residential PV

The German energy company has acquired a 49% stake in U.K. installer Eco2solar. The British company offers solutions for commercial and residential projects.

Simarpreet Singh, director at EPC firm Hartek Group, speaks to pv magazine about the impact of the Covid pandemic on India’s rooftop solar sector, technology trends shaping the market, and the outlook for 2021.

The so-called “super bonus” for building renovation projects has been extended until the end of 2022. The Italian government has established a maximum price of €2,400 per kilowatt installed for PV systems and €1,000/kWh for storage systems.

Sweden was set to replace its rebate scheme with unspecified tax breaks by the end of this year, but the government has instead decided to allocate another $31.5 million for 2021 – for enterprises and municipalities only.

Researchers in Finland have demonstrated the technical feasibility of an off-grid residential PV system combined with short-term battery storage and seasonal hydrogen storage. The proposed model is applicable only to northern climates, as higher levels of solar radiation in southern locations would mean a reduced need for seasonal storage. It was tested in an existing single-family house in Finland with a 21 kW rooftop array and a ground source 6 kW heat pump.

Launched in November, the “saving-autonomous” program is currently seeing strong interest from homeowners. The program has an €850 million budget and is intended at enabling around 600,000 homeowners to make their houses more energy-efficient by 2030. It includes the installation of a rooftop PV system in the frame of a renovation project.

Authorized Sunpower distributors and installers in Germany, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, and the Netherlands are now offering the Maxeon 5 AC module for rooftop projects. An Enphase microinverter is already integrated into the product.

Taiwan-based Heliartec has deployed a solar facade on a 3D-printed concrete house in Belgium. It said it installed the solar facade with the “circular construction” philosophy in mind.

LG Chem is spinning off its battery business into a new subsidiary, LG Energy Solution. It also launched two new battery series, Resu Prime and Resu Flex. These devices rely on new battery cells with a higher power density and with up to 16 kWh, they have a higher capacity than previous models. The first products are expected to be shipped from February or March 2021.

The former company has laid off its remaining employees and locked up its offices, leaving dozens of customers and sub-contractors asking what comes next.