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Three US solar manufacturers have submitted a fresh anti-circumvention petition to the US Department of Commerce, targeting Hanwha and other producers of solar cells over shipments from South Korea to the United States.
Heliene, SEG Solar, and Canadian Solar—operating under the banner American Manufacturers for ENergy Resilience (AMER)—filed the request just over one month after a similar complaint, spearheaded by The Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade (AASMT), was lodged against Toyo Solar and Origin Solar Manufacturing in Ethiopia. This sequence underscores the US solar industry’s increasingly protectionist posture toward foreign-made solar products.
Unlike an earlier anti-dumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) case where Hanwha stood alongside the AASMT coalition, the company now finds itself on the receiving end of the petition. In its inquiry report, AMER singled out Hanwha as the leading exporter of crystalline silicon PV (CSPV) cells from South Korea to the US.
The three manufacturers allege that South Korean cell producers are evading AD/CVD duties—imposed since 2012 on Chinese crystalline silicon solar cells, whether assembled into modules or not—by utilizing Chinese wafers. The petition, filed by law firm Lighthill PC on behalf of AMER, further notes that Korean producers require no domestic research and development to manufacture crystalline silicon solar cells using Chinese-origin components.
According to the report, available evidence indicates that effectively no ongoing Korean R&D exists for solar-grade polysilicon, ingot, or wafer production in Korea, as those key CSPV inputs are no longer manufactured there. Instead, companies like Hanwha Solutions import ingots, wafers, and other essential CSPV components from China to produce cells in Korea.
Although AMER explicitly named Hanwha, its subsidiary Hanwha Qcells, and HD Hyundai Energy Solutions among others, the group requested the Department of Commerce to initiate a country-wide anti-circumvention inquiry covering South Korea.
PV Tech sought comment from Hanwha regarding the alleged anti-circumvention request. Moustafa Ramadan, head of PV Tech Market Research, characterized the case as one of the more intriguing AD/CVD filings in recent memory and among the least anticipated. He noted that Hanwha Qcells, the primary South Korean cell manufacturer shipping to the US, has made substantial investments in the American market and has been a petitioner in most recent AD/CVD cases, but now finds itself as the main target. Ramadan added that while some Southeast Asian and African nations were obvious examples of a recurring pattern, South Korea appeared less clear-cut. However, he emphasized that the US administration’s message is unmistakable: to participate in the US market, companies must manufacture within the country.
As Ramadan highlighted, Hanwha Qcells invested over US$2.5 billion in a vertically-integrated facility in Georgia, which recently commenced solar cell production. Full operations—including ingots and wafers—are anticipated by the third quarter of this year, with an annual nameplate capacity of 3.3GW each for ingots, wafers, and cells, and 3.5GW for modules.
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Solar Power World
By Kelly Pickerel | June 24, 2026
Comstock Metals is establishing a solar panel recycling facility in Cambridge, Ohio. The operation is expected to create 20 fulltime positions. Comstock will receive a $75,000 JobsOhio grant, which was facilitated by OhioSE.
Comstock Metals specializes in industrial-scale recycling of end-of-life solar panels, that recovers valuable materials, including aluminum, copper, silver and glass, using a fully circular, zero-landfill solution. The company has an operational recycling facility in Silver Springs, Nevada, that it is scaling to recycle “100,000 tons of solar panels” annually. The company previously said it could recycle 3 million solar panels annually.
Comstock intends to expand its capacity at the Ohio plant to produce aluminum, silver and glass bead outputs for resale into Midwest industrial supply chains.
“Our new Cambridge facility in Ohio is an integral part of our growing national capacity of logistics, storage and recycling of end-of-life solar materials that are decommissioning across the country,” said Corrado De Gasperis, CEO of Comstock Inc. “We truly appreciate the collaboration with JobsOhio and OhioSE for supporting and enabling these jobs. The speed that we build these human systems and deploy our recycling network is critical to keeping these hazardous materials out of our landfills, communities and eco-systems.”
Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Nevada, Comstock Metals has built a national customer base across the Southwest, Midwest and eastern United States. The Cambridge facility will enable Comstock Metals to reduce long-distance transportation costs, which can account for 30 to 50% of total recycling expenses, while better serving its growing Midwest and eastern U.S. customer base. The company has identified a 21,570-ft² facility with an adjacent laydown yard.
News item from Comstock
Kelly Pickerel has more than 15 years of experience reporting on the U.S. solar industry and is currently editor in chief of Solar Power World. Email Kelly.

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India’s clean energy journey is often discussed through the lens of ambitious renewable energy targets, record-breaking solar installations, and climate commitments. While these achievements are important, an equally significant transformation is taking place behind the scenes—one that has the potential to redefine India’s industrial future. The Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) mandate is emerging as a critical catalyst in this transformation.
At first glance, ALMM may appear to be a regulatory requirement aimed at promoting domestically manufactured solar products. However, its impact extends far beyond the renewable energy sector. It represents a strategic shift in India’s approach to industrial development, supply chain security, and global manufacturing competitiveness.
For many years, India successfully established itself as one of the world’s fastest-growing solar markets. Yet, much of this growth depended on imported solar cells and modules. While this enabled rapid deployment, it also exposed the sector to supply chain disruptions, price volatility, and geopolitical uncertainties. More importantly, a substantial share of the value created by India’s energy transition was flowing outside the country.
The importance of this transition becomes clearer when we look at the numbers. Until recently, more than 80% of India’s solar cell requirements were met through imports, primarily from China. While this helped accelerate project deployment, it also exposed developers to freight cost fluctuations, supply shortages, and global market volatility. As India advances toward its target of 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030, reducing this dependence has become a strategic necessity rather than merely an industrial objective. 
The ALMM framework seeks to change this equation. By mandating the use of products from approved domestic manufacturers for government-backed and public-sector projects, India has created a more predictable demand environment that encourages long-term investment in manufacturing.
