Opinions

While based in Munich in Germany’s south, renewable asset management software provider 3megawatt’s first major clients were in the United States. However, as the European markets have transitioned beyond feed-in tariffs to the complexity of subsidy-free solar and wind arrays, the understanding of the need for asset management tools is rapidly increasing, says 3megawatt founder and CEO Edmee Kelsey.

A maturing PV market does not automatically deliver certainty in terms of technology roadmaps and industry dynamics. Crystalizing trends and anticipating developments is the business of analysts, so pv magazine assembled four of solar’s best to talk about prices, technology and market-defining policy developments.

In the early years of the 21st century, distributed generation systems in Latin America were mainly installed off-grid in remote rural areas, writes Maria Chea, solar analyst at IHS Markit. As the El Niño phenomenon and high oil prices continued to exacerbate high electricity prices and power shortages, governments began to turn their attention to distributed generation, including PV systems, to assuage strains on their national grid networks.

While China is single-handedly reducing CAPEX for modules and inverters, Europe understands that hardware won’t be the holy grail – generally speaking. But what is? Perhaps it is time for a new strategy to surf in front of the digital wave.

Following up on the webinar held with Trina Solar about the new algorithms needed for bifacial and tracking installations, the word is that gains of 20-30% are not unlikely. To attain that, however, the sweet spot of front and rear side yield has to be reached. Trina has showcased a new algorithm alongside its bifacial n-type modules and claims it can do just that.

Michael van der Gugten, Sales and Marketing Executive at Smit Thermal Solutions, is convinced that perovskite solar cells have reached maturity, and that they are ready to make the step from the lab to production. He is leading the organization of a conference on this topic and expects that the perovskite community, production equipment suppliers and crystalline silicon cell manufacturers will discuss the implementation of perovskite-silicon tandem cells or the production of standalone perovskite modules.