Residential Solar

The European solar landscape changed forever in 2022 and managing the supply chain, grid, and permitting constraints will be key to a solar-dominated energy future for the continent.

At this year’s Intersolar event, Mango Power is opening to wholesale orders from European customers for some of its most innovative product solutions, including its newly-launched hybrid battery inverter. The manufacturer is also presenting its commercial and industrial solutions for the first time in Europe.

Netherlands-based BirdBlocker has developed a plastic strip that can be placed under solar panels installed on pitched rooftops. The long needles prevent birds from nesting under the modules. The structure is attached to the frame of the modules with stainless steel clips.

In 2020, 3.7% of US homes generated electricity from small-scale solar arrays, reports the US Energy Information Administration.

Poland was the EU’s biggest solar jobs market last year, thanks to a national rooftop incentive program, but Germany’s push to repatriate solar manufacturing will help the bloc’s PV powerhouse back to the number one slot in three years’ time, according to SolarPower Europe.

Data company IHS Markit expects almost nine out of ten big solar projects in the Americas over the next three years to be tracker mounted. More than a terrawatt of new solar will be added from this year to the end of 2025, the analyst predicted.

Industry association SolarPower Europe expects little change in the line-up of Europe’s biggest residential battery markets in four years’ time, with a rush of retrofits as turn-of-the-century solar feed-in tariffs begin to expire, set to keep Germany way ahead of the pack.

A quarterly update top-loaded with promising business growth in the company’s residential segment revealed commercial and industrial operations supplied an $8 million loss to the three-month figures, with supply chain issues and project timetables blamed.

A rapid ramping up of deployment would have little impact on the electricity price during summer, when air conditioning drives demand to its annual peak in the Canadian province, but it would bring hefty savings on the annual gas generation bill, even before carbon levies are factored in.

If the three record-busting low solar price tariffs recorded in the Middle East in the past 18 months are to be believed, renewables-powered hydrogen in prime sites in the region could already compete with gas-plus-CCS production, according to IRENA. Has the Gulf discovered the new petrol?