The results are already visible. India’s solar manufacturing sector has transformed dramatically over the last five years. Solar module manufacturing capacity has expanded from less than 15 GW in 2020 to nearly 210 GW by the end of 2025, while domestic solar cell capacity has reached around 27 GW, driven by policy interventions such as the PLI scheme, ALMM framework, and growing private-sector investments.
However, capacity expansion alone does not guarantee manufacturing leadership. Despite the rapid growth in modules, India continues to face a significant gap in upstream manufacturing, particularly in wafers, ingots, and polysilicon, resulting in continued dependence on imports. Cell manufacturing capacity also remains far below module capacity, creating supply-chain bottlenecks as domestic content requirements become more stringent.
The next phase of India’s solar manufacturing journey will therefore be defined not just by adding more gigawatts of capacity, but by achieving deeper vertical integration, technological competitiveness, and supply-chain resilience. As global competition intensifies and domestic capacity continues to outpace demand, manufacturers will increasingly need to focus on efficiency, innovation, and scale rather than capacity expansion alone.
Solar manufacturing is no longer just about producing modules; it encompasses advanced materials, precision engineering, automation, electronics, energy storage integration, and research-driven innovation. Countries that establish strong positions in these value chains stand to gain economically for decades.
The ALMM mandate has provided Indian manufacturers with the confidence to invest in scale. Scale matters because it directly influences production costs, operational efficiency, and global competitiveness. Large manufacturing facilities enable companies to optimize processes, invest in automation, and improve product quality while reducing costs. These are essential ingredients if India aims to become a global manufacturing hub rather than merely serving domestic demand.
Equally important is the technology transition taking place across the industry. New investments are not focused on legacy technologies but on next-generation solutions such as TOPCon and Heterojunction (HJT) cells, which offer higher efficiencies and improved energy yields.
The technology shift is happening at remarkable speed. Just a few years ago, multicrystalline modules dominated the Indian market. Today, manufacturers are rapidly transitioning toward high-efficiency TOPCon and HJT technologies, with module efficiencies exceeding 23%. This evolution demonstrates that Indian manufacturers are not simply catching up with global trends but are actively positioning themselves for the next phase of solar innovation.
Another crucial advantage of the ALMM framework is its contribution to supply chain resilience. The disruptions experienced during the pandemic and subsequent geopolitical tensions highlighted the risks associated with excessive dependence on a limited number of sourcing destinations. Energy security today is closely linked with manufacturing security. A country that relies heavily on imports for critical energy infrastructure remains vulnerable to external shocks.
 By encouraging domestic production, ALMM strengthens India’s ability to build a more resilient and self-reliant clean energy ecosystem. The strategic significance of this transformation is reflected in India’s broader industrial policy framework. The Government of India has committed nearly INR 24,000 crore under the PLI scheme for high-efficiency solar PV manufacturing. These incentives are designed to support domestic capabilities across the solar value chain and attract significant private-sector investment, helping India establish a globally competitive manufacturing base.
The economic benefits extend far beyond manufacturing facilities themselves. Every new solar manufacturing plant creates opportunities across logistics, engineering services, equipment manufacturing, construction, testing, research and development, and workforce training.
Industry estimates suggest that each gigawatt of manufacturing capacity can create thousands of direct and indirect employment opportunities. As investments continue to flow into states such as Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Odisha, renewable energy manufacturing is emerging as a major contributor to regional industrial development and job creation. 
However, sustaining this momentum will require continued focus on strengthening the entire value chain. While module and cell manufacturing capacities have expanded rapidly, India still depends on imports for critical upstream components such as polysilicon, ingots, and wafers. Building competitiveness at every stage of the value chain will be essential if the country wishes to compete effectively with established global manufacturing leaders.
The objective should not be permanent protection but long-term competitiveness. Policies such as ALMM are most effective when they create a foundation upon which industries can innovate, achieve scale, improve efficiencies, and eventually compete globally on their own merits. Encouragingly, the Indian solar industry appears to be moving in that direction.
The timing could not be more important. India installed nearly 25 GW of solar capacity in 2024 alone and is expected to add hundreds of gigawatts over the coming decade to meet its energy transition goals. The question is no longer whether India will deploy solar at scale; the question is how much of that value creation will remain within the country. 
The ALMM framework is helping answer that question by aligning energy transition goals with industrial development objectives. If supported by continued investments in upstream manufacturing, innovation, and technology leadership, ALMM could play a defining role in transforming India from one of the world’s largest solar markets into one of the world’s leading solar manufacturing nations. 
Looking ahead, the true success of ALMM will not be measured solely by the number of approved manufacturers or gigawatts of capacity installed. Its real achievement will be reflected in India’s ability to establish itself as a trusted global manufacturing destination for clean energy technologies.
The renewable energy transition is not only about generating green power. It is also about creating industries, jobs, technologies, and economic opportunities. In that context, ALMM is proving to be much more than a compliance mechanism—it is becoming an important building block in India’s broader industrial growth story.
As India advances toward its clean energy ambitions, policies that strengthen domestic manufacturing capabilities will play a decisive role in ensuring that the country’s energy transition also becomes a driver of industrial competitiveness, economic resilience, and long-term sustainable growth.
Dushyant Kumar, PV Quality Manager, AXITEC Energy India
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those held by pv magazine.
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The manufacturing equipment will support Emmvee’s TOPCon solar cell production
June 24, 2026
Follow Mercom India on WhatsApp for exclusive updates on clean energy news and insights
Germany-based solar cell manufacturing equipment supplier RENA Technologies has signed a contract with Emmvee Energy to supply solar cell production equipment with a total manufacturing capacity of 6 GW.
The order will support the production of Emmvee’s tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) solar cells.
