Rooftop PV

With hailstorms in Australia and the United States severely damaging solar arrays – including “golf-ball sized” hail at the 350 MW Fighting Jays project in Texas in March 2024 – insurers are raising premiums and reducing or canceling hail coverage. Everoze Partner Simon Mason discusses the challenges the industry faces in minimising its hail risk exposure.

Each expansion unit adds another 13.5 kWh of storage capacity to the original installation with a maximum of three such units connected to a single Powerwall. Now available in the US, the new product comes at a lower cost and slashes installation time by roughly half to 22 minutes.

Researchers have analyzed how wind speed and direction affect the cooling of a rooftop PV plant with 10,806 panels. They say that winds from behind were less effective due to the roof slope and the minimal gap between the panels and the roof, but wind from other directions could contribute to a cooling effect of up to 7 C.

Researchers in India have proposed a new set of techniques to mitigate total harmonic distortions during islanding events, which occur in distributed generation systems when there are disruptions in the power grid. Compared to conventional approaches, it reportedly achieves faster detection times by leveraging real-time data analytics and dynamically adjusting to changing grid conditions.

Solinteg has developed the IntegOne HSH, a residential solar storage system that combines a single-phase hybrid inverter with one or two batteries. Up to 10 systems can connect in parallel, offering a maximum efficiency of 97.6%.

US-based Bluetti has developed a new energy storage system (ESS) that offers up to 154.8 kWh of storage and 60 kW of output by connecting up to three systems in parallel. It includes an inverter and a voltage controller with up to seven batteries.

As part of its Sustainable Energy Homes Project initiative, the Ministry of Mines and Energy has announced plans to install PV systems next year in two neighborhoods in the city of Cali that will allow a reduction of up to 100% of electricity bills for local residents. The government is also implementing sustainable electric mobility solutions for five educational institutions in the city.

Buddhist temples, churches, mosques and Hindu temples across Sri Lanka are receiving 5 kW rooftop solar installations free of charge. The project, backed by a $17 million investment from the Indian government, is expected to add 25 MW of solar to the grid.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, forecasts drier and sunnier conditions in the forthcoming winter across key solar areas in the southern United States, Mexico and Brazil, driven by borderline La Niña conditions.

The comparison site Selfmade Energy shows, in addition to the falling prices, that customers are obtaining significantly more offers than they were one or two years ago. Managing director Tim Rosengart assumes that the price pressure on installers will continue in the coming months.