News

Portugal has unveiled the final results of the solar auction held over the summer, identifying a handful of major foreign winners of a tender hailed as a worldwide milestone.

Back-contact module manufacturing equipment supplier Eurotron said its previous MWT (Metal Wrap Through) order from China-based PV module manufacturer, Sunport Power had been installed, qualified and begun volume production.

The Swiss battery maker Leclanché will build a 35.6 MW / 44.2 MWh solar-plus-storage power plant, which will provide with clean power state-owned St.Kitts electric utility Skelec over a 20-year period. The new facility will be able to cover around a fourth of the archipelago’s total electricity demand.

Chinese thin film producer Hanergy has set a new record of 24.85% module efficiency for silicon heterojunction technology. The record was achieved at the company’s research & development center in Chengdu, China, and has been confirmed by the Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin, Germany.

Energy analysts from the United Kingdom have found that many of the world’s largest car manufacturers that are launching EVs, or looking to launch EVs, are engaged in an “unprecedented” level of collaboration in order to share the costs and risks inherent in EV development. Cornwall Insight found that the collaboration could see a major boom in supply from the early 2020s.

Pestech, a Malaysia-based electrical power technology company, has entered into a partnership with Chinese inverter maker Sungrow to jointly develop new floating solar solutions.

The research firm says the value of the global inverter market will continue to decline until 2024, even though shipments will likely increase. China’s recent policy changes have increased pressure on prices, which will contribute to greater consolidation in the sector.

French renewables developer Neoen has won development approval from the South Australian government for a major renewable energy project, with 125 MW of wind, 150 MW of solar PV and 130 MW/400 MWh of lithium-ion battery storage. The project could also include up to 50 MW of on-site hydrogen production capability.

Earlier this week, the French government published a list of winning projects for the sixth round of its tender for large-scale solar. There were a few changes from the preceding round, with French companies such as Urbasolar, Engie and Total consolidating their positions. However, even though a higher number of projects were submitted, prices increased slightly in the end. In a short conversation with pv magazine, Xavier Daval — a representative of SER, the French renewable energy association — explained the reasons for this.

Perovskite solar cell developer, Oxford PV is to become a merchant heterojunction with perovskite top cell manufacturer with orders placed with Meyer Burger that will provide an initial 250MW of cell capacity that will enter production by the end of 2020.

One of Spain’s largest banks has gotten behind a utility-scale solar portfolio, planned without support from auctions nor power purchase agreements (PPAs).

EDP Renewables’ American subsidiary will sell 100MW of energy and 10MW of energy storage from a project in central California to the city of San Jose's default electricity utility, San Jose Clean Energy.

The MNRE has invited proposals for high-efficiency perovskite solar cells, solar panel recycling, hybrid inverters and new applications that combine solar and storage, among others.

The researchers have developed a new manufacturing process by using an ultra-thin absorbing layer made of 205-nanometer-thick gallium arsenide (GaAs) and a nanostructured back mirror.

Of the 38 new renewable energy projects that have been awarded, 13 are PV plants, representing 96.75 MW of capacity. The average price for solar was $57.58/MWh, and the minimum was $54.22/MWh.