Emmvee Energy is a subsidiary of Bengaluru-based solar module and cell manufacturer Emmvee Photovoltaics Power.
According to RENA, the scope of supply includes multiple units of its BatchTex 3 N600, InEtchSide 4+ BSG, InEtchSide 4+ PSG, BatchEtch 3 N600, and BatchPolyClean 3 N600 equipment. Such systems are designed for large-scale solar cell manufacturing.
The contract also includes wastewater management systems integrated with each production unit. RENA said the systems are intended to support environmental compliance and reduce wastewater treatment requirements associated with manufacturing operations.
In addition to equipment supply, the agreement includes a service package covering on-site and remote technical support, training programs, spare parts supply, and access to RENA’s spare parts warehouse in Chennai, India.
The project will be executed in collaboration with Centrotherm and ISC Konstanz. RENA said the partners will contribute expertise toward the delivery of the production solution.
The announcement comes against the backdrop of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy mandating that solar cells be sourced from the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers List-II.
In the fourth quarter (Q4) of the financial year (FY) 2026, Emmvee Photovoltaic Power reported revenue of ₹17.39 billion (~$184 million), up 62% year-over-year from ₹10.72 billion (~$113.4 million).
In Q4 FY 2026, Emmvee increased its installed manufacturing capacity to 10.3 GW for solar modules and 2.94 GW for solar cells. Module production reached 2,999 MW, while cell production stood at 1,520 MW for the year.
The company commissioned two 2.5 GW solar module manufacturing lines during the year, supporting capacity expansion and scale-up. It also reported solar cell utilization of approximately 79% in Q4.
Emmvee’s order book increased to 9.4 GW at the end of Q4, with order inflows of 1.27 GW during the fourth quarter, providing visibility for future growth.
In December 2025, Emmvee Energy entered into a supply agreement with a domestic buyer for the offtake of 4.5 GWp of TOPCon crystalline silicon solar cells.
Melvin Mathew
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A new trade dispute between India and China has moved to the next stage at the World Trade Organization (WTO), bringing renewed attention to India’s solar energy policies and import duties. During a meeting of the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) held on June 23, 2026, member countries agreed to China’s request to establish a dispute panel to examine certain trade measures implemented by India.
The case mainly concerns India’s policies related to imported solar cells, solar modules, and selected information technology products. China has alleged that some of India’s tariff measures and incentive schemes are inconsistent with WTO rules and unfairly favor domestic manufacturers.
According to China, India provides incentives for solar energy products that are linked to the use of locally manufactured components. China argues that such conditions disadvantage imported products and create barriers for foreign suppliers. It claims that these measures violate several WTO agreements, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, and the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures.
The establishment of the dispute panel follows unsuccessful consultations between the two countries. China had initially requested the formation of a panel earlier, but India blocked that request during a DSB meeting held on May 22, 2026. Under WTO procedures, a member can block the first request for a panel, but a second request is automatically approved unless all WTO members agree to reject it.
As this was China’s second request, the panel was formally established during the June 23 meeting. China decided to proceed after discussions with India failed to resolve the issues raised in the complaint.
India expressed disappointment over China’s decision to push for a formal dispute process. Indian representatives maintained that the country’s measures are fully consistent with WTO obligations and stated that this position had already been explained during previous consultations. India also reiterated that its policies are designed in accordance with international trade rules while supporting domestic manufacturing and clean energy development.
The dispute has attracted significant global attention because it involves the rapidly growing solar energy sector and international supply chains. Many countries have shown interest in the case due to its potential impact on global trade and renewable energy markets.
Several WTO members, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, the European Union, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, Singapore, Türkiye, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have reserved their third-party rights in the dispute. This allows them to participate in the proceedings and present their views before the panel.
The newly established WTO panel will now begin its review of the case. Its findings will determine whether India’s solar incentive programs and related trade measures comply with international trade commitments under WTO rules.
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Established in 2015, Eadepro Development serves as the real estate arm of the Eastern Decorator Group, an Ipoh institution founded in 1968. With past successes like Zen88 Homes and Ipoh South Gate, Klemeru Ipoh stands as the premier Eadepro township, underscoring the company’s corporate commitment to low-carbon, high-value community building and offering unmatched potential for capital appreciation.
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Comstock Metals chooses Ohio for solar panel recycling hub, 20 jobs planned  Stock Titan
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Europe’s split grid infrastructure and lack of central planning mean it fails to use its renewables. It is stuck in volatile prices driven by reliance on imported fossil fuels. Treating the system as one network rather than separate national grids would unlock PV, storage and wind, says Christian Kjaer, executive director at Supergrid Europe. For …
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© 2025 THE COOL DOWN COMPANY. All Rights Reserved. Do not sell or share my personal information. Reach us at hello@thecooldown.com.
“A level of performance beyond where conventional silicon solar panels can realistically go.”
Photo Credit: Tandem PV
A U.S.-based perovskite-silicon solar module maker has reached a milestone long seen as the next major leap for clean energy.
According to pv magazine, its perovskite-silicon module has achieved 30% efficiency while still being designed with real-world scale in mind.
Internal results released by Tandem PV showed a 100-square-centimeter demonstration module operating at 30.4% efficiency.
For that module, the company combined its four-terminal perovskite glass with an interdigitated back contact cell made by Maxeon.
Want to go solar but not sure who to trust? EnergySage has your back with free and transparent quotes from fully vetted providers in your area.
To get started, just answer a few questions about your home — no phone number required. Within a day or two, EnergySage will email you the best options for your needs, and their expert advisers can help you compare quotes and pick a winner.
High-efficiency milestones are not always achieved with manufacturing scale in view.
In this case, Tandem PV said the module was produced using a process intended to move quickly toward commercial manufacturing. 
