Solar PV

The UAE-based developer wants to build several projects at unspecified locations in central and southern Iraq.

According to a new study from a German-Swedish research group, conventional incentives such as renewable portfolio standards, feed-in tariffs or feed-in premium payments may likely lead to a price cannibalisation scenario for wind and solar. CO2 pricing, instead, is considered an efficient tool to maintain their market value high enough to ensure new investments. However, a total system cost approach, rather than an LCOE perspective, is needed to understand the strong dependence of market value on policy choice.

Moreover, Landsvirkjun, the National Power Company of Iceland, and the Port of Rotterdam have completed a pre-feasability study about exporting green hydrogen from Iceland to Rotterdam and the Swedish Energy Agency has allocated €30 million to Project Air, an industrial concept to produce methanol from a large variety of recovered end-of-life streams and hydrogen from electrolysis.

Scientists in Switzerland demonstrated a new type of nanoscale doping for perovskite solar cells. By both improving stability and reducing the chance of the cells leaking any toxic lead into the environment, the discovery addresses two of the largest remaining challenges to the development of the promising class of cell materials.

The Indian government’s efforts to restrict PV equipment imports and expand domestic manufacturing are starting to bear fruit.

Swiss researchers sought for the first time to replace phenylethylammonium (PEA) with benzodithiophene (BDT) in cations for perovskite cells. The latter showed improved stability and ensured a power conversion efficiency that was 1% higher than that of its counterpart.

The Australian federal government’s call for the solar industry to address the issue of PV module waste has coincided with new plans by the Australian Capital Territory government to look at new panel recycling options.

The 24 MW/48 MWh system is being built by Dutch storage system provider Giga Storage and utility Eneco. The battery will be used by Eneco for forecasting supply-demand errors on the intraday trading market.

Researchers in China have built a PV-powered air conditioner that can store power through ice thermal storage. The performance of the system was evaluated considering operating efficiency and stability and the scientists found that a device relying on a variable-speed compressor and an MPPT controller showed very good ice-making capability.

The Biden Administration’s decision to ban solar imports from four Xinjiang-based polysilicon manufacturers has already raised concerns. One analyst warns of a “significant negative impact” across the U.S. solar industry.