solar revolution

Solar-industry companies need to forget ideas about office-based roles and look far afield to source the recruits necessary for the energy transition – and then they need to keep them loyal by offering a rewarding career.

Chris Sparkes, lead technician at UK solar installer Solar Fast tells pv magazine simply throwing money at the PV industry will not suffice.

Thin-film technologies have long promised to make a major impact on the solar industry but have largely been constrained to niche applications and research labs if they were not shredded by the market. After several false starts, current trade dynamics and promising research programs may help solar thin films find their place in the sun.

The 2.7 million people employed in solar in China last year dwarfed the 250,000 working in the US solar industry, according to a new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Indonesia will have to get to work installing more than 24 GW of solar this year – and every year – if the region is to achieve the 2.1 TW to 2.4 TW of photovoltaics Irena has estimated it will require to achieve a net zero carbon energy system by 2050.

The clean power numbers published annually by the International Renewable Energy Agency provide a snapshot of the global solar market and, this year, a lot of figures were unchanged from the previous dataset, especially in the off-grid segment.

Recent years have seen an explosion of installed PV capacity across the European Union, fueled by the well-documented rapid reduction in technology costs and favorable subsidy regimes in many jurisdictions. However, one corner of Northern Europe remains relatively untouched by the solar revolution, writes Adam Sharpe of Everoze. The Republic of Ireland currently has the second-lowest amount of installed PV capacity in the European Union, at just 36 MW by the end of 2019.