rooftop solar

José Donoso, the president of Spanish solar association UNEF, spoke with pv magazine at Intersolar 2023 about the future of solar manufacturing in Europe, incentives, and the need for Europe and Spain to master the entire PV industrial cycle.

Xavier Daval, the president of Syndicat des énergies renouvelables (SER), the French renewables association – spoke with pv magazine at Intersolar 2023 about solar and nuclear power in France, as well as the prospects for PV prices and installations. He touched on the market for power purchase agreements (PPA) and the outlook for solar manufacturing in France, where PV installations could hit 3 GW this year.

In May alone, the nation’s new PV additions hit 1,040 MW. Its cumulative PV capacity reached 72.5 GW.

Clean Energy Associates (CEA) has performed a safety audit on more than 600 rooftop PV systems and has found that 97% of installations have major safety concerns. It says that 49% of sites have grounding issues, 47% have damaged modules, and 41% have cross-mated connectors.

Solar’s levelized cost of electricity will reach $30/MWh in 2050, as global capacity surges, said DNV.

US-based Lunar Energy offers batteries, hybrid inverters, and shutdown devices.

In the second interview of a series held at Intersolar 2023, pv magazine spoke with Karen Tang, Director – Editorial Lead Europe at Singapore-based market research company OPIS, about current price trends in the industry. She said solar panels may soon be bought at an average of $0.185/W but she also revealed that offers under $0.15/W are now becoming more frequent. Furthermore, Tang said prices may continue to drop in the future, with the bottom line being difficult to determine. Much will depend on the actual manufacturing capacity we will see coming online, which may not match the huge number of recent announcements released by module producers.

K2, a mounting system supplier, showcased a range of new solutions at Intersolar Europe, including a new mounting structure for green rooftops. It allows for portrait and landscape module elevation at 10 degrees and 15 degrees, with maximum module sizes of 2,400 mm x 1,350 mm.

Key Energy has installed a three-phase flywheel energy storage system at a residence east of Perth, Western Australia. The 8 kW/32 kWh system was installed over two days in an above-ground enclosure, dramatically cutting the time needed to install the flywheel system.

A new report by HelioVolta shows that 62% of inspected PV projects have critical or major issues.