World

German police have detained an executive from a Chinese solar company, the day before the start of the Intersolar Europe trade show this week in Munich, according to Chinese media reports.

Scientists in China and Canada have developed an additive that forms covalent bonds with the organic materials in a perovskite solar cell, leading to fewer defects and greatly reduced degradation. Cells treated with the additive maintained 98.6% of their initial performance after 1,000 hours in testing. Xlynx Materials, a company spun out of the University of Victoria in Canada, is making the material available for further commercial trials.

Japan’s Panasonic has developed an air-source heat pump that uses propane (R290) as the refrigerant. It can produce between 5 kW and 9 kW of heat, as well as domestic hot water up to a temperature of 75 C. It says the heat pump can be paired with rooftop solar to maximize self-consumption. The new Aquarea series also includes a heat pump with R32 as the refrigerant.

The world installed 239 GW of new solar capacity in 2022, according to SolarPower Europe. The rooftop PV segment accounted for 49.5% of additions – the highest share in the past three years. The rooftop sectors in Brazil, Italy, and Spain grew by 193%, 127%, and 105%, respectively.

Atalaya Mining and Enel X Global Retail will work together to build a 50 MW capacity solar power plant at the Riotinto Mine. The plant will cover 234,000 square meters and include more than 75,000 photovoltaic panels.

SolarEdge has released new optimizers for residential PV applications with a DC power rating of 500 W, a maximum efficiency of 99.5%, and a weighted efficiency of 98.6%. The optimizer for commercial and industrial applications offers 1.4 kW of rated DC power.

The extent to which PV-powered vehicles contribute to a reduction of CO2 emissions depends on variables such as the carbon intensity of the local grid, driving patterns, and solar irradiation. The market introduction requires technical optimization of the PV, but also of the vehicles.

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.

PV manufacturing capacity is projected to more than double by 2024, led by China, but oversupply is also anticipated, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

In March 2023, France passed a law to accelerate the production of renewable energy. In this interview, Bertrand Drouot L’Hermine, Deputy General Manager Business Development with TSE, discusses the important role agrivoltaics will play not only in weaning the country off fossil fuels, but also in providing benefits to France’s farmers.