CEO Scott Wharton told pv magazine a full-size version of the design could reach 28% efficiency and deliver about 12% more power from the same area than Aiko’s 545-watt silicon module, which is rated at 25% efficiency.
Tandem PV expects to pursue the utility-scale market later in 2026.
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Higher-efficiency panels can generate more electricity from the same rooftop, parking canopy, or solar farm footprint.
For households and businesses, that could eventually mean lower energy bills, fewer panels needed to produce the same amount of power, and more flexibility in places where available space is limited.
It could also help cities and utilities add more clean electricity without using as much land, while reducing the pollution associated with dirty energy sources. EnergySage’s free tools make it easy to obtain quick solar estimates and comparable quotes, saving homeowners up to $10,000 on installations. You can also explore its handy mapping tool to learn about possible incentives in your state.
Adding battery storage to a solar setup is one of the best ways to protect your home during outages, save money on energy, and go off-grid. EnergySage’s free tools can help with that, too.
💡Go deep on the latest news and trends shaping the residential solar landscape
On social media, Wharton described the 30% mark as “a level of performance beyond where conventional silicon solar panels can realistically go.”
He also said the demonstration module is “a sign that perovskite-silicon tandem solar is moving onto a new performance curve.”
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Radiance InfraCo Renewables Commissions 87 MWp Korwar Solar Plant in Karnataka; Strengthens India’s Clean Energy Push  SolarQuarter
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Oxford PV and Fraunhofer unveil 25.6 per cent tandem modules  The Engineer – Home
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Lineage, the operator of the cold storage warehouse burning for days in Boyle Heights, is pointing the finger at another tenant, the massive solar array spread across the warehouse’s rooftop, as the responsible party for the destructive blaze.
Though no official cause has been determined yet, four employees of Pearce Services, a subcontractor working for the solar array’s owner, Altus Power, were on site June 17, the day the fire began, according to a statement from Pearce.
No one was injured.
“The cause of this incident is not known and remains under investigation,” says a statement on Pearce’s website. “We are cooperating fully with the Los Angeles Fire Department and other relevant agencies to provide all available information and support.”
Lineage, which donated $2 million to the California Community Impact Fund, has called on Altus to “join us getting the Boyle Heights community the support they desperately need.”
The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health opened investigations into both Lineage and Pearce on the day the fire began, according to its website.
Two small fires started earlier in the day, but the workers believed they had put out both, according to Los Angeles Fire Chief Jaime Moore. They called 911 when a third ignited, the chief said previously.
Neither Pearce, nor Altus, would say what work was being performed, but Moore on Sunday indicated the workers were trying to get the high-voltage panels back online after they were shut down in an earlier fire in 2024. Lineage, in its own statement, alleged Altus was performing tests on the panels.
Altus declined to answer questions. A spokesperson confirmed the solar array is owned by the company and said it is “cooperating fully with authorities.”
In the previous fire, the Fire Department responded at 9 a.m. Aug. 14, 2024, to thick smoke billowing from the building and found flames burning among a cluster of panels near the center of the nearly 500,000-square-foot warehouse’s roof.
The size of the building and the split-level roof made the ladder pipes on the department’s aerial ladder trucks ineffective. Firefighters had to climb onto the roof and use extension ladders and hand lines to battle the fire, according to a press release at the time.
More than 80 firefighters, with assistance from Los Angeles County Fire, took part in the suppression efforts and the fire was knocked out in 48 minutes.
“Without the aggressive and timely actions of the crews on scene, the fire could have continued to jump from solar array to solar array and potentially extend to the interior of the building, with devastating results for the business,” the Fire Department said at the time.
The cause of the 2024 fire is unclear. The department was unable to provide additional details when asked about it Tuesday, June 23.
The massive warehouse, which is used by Lineage to store about 85 million tons of frozen food, was built in 2018 and is owned by Chill Build Los Angeles 1 LLC.
Chill Build obtained a permit for the 332,230-square-foot photovoltaic solar array about two years later, records showed.
Los Palos Street Operating LLC, a subsidiary of Altus Power, now owns the array, which can generate about 6 megawatts of power, or the equivalent of the power used by about 6,000 homes.
The developer and solar operator has similar systems across the country, with more than 1 gigawatt of solar power in its portfolio, according to corporate filings. About 12% of those systems are in California.
None of the power generated by the array is used by Lineage, however, according to Melanie Mendoza, a spokesperson for Lineage. Lineage leases the roof to Altus and has no other relationship with the company, she said.
The power generated by the array was instead sold to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power through its Feed-in Tariff program, which allows property owners to sell the output from renewable energy projects, instead of using it. The project, dubbed “Chill Solar,” was still listed as an in-service on the LADWP’s website, as of October 2025; however, LADWP spokesperson Kimberly Briggs said it was “not producing solar electricity purchased by LADWP since 2024.”
Rooftop solar can make it more difficult for firefighters to get a handle on large structure fires. When a similar fire occurred at a 300,000-square-foot Dietz & Watson cold storage warehouse in New Jersey in 2013, firefighters were ordered to stay off the roof because the electricity to the more than 7,000 solar panels on the roof could not be shut off.
Another cold storage facility operated by Lineage burned for months in Washington state in 2024.
On social media, L.A. City Controller Kenneth Meija said the firefighting efforts in Boyle Heights have cost taxpayers about $3 million so far.
“We need all companies involved to take accountability and help impacted residents immediately,” Meija wrote.
Los Angeles Councilwoman Ysabel Jurado has announced plans to introduce a series of motions to help residents and to hold those responsible for the fire accountable.
In a statement, Jurado said she is aware of the claim that the fire started on the roof while subcontractors were servicing the solar panels.
“Residents deserve an independent investigation into who was working there, what work was being done, who was responsible for that equipment, and whether any safety or oversight failures contributed to this disaster,” she said. “A company statement is not an investigation, and Boyle Heights deserves more than finger-pointing.”
