Germany

Renewables contributed some 43% of electricity consumption in Germany in the first nine months of 2019 – a new record – however doubts remain over the country’s chances of meeting future targets.

PV InfoLink analyzed the key markets of China’s big module manufacturers, as well as product trends, based on export statistics. According to trade figures, the nation’s module exports totaled 34.2 GW in the first half of 2019, up by more than 90% from the corresponding period of 2018. In a nutshell, overseas demand has been strong in 2019.

BayWa r.e. has taken two utility-scale floating solar projects to the finish line in the Netherlands, bringing a sizeable installed capacity boost to the segment in Europe.

The Swiss equipment maker has announced a fresh, CHF18 million order from Oxford PV but the news may have been strategically timed ahead of today’s update that it has completed the sale of its headquarters building.

A German start-up achieved more than 99% efficiency when charging a vehicle developed by the Bochum University of Applied Sciences with electricity from solar cells. Ambibox’s DC charging technology was used in a research project in the Australian desert.

Analyst WoodMac has spelled out the urgent need to decarbonize the global hydrogen production industry. While the fuel can offer a sustainable grid balancing act for intermittent renewables, in its current fossil-fuel driven form it is pumping out more than 800 tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year.

Q Cells will introduce its Q.Home hybrid inverter and battery system to the Australian market at the All-Energy event in Melbourne tomorrow. It is also introducing its new larger wafer module, which hits 355 Wp on a 60-cell format.

Leading PV manufacturing equipment supplier Meyer Burger Technology has received a further CHF 18 million (US$18.2 million) from partner, Oxford PV for the purchase of key equipment for a 125MW integrated production line to fabricate high-efficiency perovskite HJT tandem solar cells.

The average price in the October round of Germany’s solar capacity procurement program fell back below the five-cent mark, helped by expansion of the quota for solar on Bavarian agricultural land. Nineteen of the 27 projects allocated by the Federal Network Agency were such schemes.

Germany is crippling solar’s ability to produce large volumes of ever-cheaper electricity even as it retains too-large tenders for wind that end in undersubscription, the country’s Greens have said.

German utility EnBW will build what is claimed to be Germany’s largest solar park without subsidy support, standing at 180MW in capacity in Brandenburg.

The German developer and independent power producer claims it finished its latest solar project in the country about one month ahead of schedule.

In the run up to our Greenwashing vs. verifiable sustainability webinar, the CEO of pv magazine’s UP initiative partner SMA Solar Technology, Jürgen Reinert, talks about what the inverter manufacturer is doing to prove its sustainability credentials.

There is movement in the heterojunction space, but will it be enough to surpass PERC’s momentum? New production lines show promise, but they might also be the last roll of the dice for Swiss production equipment supplier Meyer Burger.

The German Energy Agency has drawn up a list of proposed measures which it says could help the world’s biggest solar market accelerate its clean energy plans through the adoption of subsidy-free – private – power purchase agreements.