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The world’s solar superpower added only 16 GW of new generation capacity up to the end of last month, according to the head of the main industry association. Short of a ten-week miracle, the annual capacity figure seems set for a second consecutive steep annual decline.

The manufacturing facility, idled a few years ago, will produce bifacial modules. The company claims panel efficiency exceeds 20.5% and the factory has an annual production capacity of around 200 MW.

The regulations will come into effect on January 1 and will improve upon the regime introduced in 2014. The new provisions will for the first time provide a legislative framework for energy communities and storage deployment.

China will build the huge solar park at its own cost for its energy-hungry neighbor in exchange for access to rare earths. The project was announced by the Association of China Rare Earth Industry.

The Norwegian power company acquired the projects for around $17.3 million. The transaction indicates interest in large scale solar is on the rise in Ireland and unsubsidized projects are viable.

German developer JP Joule is set to begin construction of a 25.4 MW solar plant to sell power on the spot market as part of a diversified plant portfolio. The facility, in the province of Alberta, will expand the increasing list of unsubsidized projects announced in the region in recent months.

At the recent Solar Power International trade show in Salt Lake City, Utah, part of the larger North America Smart Energy Week, pv magazine met with Hank Wang, President of the Americas Region at the Chinese inverter manufacturer Sungrow. The company expects to ship 2 GW of products to North American markets this year with utility-scale products making up the bulk of these shipments.

The Colombian government has revealed more details of the renewable energy procurement exercise finalized on Monday. Chinese manufacturer Trina was the bidder behind all three successful solar projects in the auction.

In racing to provide access to electricity to all its citizens, the government has commissioned extensive coal, gas and nuclear generation capacity and the solar sector fears an ever-expanding national grid will kill the business case for solar in previously off-grid areas.

The Netherlands-administered Caribbean island last year saw almost half its power demand provided by a 4.1 MW solar-plus-storage plant, commissioned in late 2017. The facility generated 6.5 million kWh of the 14.3 million kWh of electricity consumed in the territory in 2018.

The Taiwanese manufacturer said the 77 kVA, three-phase device is ideal for solar parks and commercial rooftops. The inverter, which has six maximum power point trackers, is said to have an efficiency of 98.8%.

A study has estimated the cost of PV project soiling may increase from €3-5 billion last year to €4-7 billion by 2023 due to more extensive deployment in high insolation and soiling-affected regions, such as China and India. The authors of the paper outlined the potential of soiling mitigation technologies while stressing more R&D is needed to reduce costs and for the adoption of such measures on a larger scale.

The Australian utility-scale PV and wind industries have just gone through a record two years of construction and commissioning. More specifically, writes Rystad Energy’s David Dixon, utility-scale PV has transformed from a megawatt-scale market to one measured in gigawatts. The resultant boom in utility-scale PV in the country has attracted developers, EPCs and OEMs, from at home and across the globe.

‘Solar Module Super League’ (SMSL) member, First Solar said it was sold out of thin-film cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar modules through the second half of 2021 as the company continues to ramp its Series 6 larger-area modules.

United Arab Emirates (UAE) has witnessed the installation of what is being billed as its leading distributed solar project to date, scattered across dozens of locations.