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Dover, Del. – Delaware’s governor announced the acceptance of four community solar projects into the JobsFirst Permitting Accelerator on Tuesday.
Meyer says the programs will help boost the local economy and reduce power bills for over 15,000 families statewide by 10% to 15%.
“We’re looking not just to do solar, not just to do offshore wind, not just to do nuclear or combined cycle gas, but look at all of the above,” Meyer said.
According to officials, the four community solar projects, developed by ECA Power and located in Sussex and New Castle Counties, represent more than 16 megawatts of new local solar generation capacity and more than $73 million in private-sector investment.
Meyer said the initiative will help residents and businesses save on their electricity bills without having to install the solar panels on their own roofs. He also emphasized the need for more state-generated power as data centers strain the PJM power grid shared by 12 other states.
“Solar energy is a practical solution that is helping Delaware families, businesses, schools, and communities save money, increase energy independence, and address the very real challenges of climate change,” Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control Deputy Secretary Dayna Cobb said.
She said the initiative will help make renewable energy accessible for Delawareans regardless of their income or housing situation.
“Not every Delawarean owns a home, not everyone has a room suitable for solar panels, and not every family can make a large upfront investment in renewable energy,” she said.
Vincent Moschella, a representative of ECA Solar, said the community solar project would save families $6,000 a year on their energy bills.
“That’ll bear each family saving about $100 a year, and today, perhaps more than any other time I can remember, we need more projects like this, and we need them fast,” he said.
Moschella said ECA plans to add more projects and, with help from the governor’s staff, he says each of these projects will generate electricity six to 12 months faster than if they had not been in the program.
Officials said residents who subscribe to community solar will continue to get their power from Delmarva Power.
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“The energy we generate here serves low-income [households]. … I really like that.”
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A new set of Virginia laws could bring community solar to a much larger group of residents and reduce electricity costs for roughly 125,000 additional households.
It has also made one farmer’s choice to devote 20 acres to a modest solar project look especially significant.
What began as a letter asking to lease part of Steve Ault’s 100-acre family farm in Prince Edward County, Virginia, ended with Steve and his wife, Chris Ault, agreeing to host a 5-megawatt shared-solar development. 
Canary Media reported that the arrangement now produces tens of thousands of dollars in annual income for them.
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Since starting to deliver electricity in February 2024, the solar array has remained mostly out of public view, set back from a railroad line. The property is still serving another purpose as well, with a local shepherd using the ground under the panels for sheep grazing.
In spring, Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed two measures requiring Virginia’s largest utilities to expand their community-solar offerings. Under those laws, Dominion Energy must open up 525 additional megawatts, while Appalachian Power is required to add 100 megawatts and fix its billing practices, according to Canary Media.
Going solar, whether through community schemes or otherwise, is one of the best ways to lower bills and save money. 
If you don’t have enough land to host community solar panels but want to install them on your home, EnergySage can put you on the right path. Its marketplace is built to help homeowners make informed decisions about clean energy upgrades, such as solar panels, and can find the best setup for your space. Its free tools can get you quick solar installation estimates and compare quotes from vetted installers. 
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To get started, just answer a few questions about your home — no phone number required. Within a day or two, EnergySage will email you the best local options for your needs, and their expert advisers can help you compare quotes and pick a winner.
People who rent, have roofs that aren’t ideal for solar, or can’t afford their own installation can still participate in solar through community programs. Instead of installing panels at home, they enroll in a nearby project.
High electricity bills continue to put pressure on household budgets. Canary Media noted that Brandon Smithwood, Dimension Energy’s vice president of policy, said expanding shared solar “reduces both near-term and long-term energy costs that benefit all ratepayers” — not just subscribers.
Virginia can add these projects relatively quickly as electricity demand grows. Canary Media reported that across the United States, community solar generally cuts bills by about 5% to 15% and can also help utilities avoid some costly power and grid expansions.
Some neighbors objected at first, but the agreement is working out for everyone. For the Aults, it contributes to their retirement funds and keeps that portion of their land in productive use.
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EnergySage’s mapping tool can help you see the average cost of a home solar system in your state, along with the incentives available where you live to ensure you’re maximizing all potential savings. 
Adding battery storage to a solar setup is one of the best ways to keep your home powered during outages. If you’re interested in home batteries, EnergySage’s backup energy resources can help you compare storage options, learn about available incentives, and get competitive installation estimates. 
Virginia has already shown a strong appetite for community solar. According to Canary Media, Dominion’s initial 200-megawatt program reaches many thousands of customers through 52 projects, and Appalachian Power’s offering filled beyond available capacity not long after it began.
State leaders have also lowered the program’s minimum monthly bill, a charge meant to ensure utilities still bring in some revenue. Supporters have said the change could open the program to more customers without wiping out the savings.
Steve Ault said the solar array “has been such a win-win.” For Chris Ault, one benefit stands out: “The energy we generate here serves low-income [households]. … I really like that.”
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UK-based RES, a renewable energy company, has announced that Innagreen Investments has acquired the Longhedge Solar Farm project in Nottinghamshire, England. RES developed the project and secured planning consent before the transaction. On completion, the solar farm will be capable of producing an estimated 49.9 MW of power which can support 15,000 households each year. The proposal will involve the creation of over 2.5 km of species-rich hedgerow, as well as the construction of two permissive bridleways. Longhedge is the fourth project completed jointly by RES and Innagreen, following the Dunbeg South project earlier in 2026. RES will remain involved by managing development and construction activities and providing technical services after commissioning.
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“Call your power company.”
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Solar panels can seem like a major selling point when buying a home. However, one new homeowner’s first utility bill showed that rooftop solar does not always translate into immediate savings — especially when the system is not paired with the right electricity plan.
