renewable energies

NTPC has switched on 22MW of floating PV capacity as part of its 92MW floating solar project at Rajiv Gandhi Gas based Power Station in Kayamkulam, in the Indian state of Kerala.

This week saw more than 300 scientists and PV experts converge in Konstanz, Germany for discussion of the latest development in PV cell technology, and for many the first chance for a face-to-face meeting in quite some time. pv magazine reports from the SiliconPV conference, where the PV research community revealed a strong focus on eliminating or optimizing the use of critical materials like silver and indium from cell production, alongside a wealth of improvements in efficiency and longevity that is still possible for silicon PV technology.

Commissioned by the Ministry for Ecological Transition, the “Etude friches” study lists the industrial and urban wastelands that could accommodate solar parks.

Researchers in Spain have developed a way to integrate tree-based agriculture with solar power plants based on north-south-oriented, single-axis trackers. They have identified an ideal geometric space between the module rows for crops to avoid affecting irradiance capture or the trackers.

Sweden’s cumulative installed PV capacity hit 1.59 GW at the end of December.

The Romanian authorities have allocated a budget of €457.7 million ($506 million) for a new renewables procurement exercise. Selected wind and solar projects will be granted rebates ranging from €425,000 to €1.3 million per megawatt installed.

Sterling and Wilson Solar has warned that Australia’s large-scale solar PV industry faces a significant workforce shortage as the nation shifts away from fossil fuels toward renewable power.

The result was confirmed by the National Institute of Metrology of China. It was achieved with a cell size of 210x210mm.

Indra Overland, the head of the Center for Energy Research at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs, tells pv magazine how the Ukraine war is irreversibly changing the global energy landscape, making massive renewables deployment a certainty. But labor issues, equipment shortages, and reliance on Chinese manufacturing remain obstacles.

The Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue 2022 event has shown the centrality of renewables and green hydrogen in the world’s future energy landscape. pv magazine spoke with the General Director of the International Renewable Energy Agency, Francesco La Camera, about the difficulties of creating a hydrogen economy in the absence of demand. According to him, public support and policies will be crucial to overcoming this challenge.