rooftop solar

New statistics from Australia’s Clean Energy Regulator show that 2023 could be another record year for distributed solar.

Germany’s new solar installations surged to 1.05 GW in August, contributing to 8.99 GW of newly installed PV capacity for the first eight months of this year. This marks significant growth from the 4.8 GW installed during the same period in 2022.

Sunmaxx PVT, a photovoltaic-thermal solar module specialist, has started building an automated 50 MW module factory near Dresden, Germany.

Panasonic unveiled its new residential solar modules – including half-cut heterojunction (HJT) models, along with a home battery system and energy management device – at the recent RE+ trade show in Las Vegas.

The new heat pump can purportedly provide hot water at a temperature of up to 70 C. It is specifically designed for climatic conditions with temperatures ranging from -10 C to 42 C, as well as coastal locations.

Riello Solartech has developed new hybrid inverters for rooftop PV, designed for commercial and industrial applications The Italian manufacturer says they have a European efficiency rating of roughly 98%.

The Canadian Climate Institute has released a report that explains how to unlock lower-cost heating and cooling in Canada. It outlines barriers to adoption and makes recommendations to streamline the loan and grant application process.

Recent data published by Great Britain’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) show the country’s solar PV cumulative capacity was 15,292.8 MW at the end of July, with newly installed capacity for the first seven months of this year reaching 643 MW. Although Gareth Simkins of Solar Energy UK said these figures were ‘relatively low’, he explained that several utility scale PV plants may have not been included in the statistics so far and there was cause for optimism.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, Solcast, a DNV company, explains that the climatology of Africa leads to very different seasonal generation patterns from what European solar producers experience. Data analysed by Solcast, via the Solcast API, shows this seasonal variance from summer to winter in 2023.

The battery packages include a battery, an inverter and a control system. The US manufacturer claims its storage systems have a lifespan of over 10,000 cycles and a depth of discharge of 80%.