According to a Reddit post from the homeowner in r/solar, the panels were presented as a clear benefit during the home viewing. 
The poster recalled, “[The real estate agent] goes ‘come, i want to show you something’ and takes us up to the roof like he’s revealing a secret weapon.” 
The agent then said, “‘Previous owners put these in, you’re going to save a lot on electricity.'”
After the move-in, the financial picture looked very different. The homeowner said their first bill totaled $420, and they later concluded that the home’s solar setup may have been sending daytime generation to the grid while the household had to buy electricity back at night at the full rate.
“So we’ve been generating electricity, handing it to the grid for basically nothing, and paying full price after 5pm like we don’t have twelve panels on our roof,” they described.
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Others in the comments said the bill alone was not enough to pin the problem on the panels. 
“You’re in the middle of the summer,” one wrote. “You have twelve panels of unknown age and quality in a house of unknown size. For all we know, $420 could be perfectly reasonable.”
Home solar is not a guaranteed shield against high electric bills. Savings can depend on system size, panel condition, utility rate structure, local net metering rules, battery storage, and household energy use.
Solar is often presented as a straightforward way to lower monthly costs. In reality, a poorly understood setup can leave homeowners disappointed, especially if they assume the presence of panels alone will mean lower bills.
Buyers should ask detailed questions before purchasing a home with existing solar. Is the system owned or leased? Is it connected properly? Is there a battery? What utility plan is the home on? The answers can dramatically affect whether a solar system actually reduces costs or simply looks impressive during a walkthrough.
“Make sure you are not on time of use rates which negates a lot of the advantages of solar,” one commenter said. “You should be on a net metering plan. Call your power company.”
A good first step is to review your utility tariff, check when your home uses the most electricity, and compare that with when your panels generate the most power. If most of your consumption happens after sunset, a battery or load shifting may be needed to maximize savings.
Commenters also suggested verifying that the system is set up and running the way it should be. 
“Couple bought house like you, never set up app, never turned on disconnect to the battery,” another commenter shared. “Solar company fixed everything by flipping a switch in the homeowner app in under 20 minutes.”
For homebuyers, the lesson is fairly straightforward: Treat solar like any other major home system. Ask for production records, installation details, warranty information, and recent utility bills before counting on savings.
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Infineon Technologies AG announces that BRC Solar GmbH has selected Infineon’s CoolGaN Transistor 100 V devices as the core switching technology for its Power Optimizer. The CoolGaN Transistor 100 V family delivers industry-leading switching performance and power-handling capability in a compact 3 mm x 5 mm package, enabling panel-level maximum power-point tracking (MPPT) with the highest efficiency and power density available in this class of solar application. The selection underlines the growing adoption of Infineon’s GaN technology in renewable energy applications, where superior switching performance, compact form factor, and cost competitiveness are critical design requirements.
“The adoption of CoolGaN technology from Infineon in BRC Solar’s Power Optimizers demonstrates the tangible impact that GaN switching performance can deliver in real-world renewable energy systems,” says Johannes Schoiswohl, Senior Vice President & General Manager GaN Business Line at Infineon. “By enabling higher efficiency, greater power density, and cloud-based performance monitoring in the same compact form factor, CoolGaN helps solar system designers push the boundaries of what is achievable in rooftop solar applications and brings meaningful benefits to end users and the environment alike.”
Rooftop solar installations face a fundamental efficiency challenge: when MPPT is implemented at the string level, partial shading of a single panel reduces the output of the entire string. The CoolGaN Transistor 100 V family addresses this directly by enabling cost-effective panel-level MPPT optimization, eliminating the performance drag of the weakest panel and maximizing energy yield across the full installation. The inherently superior switching characteristics of GaN, including lower switching losses, higher switching frequency capability, and reduced EMI compared to silicon alternatives, make CoolGaN the enabling technology for power optimizers that must simultaneously meet stringent efficiency, size, and regulatory requirements.
“Since its founding, BRC Solar has recognized the transformative potential of gallium nitride technology for achieving best-in-class performance in solar power optimizers,” says Pascal Ruisinger, CFO at BRC Solar GmbH. “Infineon and BRC Solar share the same vision: to leverage state-of-the-art technologies such as CoolGaN to benefit the environment and society by delivering optimized green energy through feature-rich and affordable products.”
The superior switching performance of CoolGaN, combined with a diverse product portfolio spanning discrete and integrated solutions across a broad range of voltage and power levels, allows BRC Solar’s Power Optimizer design to achieve the optimal balance between cost, size, and efficiency. The result is a solution that delivers tangible performance benefits to end customers in residential and commercial rooftop solar installations.
More information on Infineon’s CoolGaN portfolio is available at https://www.infineon.com/GaN. Further information on BRC Solar’s Power Optimizer M600-E and M605-M is available at http://www.brcsolar.de and at the smarter E Europe 2026, booth B4.380.
BRC Solar is a German company specializing in module-level power electronics for photovoltaic systems. The company develops Power Optimizers designed to increase energy yields and improve the overall efficiency of modern PV systems. Its solutions are manufacturer- and inverter-independent and can be flexibly integrated into a wide range of systems; in addition, BRC Solar offers monitoring functionality for transparent system performance tracking. A strong focus lies on installer-friendly products designed for fast, simple, and reliable installation in the field. BRC Solar stands for German engineering expertise, practical innovation, and high flexibility in photovoltaic applications.

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A super project covering an area equivalent to 1.5 Manhattans, solely for powering a 1GW data center.
In the past year, the most anxiety – inducing thing globally was finding electricity for AI.
On June 10th, NVIDIA just published a technical blog targeting the supporting energy storage for AIDC. In NVIDIA’s description, energy storage is no longer an optional supporting role but an “essential part” of the power system in AI data centers.
