News

The PV Cycle Association collects and recycles PV waste. Having treated more than 30,000 tons since its creation, it estimates 150,000 tons of PV modules will reach the end of their lifecycle by 2030.

The governments of the two African nations are considering deploying huge volumes of generation capacity over two decades. The project, still in its initial phase, is being supported by the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Energy.

PEG Africa, a company offering pay-as-you-go solar to consumers and businesses in West Africa has received a $5 million investment from European Union initiative ElectriFi. The company says it has now secured more than $50 million and plans a major expansion.

With the 200 hydrogen bikes offered to journalists and world leaders at the G7 summit in Biarritz proving popular, manufacturer Pragma Industries has received an order for 1,000 of them from Chilean president Sebastian Pinera. The company’s founder, Pierre Forté, wants the bike to have a societal impact in developing countries.

A consortium of European research institutes has received €10.6 million in EU funding to establish pilot production of a high efficiency module concept developed by Swiss startup Insolight. The module combines high efficiency multijunction cells with a solar concentrator lens and has previously demonstrated 29% efficiency.

The government intends to build a 25 MW solar park in Sveti Nikole and a 10 MW facility in Makedonski Brod. The feed-in premium granted to the winning bids has been capped at €15/MWh.

Two of Germany’s leading research institutes and a CIGS module maker have announced plans to work on the development of perovskite-CIGS tandem cells with a target of producing thin film modules with better than 30% efficiency.

The early development of PV projects in Latin America was spearheaded by one country: Chile. And while there remain prospects for large-scale project development, its distributed generation segment has the potential for enormous growth, says Marcela Puntí Martín, the general manager of the Chilean Solar Energy Association (ACESOL).

Vehicle-to-grid functions could soon become increasingly important. While policymakers discuss the necessary regulations in other nations, the Netherlands government is motoring ahead with the technology.

Renewables firm BayWa r.e. looks set to bolster its digital technology services offering with the acquisition of Toronto-based PowerHub.

Energy use by air conditioning can be both expensive and taxing for the environment, with the University of the Sunshine Coast (USC), Queensland, Australia, set to trial a three-storey ‘water battery’ to reduce both energy demand and cost.

Danish renewables developer European Energy has broken ground on a 103MW project in Italy, bringing a utility-scale newcomer to the Southern European state.

Specialist automation and PV module assembly solutions provider, Mondragon Assembly has struck a deal with Korean equipment supplier, STiN for its ‘continuous stringing’ intellectual property (IP).

To hear Dr Benedikt Ortmann tell it, the deployment of a subsidy-free solar successor to BayWa r.e.’s landmark 175MWp Don Rodrigo was nothing short of a foregone conclusion.

Inline solar cell measurement equipment specialist Aurora Solar Technologies (AST) has won its largest single order to date from a major China-based manufacturer of high-efficiency PERC solar cells.