Giant solar project announced in DR Congo
President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo has laid the foundation stone for a vast, 1 GW Kinshasa Solar City photovoltaic project aimed at improving the capital’s power supply.
Manufacturing process for mono cast solar cell exceeding 23% efficiency
Trina Solar has made a PV cell by directly applying the unmodified i-TOPCon process, originally developed for Cz mono wafers, to cast n-type quasi-mono silicon wafers. It claims the average efficiency, tested in-house with a calibrated reference cell, is 22.98%.
Edify Energy connects Australia’s largest PV farm to troubled section of grid
The 275 MW (AC)/333 MW (DC) Darlington Point Solar Farm features two synchronous condensers.
Solar-powered hydrogen under $2/kg by 2030
Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have identified sites where hydrogen could be produced via PV electrolysis at prices ranging from $1.90/kg to $4.20/kg in the United States by the end of the decade.
Portugal’s second PV auction draws world record low bid of $0.0132/kWh
According to financial newspaper Expresso, the lowest bid in the exercise was €0.0112/kWh, slightly lower than the $0.0135/kWh submitted by French energy group EDF and China’s JinkoPower in a 2 GW tender held in Abu Dhabi, a price which was confirmed last month.
Poland to tender 3.2 GW of solar by end of next year
The government expects to contract 1.5 GW of solar in this year’s two renewables auctions and is estimating a further 1.7 GW in two rounds planned next year.
Nigeria launches off-grid solar tender
The Nigerian Ministry of Power is accepting bids to build seven off-grid PV projects, along with other installations that will improve access to energy.
Screen-printed heterojunction solar cell with 20.48% efficiency
Researchers from the United States have used new passivated contact architectures to demonstrate a screen-printed silicon heterojunction solar cell on 40 micron thick standalone wafers.
South Korea’s largest floating PV plant now online
Developer Scotra claims that the project is the second-biggest floating PV array outside of China.
Special PV plant design for livestock in Taiwan
Taipower is experimenting with PV installations on grazing land for cattle, with the support of the Taiwan Council of Agriculture. The modules have been installed at a height of 3 meters, so the cows can graze beneath them.