For a company that sells chips to start worrying about batteries for its customers, this fact alone speaks volumes: Ultimately, computing power boils down to electricity.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) has calculated that the power consumption of global data centers will double from approximately 415TWh in 2024 to about 945TWh in 2030 – roughly equivalent to the annual power consumption of the entire Japan today.
Moreover, AIDC has a strict rule: There can be no power outage for even a single second.
So, although “green electricity” has always been highly anticipated, it has not been incorporated into the mainstream power – supply model. The core issue is its instability – once the sun sets, the electricity is gone.
The long – standing consensus in the industry is: While green electricity is good, it can’t handle the task of “base load” which requires all – weather stable supply.
However, a desert in Abu Dhabi is starting to challenge this consensus.
In January 2025, during the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, this project was officially announced. Sultan Al Jaber, the chairman of Masdar, made a rather significant statement: Intermittency has been the biggest obstacle for renewable energy for decades. He called it “the moon – landing – level problem of our era.”

Announcement report during the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week
The project is configured as follows: 5.2GW of photovoltaic power, paired with 19GWh of battery energy storage, with the goal of stably outputting 1GW of power 24 hours a day, and it will be put into operation in 2027.
This is a very worthy project sample for study – how exactly can photovoltaic + energy storage power a data center? How can stability be ensured? What is the cost? Recently, foreign investment bank Bernstein dissected this project and did some calculations.
The conclusion is: In regions like the Middle East with abundant sunlight, low land costs, and sensitivity to gas prices, photovoltaic + long – term energy storage has the opportunity for the first time to truly approach a base – load power source.
What’s even more notable is: Most of the most valuable parts in this calculation involve Chinese companies.
The most counter – intuitive aspect of this project is that it seems wasteful.
5.2GW of photovoltaic power is only used to output 1GW of electricity.
In other words, to obtain a stable 1GW load curve, the project party has increased the photovoltaic installed capacity to more than 5 times.
However, “over – building” is the key. Bernstein estimates that this system can generate approximately 12.45TWh of electricity per year, which averages to about 34GWh per day.
For a 1GW load, only about 24GWh is needed per day. In other words, the power generation is intentionally increased by about 40%.
Where does the excess electricity go? During the sunniest part of the day, part of it is used directly, and part is stored in the battery; when the sun sets, the electricity in the battery is released to meet the demand.
In the past, photovoltaic power generated too much electricity at noon, and the power grid couldn’t handle it, so the excess had to be wasted. Now, this electricity is not wasted but is used at night. In essence, it’s like equipping the photovoltaic system with an oversized “power bank.”
What supports this “store during the day, release at night” model is the 19GWh energy storage – based on a 1GW output, it can last for about 19 hours. Even if there is no sun all night, the battery can handle the power demand on its own.
According to Bernstein’s calculations, the availability of this system can reach about 99.6%, which is approaching the level of a traditional power plant.

The project has achieved a continuous power output of 1GW
There is a key point here: How long the energy storage can last almost determines the success of this project.
Bernstein has made a comparison. Without any energy storage and trying to maintain a constant 1GW load, a large amount of the electricity generated by the photovoltaic system at noon is in excess and has to be wasted. The proportion of electricity that can actually be used will drop from the theoretical about 27% to only about 9%.
With 12 – hour energy storage, the availability can reach about 97.5%; increasing it to 19 hours, it’s about 99.6%. But if you increase it further, there is almost no improvement.
So, 19 hours is not to further improve the reliability but to leave a margin for powering the whole night and the battery’s own losses.

The increase in availability slows down significantly after 13 hours of energy storage addition
Being able to achieve it is one thing, and being cost – effective is another.
Let’s start with the conclusion: It’s really expensive.
The total investment in the project exceeds $6 billion, which is equivalent to more than 40 billion RMB. When spread over a stable output of 1GW, this upfront threshold is not low.
However, photovoltaic and energy storage have an advantage that gas – fired power can’t match: There is almost no fuel cost during operation. The sun is free, and the battery charging and discharging don’t consume oil or gas.
Based on this, Bernstein estimates that the cost per kilowatt – hour of this project is about $97/MWh – converted into a unit we are familiar with, it’s about 0.65 RMB per kilowatt – hour.
If the energy storage is reduced from 19 hours to 12 hours, the cost can be reduced to about $80/MWh, which is about 0.58 RMB per kilowatt – hour in RMB, and the availability can still be maintained at about 95%.
Then when is it more cost – effective than natural gas?
Bernstein’s turning point is: When the natural gas price rises above about $8/MMBtu, photovoltaic and energy storage start to become competitive.
Looking at the current market, the spot gas price in the US is only about $3.7, so photovoltaic and energy storage don’t have an advantage; but the spot price of imported LNG in Asia once reached about $17.5, in such places, photovoltaic and energy storage are more attractive.
So, there is a prerequisite for this: In places where natural gas is cheap and abundant, such as the US, gas – fired power is still a smarter choice.

The higher the gas price, the more cost – effective photovoltaic and energy storage are; the two lines intersect at about $8/mmbtu
What’s more worth pondering is where exactly the $6 billion is spent. Breaking down the accounts, the major expenses are obvious:

Energy storage accounts for almost half of the $6 billion
Energy storage alone accounts for almost half of the cost.
This has rewritten an old perception. In the past, when talking about reducing the cost of photovoltaic power, people focused on modules; but in the case of photovoltaic and energy storage for base – load power, the cost of modules has already been reduced to the extreme.
Now, the price of a photovoltaic module is as low as about $0.09/W; the energy storage system has also dropped to about $130/kWh, both at the lowest levels in the past decade. Whether this system can become even cheaper mainly depends on the battery rather than the photovoltaic panels.
Photovoltaic and energy storage also have an underestimated advantage: Speed.
