Europe

With power production up 133% year-on-year, revenues and EBITDA also rose significantly.

Q Cells will introduce its Q.Home hybrid inverter and battery system to the Australian market at the All-Energy event in Melbourne tomorrow. It is also introducing its new larger wafer module, which hits 355 Wp on a 60-cell format.

Leading PV manufacturing equipment supplier Meyer Burger Technology has received a further CHF 18 million (US$18.2 million) from partner, Oxford PV for the purchase of key equipment for a 125MW integrated production line to fabricate high-efficiency perovskite HJT tandem solar cells.

The average price in the October round of Germany’s solar capacity procurement program fell back below the five-cent mark, helped by expansion of the quota for solar on Bavarian agricultural land. Nineteen of the 27 projects allocated by the Federal Network Agency were such schemes.

A study has divided the world into 12 climate zones on the basis of the Köppen–Geiger classification map. The paper confirmed Chile’s Atacama region has the world’s highest solar radiation but also showed the region with the highest performance ratio for PV systems was near Moscow.

In January, the U.K. Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy opened consultation on its solar-plus-storage proposals. To date, systems with a capacity bigger than 50 MW are classed Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects.

Although the International Energy Agency’s latest renewables report forecasts impressive solar growth there is still a nagging feeling it has produced conservative estimates and the emphasis on sharing costs with grid operators is predictable.

Top French state officials have helped cut the red ribbon of a floating solar plant that is being touted as Europe’s largest, a project delivered by Paris headquartered Akuo Energy.

Germany is crippling solar’s ability to produce large volumes of ever-cheaper electricity even as it retains too-large tenders for wind that end in undersubscription, the country’s Greens have said.

Ukrainian energy market reforms are continuing and amid uncertainty about future auction mechanisms and prices, attendees at the SEF Kyiv sustainable energy forum again called out the government for dragging its heels on the legislation. However, there was also evident optimism at the show.

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

The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) has offered grants worth €40 million to 55 small solar projects to be located on Spain's Balearic Islands, with a total capacity of 326MW.

Three scientists have been awarded the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of lithium-ion batteries.

A report published recently by the United Kingdom’s National Infrastructure says that the UK’s regulatory system must “adapt to meet the demands of the future” by providing new powers for regulators to ensure utility investments in sustainable infrastructure. The report notes that without such powers, the country will be unlikely to meet its target of zero emissions by 2050.

German utility EnBW will build what is claimed to be Germany’s largest solar park without subsidy support, standing at 180MW in capacity in Brandenburg.