News

The country is steadily expanding solar generation capacity as it aims for 5 GW by 2022, helped by an influx of foreign investment from China’s Belt & Road infrastructure program and World Bank capital.

The managing director of London-based energy infrastructure company Statera has told pv magazine a clean energy grid in the U.K. will require as much flexible gas plant capacity as battery storage.

Another large scale transaction by the electricity and gas supplier has enhanced its standing in the U.K. energy market, with the business now counting more than one million customers.

Tara Doyle started her career in the solar energy industry more than 15 years ago, and today serves as the chief commercial officer at PVEL, which claims to be one of the first testing laboratories to focus on bankability for the downstream PV buyer community. The lab serves developers, financiers, O&M companies, asset owners, and insurers.

An international team of researchers led by the University of Tokyo has discovered a new material which, when rolled into a nanotube, generates an electric current if exposed to light. If magnified and scaled up, say the scientists, the technology could be used in future high-efficiency solar devices.

The Chinese company is ramping up R&D efforts to try and fast-track commercialization of the more productive – and more expensive – battery tech. The news was announced as part of an uninspiring first-half update thanks to falling lithium salt prices.

The state-run fossil fuel giant has partnered with an unnamed foreign start-up to produce electric vehicle batteries using raw materials easily available in India.

New analysis predicts more than 150 GW of tracker capacity will be installed in the next five years – around a third of all ground mount projects up to 2024. Rapid growth in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and the better cost structures possible from combining trackers and bifacial modules are singled out as key trends.

Inverter company ABB supplied equipment for a second PV plant at the Artigas base. Its collaboration with the Uruguayan Antarctic Institute helps facilitate climate change research.

A spokeswoman from the Chinese manufacturer of the Swan series of double-sided solar panels says monofacial modules will soon be consigned to residential use as the price gap between them and higher-yielding bifacial products rapidly closes.

The Chinese giant has argued its 166mm M6 product should be the new iteration used worldwide, even though larger products have been launched by rivals. Longi says the fact existing cell and module production lines can be adapted for the M6 means rising demand for solar worldwide can be swiftly satisfied.

Today we have heard of farmers in Australia unhappy at the approval given for three solar projects on agricultural land and also learned the benefits PV can bring for fish and shrimp farmers. In this op-ed for pv magazine USA, Stoel Rives LLP attorneys Sara Bergan and Thomas Braun discuss the balancing act to be made between solar and agriculture in the emerging Midwestern PV market.

With the benefits solar panels can bring to cropland being considered in Europe, PV and aquaculture are working in tandem in Vietnam. Shrimp and fish farming requires land and lots of water but solar panels are helping mitigate those demands.

The solar manufacturer today moved to reassure investors ahead of what promises to be another rocky set of first-half figures in two days’ time. The Hong Kong company says it wants to add another 3.6 GW of mono ingot and wafer capacity by early 2021.

Scientists at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology have developed a method for producing a ‘smart fabric’ with a supercapacitor energy storage device embedded in it. Its developers say it can be readily integrated with a solar cell or used to power wearable technology.