World

The ten largest solar tracker companies accounted for 88% of the market last year, according to analyst WoodMackenzie, with the market growing 20% from 2018.

Solar project owners responded to an appeal to donate a portion of their solar incentive payments to the public health authorities as another multinational body emphasized the importance of coronavirus fiscal stimulus packages having environmentally-friendly conditions attached.

pv magazine rounds up the latest Covid-19-related stories likely to affect the world of solar and energy storage.

Amid the current disruption impacting renewable energy markets worldwide, solar power is proving to be a robust energy source. In China earlier this year, solar was the only form of energy generation that saw an increase in production from the previous year – rising by 12%. In this context, it’s becoming more important now than ever before for solar asset owners to recognize and take advantage of specialized solar software which can help mitigate business disruption in unexpected events and optimize long-term returns.

The losers in a world which no longer runs on fossil fuels are obvious but the dividend from shrugging off hydrocarbon dependency will be spread around most of the world so it is the nations which are winning the cleantech manufacturing and intellectual property race which appear best positioned for the future.

The PV industry’s rapid factory expansions and quick product rollouts lead to a constant balancing act between the streamlining of production and the introduction of new features to push the boundaries of power generation and achieve lower LCOE. Given these competing factors, CEA has brought together its data based on experience in providing third-party quality assurance oversight to produce its Supplier Benchmarking Program. Joseph Johnson, CEA’s lead analyst for solar and storage, digs into the data.

The nation’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has reiterated that clean energy projects have not been affected by falling electricity demand as a billion citizens have been ordered to stay at home.

Coal has underpinned power generation for more than a century as a cheap, reliable and well understood technology, writes IHS Markit analyst George Hilton. Decommissioning of coal generation, in light of global efforts to reduce carbon emissions, will radically change the energy landscape and potentially leave a substantial gap to be filled by energy storage technologies.

“Unprecedented” appears to be a frequently used term to describe the Covid-19 crisis that the global economy, our societies and healthcare systems are now facing. And while outbreaks of severe and potentially life-threatening diseases have occurred at various stages in the modern age, our globally connected reality today means that the coronavirus could have impacts that are truly without precedent.

pv magazine rounds up the latest Covid-19-related stories likely to affect the world of solar and energy storage.