Solar, battery-equipped home destroyed by explosion in Germany
In the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, an explosion tore away the outer wall of a show home equipped with solar panels and a residential battery. The badly-damaged building, which was vacant at the time of the incident, will likely be demolished.
Fraunhofer institutes developing electrocaloric solid-state heat pump without compressors
Six Fraunhofer institutes are developing new electrocaloric heat pumps that use elastocaloric heat pipes instead of compressors to extract heat from the sources. The first pilot systems developed by the research team achieved an electrical efficiency of 99.74%.
GAF Energy releases nailable 57 W rooftop solar shingle
The updated solar roof product from GAF Energy has purportedly 23% more power than previous units and has a depth of less than 0.6 cm.
Yotta Energy replaces ballast blocks with battery storage
The energy storage startup’s new plug-and-play modules will provide a kilowatt of storage in a small package.
Italy installed 6.8 GW of solar in 2024
The country’s cumulative installed PV capacity reached 37.08 GW at the end of December.
Daytime charging of electric vehicles further expands adoption of photovoltaics
Photovoltaics continues adding capacity at a rapid pace, and 2024 was another record year for solar PV deployment. In the meantime, despite recent hurdles to widespread adoption in some countries, electric vehicle uptake grew 25% last year. Assuming a 10 kWh/day energy requirement for every new EV, the 17 million new EVs sold in 2024 would have added another 50-70 GW of new PV generation worldwide.
GivEnergy launches Gen 3 hybrid inverters for pairing with stackable storage
The new single phase hybrid range includes 8 kW and 10 kW models.
Water-based recycling of perovskite solar cells
An international team has developed a new technique to recycle perovskite solar cells (PSC) made on glass substrates using a water-based solution. Tests showed that the recycled cells were as efficient and stable as the original devices.
US-based company introduces new solar carports
Brooklyn Solar Company announced a new post-truss, cantilever and wood-post solar carports.
Germany hits 100 GW milestone
The country installed around 1.12 GW of new PV capacity in January, thus raising its cumulative installed solar power over the 100 GW threshold.
