sites.

Researchers at the University of Leicester have developed a new method of extracting silver and aluminum from end-of-life PV cells using iron chloride and aluminum chloride dissolved in brines. According to them, the cheap solvents retrieve up to 95% of the metals within 10 minutes, achieving a 98% purity of silver chloride.

Shell has revealed it will use Driivz’s EV charging platform in Europe, and Nissan said it will offer bidirectional charging in the US market. Schneider Electric, meanwhile, has unveiled a new EV charger.

Swedish researchers have developed a model to analyze the microclimate parameters of a vertically mounted agrivoltaic system. They validated their model by comparing its estimations with measurements of solar irradiance, PV module temperature, and ground temperature.

HydrogenPro is set to install the world’s largest electrolyzer in Norway, while Siemens is preparing to commission Germany’s second biggest electrolyzer.

DNV recently evaluated 19 battery cells through its testing program and found that lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cells from Chinese battery makers CATL and Narada offer the best performance in stationary energy storage applications.

There are three main drivers behind the continuing growth of solar today: the economics of energy, the energy crisis driven by the war in Ukraine, and a growing global focus on green and net zero initiatives. What matters is that these three drivers change the dynamics of investment – there is a growing body of capital looking to align with low-carbon, net-zero initiatives. Yet as the debate rages about operational versus overall sustainability, what is the future of solar for ESG finance?

SunHydrogen has provided a first look at the prototype design for its forthcoming nanoparticle-based green hydrogen technology, and Plug Power has secured a 5 MW electrolyzer order from Lhyfe. A Chinese-US research group, meanwhile, claims to have achieved a highly stable saline water electrolysis using Rhodium nanocrystals.

Scientists in China have studied the formation of contacts in tunnel-oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) solar cells, and the role of high-temperature annealing processes on the quality and performance of cells. Their findings could open up pathways for scientists looking to squeeze even more efficiency out this rapidly growing cell technology.