distributed generation

In terms of centralized generation, the country has more than 104.4 GW of awarded projects still under construction or in development, while in distributed generation, there was more than 30 GW as of February from projects with connection requests made by Jan. 1. In both segments, the availability of network connections remains a barrier in carrying out projects.

The search for ever higher conversion efficiency has driven solar researchers to focus on back-contact cell approaches, and efforts to devise more cost-effective manufacturing are bringing technologies such as interdigitated back contact (IBC) solar into the mainstream, as Mark Hutchins reports.

Russia is destroying Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, raising questions about how to ensure the safety and function of the country’s energy industry, particularly its nuclear power plants. What role can renewable energy play in such extreme circumstances?

Brazil’s newly elected government, under Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, will face energy-transition and decentralization issues during critically important years in the fight to curb climate change. Livia Neves reports from Rio de Janeiro.

The Romanian government has decided to make it easier to connect rooftop PV systems to the grid. The new rules, which will go into force soon, could spur the development of solar arrays under the country’s net metering regime.

As part of Aurora Solar’s Empower 2022 online solar summit, Bernadette Del Chiaro, from the California Solar & Storage Association, will moderate a talk about electric utilities and how they have abused their monopoly position to discriminate against solar in the US. Here, she gives pv magazine a taste of the presentation.

A new report form analysts at IHS Markit notes that the market for module-level power electronics (MLPE) grew by 33% between 2019 and 2021, with around one-third of new residential solar installations now taking advantage of MLPE’s promise of improved safety, energy yield and fault detection. And with smaller, distributed generation systems expected to represent 43% of global PV installations between now and 2025, the opportunity for MLPE will only get larger.

Tom Hunt, the CEO of Pivot Energy, says that renewable energy capacity at the distribution level can meet needs without the long lead times required for larger, utility-scale resources.

With polysilicon production capacity having been rapidly rolled out after last year’s shortages, China analyst Frank Haugwitz has suggested global manufacturing capability for the ethylene vinyl acetate used on PV panels could struggle to keep pace with what is expected to be another record year of demand for solar.

Xinyi Solar has proposed a dividend for the second year running as it announced shareholders would bank net profits of $630 million despite rising materials and shipping costs last year.