USA

Tumbling solar costs have spurred Google on to a dramatic boost of its exposure to the technology, acting to line up supply from projects worldwide as part of a major clean energy push.

This week pv magazine was in Amsterdam for the sixth edition of the BifiPV workshop, where the discussion focused on the impressive achievements made by bifacial solar modules and the challenges the technology faces as it moves toward mainstream adoption.

MIT scientists claim to have created a material 10 times more black than anything witnessed to date. It is said to be able to absorb more than 99.96% of incoming light and reflect 10 times less light than other superblack materials. The invention may be interesting for the development of black silicon PV technology and carbon nanotube-based solar cells.

When Sony first commercially introduced lithium-ion batteries in 1991, the industry recognized their potential to revolutionize portable electronics. Ever since, there have been countless efforts to improve the technology, with many researchers focusing on energy density and longevity, in line with demand from emerging applications such as electric vehicles (EVs) and on-grid energy storage. Julian Jansen and Youmin Rong of IHS Markit discuss the effect of safety concerns on this rapidly growing global market.

NextEra Energy Partners has announced a private offering of US$500 million in senior unsecured notes due 2026 by its subsidiary company NextEra Energy Operating Partners (NEP OpCo).

Baltimore-based power provider Constellation has inked a deal to sell power from a 175MW solar facility in Virginia to Johns Hopkins University, spice and seasoning mix company McCormick & Company and department store corporation TJX Companies.

Solar Integrated Roofing Corporation (SIRC) has completed the acquisition of The Montross Companies, an establishing roofing company in San Diego.

Solar Frontier Americas has acquired a 50.5MW PV project purchased from CS Solar, a JV company of Samsung Solar Energy. The installation is located in Stanislaus County, California, just a few hours southeast of San Jose.

Virginia’s state governor has issued an executive order that reiterates the need to have “at least” 3GW of solar and offshore wind projects in development by 2022 in order to reach a string of ambitious new renewable energy production targets.

Avangrid Renewables has signed off on an agreement with Axium Infrastructure to transfer 50% ownership of both the Copper Crossing Solar Project and Dry Lake II Wind Farm in the coming months.

FTC Solar has started delivery and construction support for its Voyager single-axis tracker on a pipeline of PV projects in Oregon with a total installed generation capacity of 150MW.

That record figure of utility scale PV was under contract at the end of June with 8.7 GWdc under construction. However, installation levels fell slightly, year-over-year.

A Swedish-Chinese research team has developed an organic cell said to be ideal for wide use in daily life to power internet of things-enabled devices. The cell could be used to power sensors that detect and measure moisture, particle concentrations, temperature and other parameters indoors.

An African Development Bank (AfDB) initiative that wants to install 10GW of solar energy across the Sahel by 2025 was endorsed by G5 Sahel heads of state at a summit held last week in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

The US now has a record-breaking 37.9GW of utility-scale solar in the works after 11.2GW of new projects were announced in H1 2019, according to a new report from Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).