pv magazine

As part of The smarter E Europe show, Intersolar Europe 2022 will open its doors to the solar industry between May 11 and 13, in Munich, Germany. Once again, the pv magazine team will be on hand to report on the latest solar PV and energy storage product developments, technological trends, and insider gossip via our live blog. Stay tuned for our updates over the next three days!

Dear readers, It is with great sadness that we have learned of the sudden death of our colleague Joël Spaes, on Sunday. An accomplished professional in the energy industry, he joined pv magazine France in 2019 to report on news and other developments in the solar photovoltaic sector. His kindness, his great intelligence, his keen […]

Corporate renewable energy purchases are at an all time high. In Europe alone, a record-breaking 4 GW of corporate power purchase agreements were signed in 2020, bringing the overall total to 15 GW. Globally, this figure is even higher. As part of the UP Initiative’s quarterly theme on ‘Sustainable electricity and corporates’ critical solar role’, pv magazine spoke to Hannah Hunt, Impact Director at RE-Source, a European alliance of stakeholders representing clean energy buyers and suppliers, about how the business model landscape for such purchases is evolving, and the challenges the sector faces, including shortages in renewable energy supply across Europe.

pv magazine’s updated market overview now lists details for 54 suppliers offering 198 systems, components, or services in the field of large-scale and commercial power storage. Many of the market players highlighted a range of particularly sought-after business models in the information they provided. The most frequently cited in the survey was a business model that increases the share of self-consumption in combination with solar PV plants and peak-load capping.

Ankit Kapasi and Kishore Ganesan from SOFIES India are working on the Solar Waste Action Plan (SWAP) project in India, which is looking to investigate both the technical and economic feasibility of a PV module recycling system in the country. The pilot has been funded by Signify Foundation and Doen Foundation. The team at Sofies is working closely with technology partner Poseidon Solar and established the first PV recycling pilot plant in September 2020. The duo spoke to pv magazine India about their plant’s techno-commercial feasibility and the Indian eco-system’s readiness for PV module recycling.

Eric Wesoff becomes Emeritus Editor and David Wagman joins as Senior Editor U.S.

The new-look discussions dived into all things shaping the solar industry and renewable energy as a whole in 2020, including the global pandemic, extreme weather and natural disasters, the election and more, all presented in the light of rapidly-changing technologies and materials.

Lumos Global has received US$35 million to fund its off-grid solar home systems installation project in Nigeria.

pv magazine’s Quality Roundtable this year brought together experts from a broad range of applications relevant in the solar industry. The overarching theme this year was quality concerns with new technologies. Experts from companies and research institutes held that the failures that the industry has observed with technologies such as 2P single-axis trackers are not inherent in the technology but can be addressed.

The South African project is reportedly experiencing serious problems due to premature module degradation. Claims of extensive backsheet failure have emerged and it is said widespread module replacement will be required. The modules used in the project were supplied by Chinese manufacturer BYD and South African producer Artsolar.