solar modules

A Spanish research team aims to bring concentrating photovoltaics closer to commercial viability by miniaturizing its components. The scientists claim that smaller CPV cells may reduce production costs and enable better CPV module assembly.

GCL Group has announced plans to build China’s first gigawatt-scale perovskite solar module factory in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. It said in November that its 1 m x 2 m perovskite single-junction modules had reached a power conversion efficiency of 18.04%.

As solar module prices continue to fall, pvXchange.com founder Martin Schachinger explains the difficulties of rebuilding a solar supply chain from scratch in Europe.

A team of scientists at Germany’s Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen Nürnberg has set an efficiency record of 14.46% for an organic PV module. The performance was certified by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institue for Solar Energy’s PV calibration laboratory (CalLab).

British renewable energy company Octopus Energy Group announced it would use a recent $800 million investment to “drive real scale” of heat pump manufacture and installation, and create 3,000 new jobs.

Saudi Arabia-based energy developer ACWA Power says it has signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with state-owned utility Eskom for a 442 MW solar facility with 1200 MWh of battery storage in South Africa’s Northern Cape province.

German renewable energy developer BayWa re has collected scientific data on aquatic fauna, water quality, and avifauna from several environmental impact monitoring studies on eight of its operational floating PV facilities in Europe. It has found the artificial habitats under the panels offer protection to some animal species and improvements to water quality.

Five energy infrastructure projects representing 750 MW of renewable energy generation and 524 MW/4,192 MWh of long-duration storage have been successful to the New South Wales government’s latest tender round, as it prepares for the exit of coal-fired power generation from the Australian state’s electricity grid.

CEA-INES researchers and Enel have developed a new solar cell with an active area of 9 cm² and an open-circuit voltage above 1,900 mV. Their results improve on the 27.1% efficiency they achieved for the same kind of cell in June.

Prices in most European markets in the second week of December were lower than the previous week’s figures, according to AleaSoft Energy Forecasting. Less electricity demand, lower gas and CO2 futures prices, and increased solar energy production in most of the major European electricity markets caused the downward trend.