Asia

A microscopic quantity of two-dimensional titanium carbide called MXene significantly improves collection of electrical charges in a perovskite solar cell.

The latest blow in the political battle between clean energy project developers and an anti-renewables state government has seen the electricity regulator order power distribution companies to honor PPAs signed after a public tender.

The latest date for hearing the petition will fall just four days after shareholders vote on a proposed Chinese state-backed HK$1.55 billion bail-out of the business.

Taiwan’s government risks failing to make good on solar growth pledges unless it acts to clear structural hurdles such as land shortages, industry operators have warned at Energy Taiwan 2019.

Shareholders in the heavily-indebted solar project EPC and building-integrated PV manufacturer will vote on the last day of the month on the proposed takeover of the business by a Chinese state-backed entity. No news has emerged of a winding-up order due to be heard yesterday.

Manila Electric Co.’s (Meralco) power generation arm is looking into a possible 110-megawatt floating solar facility on Laguna de Bay as part of its renewable energy thrust.

Hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites have garnered significant interest in the solar cell community in light of their excellent optoelectronic properties and low manufacturing cost. Meanwhile, in efforts to produce perovskite solar cells (PSCs) with yet higher efficiencies, considerable steps have been made in developing monolithic tandem solar cells.

Major polysilicon producer Wacker Chemie has warned its overall group profitability for 2019 would be around 30% lower than the prior year, due to continued weak demand from the solar industry in China and continued polysilicon prices declines to industry record lows.

Philippines-based AC Energy will work with UPC Solar Asia Pacific – the solar energy unit of Hong Kong-headquartered UPC Renewables – to build more than 1 GW of solar in the coming years, with an initial focus on Asian markets such as India, South Korea and Taiwan.

Over the last decade, DuPont has surveyed more than 2 GW of PV installations and has analyzed a range of failure types and their causes. Hong-Jie Hu, DuPont’s solar technical and development lead in China, says that the materials giant is looking for Australian partners for its Global Field Survey program, with a particular interest in hot and humid and desert environments.

The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has confirmed that it fielded a tariff of US$1.6953 cents per kWh in a recent tender for a 900MW plot of its 5GW Mohammed bin Rashid (MbR) solar parks – a bid it claims sets a world record for the indepedent power producer (IPP) model.

Taiwan will try and use its leverage as a global electronic and manufacturing hotspot to engineer a multi-gigawatt clean energy boom, government figures have said as they kickstarted this year’s edition of Energy Taiwan.

Automotive Electronics Power Private Ltd. (AEPPL), an India-based lithium-ion battery manufacturing venture between three Japanese companies, aims to produce 30 million cells per year by 2025.

Beijing’s sudden retreat on electric vehicle subsidies in the summer has caused the value of lithium to hit the floor, with disastrous effects on the balance sheets of Chinese companies which had invested big in supply chains to support anticipated huge demand.

Scientists at Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research have developed a new method to produce lithium-sulfur based cathodes which exhibit stable performance and high storage capacity over 200 cycles. According to the agency, this represents “a promising step towards the commercialization of lithium-sulfur batteries.”