Bernstein’s comparison shows that a photovoltaic and energy storage project can be completed in about 2 years, while a natural gas – fired power plant has to wait about 4 years due to the shortage of turbines, and a nuclear power plant takes more than 6 years. In a nutshell – the one who gets the power supply first makes money first.
Of course, it also has a drawback: It takes up a lot of space. This project needs to enclose about 90 km² of desert, which is about 1.5 Manhattans in size, and it must be built in places with abundant sunlight and low land prices.
This means that it can’t be replicated everywhere – it can only work in places like deserts and Gobi.
After doing the calculations, it’s time to see who will end up getting a share of this pie.
For domestic readers, the most interesting aspect of this project may not be how much electricity it generates in the desert, but its supplier list:
Let’s start with Sungrow. In May 2026, it signed a contract with Masdar to supply 7.5 GWh of the PowerTitan 3.0 energy storage system, plus 2.6 GW of photovoltaic inverters. Just for energy storage, more than a thousand sets of equipment will be installed.

Sungrow’s promotional picture
For the photovoltaic module part, JinkoSolar won the contract to supply 2GW. It uses the flagship Tiger Neo series, which has been specially adjusted for the high – temperature desert environment.

Picture of JinkoSolar signing a contract with Masdar
The general contracting of the project is entrusted to PowerChina and L&T of India.
Regardless of how the shares are divided, the two biggest beneficiaries named in Bernstein’s report are both Chinese companies: CATL, leading in battery cell and battery technology; Sungrow, leading in system integration and power electronics.
Looking at the bigger picture, this is actually a growing business.
Bernstein predicts that the average annual growth rate of global energy storage demand in the next five years will be about 34%; the global cumulative energy storage installed capacity will increase from about 281 GW in 2025 to about 1,991 GW in 2030.

Outlook for the global demand for power and energy storage systems
However, the bigger market is actually in China
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Comstock Metals Selects Cambridge, Ohio, for Solar Panel Recycling and Production Facility with JobsOhio Support  Quiver Quantitative
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As the UK experiences extreme temperatures, with forecasts above 37°C, think tank Ember finds that households with rooftop solar are powering the equivalent of five hours of air conditioning a day.
Solar and air conditioning have similar seasonal patterns, meaning that when the need for cooling hits, solar is likely to be generating at a high level. On the 21st and 22nd of June 2026 a typical UK rooftop solar installation generated 15 MWh, equivalent to five hours of electricity demand from a full-house air conditioning set up (at 3 kW) per day.
Across the 1.9 million UK homes with rooftop solar, the equivalent to 10 million solar-powered air conditioning hours have been generated each day of the heat wave so far. Although rooftop generation will be split across all household electricity use, this hints at the potential for cost-effective cooling in the future, particularly as home batteries become more common.
“Air conditioning is becoming more urgent for households as the climate warms,” said the report author, Frankie Mayo. “As rooftop solar gets more and more popular to reign in energy bills and cut oil and gas use, this can complement the new need for cooling in British summers.”
The UK’s need for household cooling is accelerating, as heatwaves become a fixture of British summers. At the same time, rooftop solar is experiencing a boom in the wake of the second energy crisis in four years.
Homes are currently installing rooftop solar at the fastest ever annual rate. Over 2.5 GW of solar was installed in both 2024 and 2025, whereas 2.5 GW in total was installed in the five years from 2017 and 2021. This is happening without government subsidies for rooftop installations, unlike the UK’s first solar development boom from 2010-2016, which was supported by the now-closed Feed-in Tariff and Renewables Obligation subsidies.
A large number of solar farms are also in development, supported by the government Contracts for Difference scheme. Although just 854 MW of solar is installed through the scheme so far, 10,343 MW is also contracted to be built before the early 2030s.
This surge of installations has led to a huge increase in solar generation, with new records being broken frequently. The peak solar power half-hourly generation record was broken eleven times in the first half of 2026 alone. Britain also set a new all-time monthly solar generation record in May, beating the previous all-time record in May the previous year.
The UK grid can benefit from increased demand for air conditioning at high solar generation hours. A new service, the ‘Demand Flexibility Service’ is to be used to reward consumers for increasing electricity use during these periods.
Even for households without rooftop solar, flexibility payments mean a wider pool of consumers can benefit by increasing demand during reward periods, including through the use of air conditioning.
“More and more households are seeing the benefit of rising solar across the UK,” continued Frankie Mayo, “Plug-in balcony solar will make the technology more accessible, and at peak hours in the summer, households even without solar panels could be rewarded for using more electricity.”
Read the full analysis.
About Ember: Ember is an independent energy think tank that aims to accelerate the clean energy transition with data and policy. It creates targeted data insights to advance policies that urgently shift the world to a clean, electrified energy future.
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Kee Ming Berhad subsidiary has secured a subcontract worth RM70 million to undertake mechanical and electrical (M&E) engineering works for a large-scale solar photovoltaic plant in Bukit Selambau, Kedah.
The group said KME had accepted a Letter of Award (LOA) from Atlantic Blue Sdn. Bhd. (ABSB) on 24 June 2026 to carry out the subcontract works for the 99.99MWac solar PV project.
ABSB, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Solarvest Holdings Berhad, is principally involved in engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC) services for solar PV systems, as well as investment in solar PV plants.
Under the LOA, KME’s scope of works includes the supply, delivery, installation, testing and commissioning of the Solar Power Plant Interconnection Facility (SPPIF) and Tenaga Nasional Berhad Interconnection Facility (TNBIF).
The works will also cover the provision of labour, materials, equipment, transportation, supervision, testing and commissioning services, as well as other related requirements needed for the completion of the project.
The provisional contract value stands at RM70 million, excluding a RM2 million provisional sum allocated for additional or contingency works that may be instructed by ABSB.
KME is expected to commence work immediately following the acceptance of the LOA, with the project scheduled to achieve back energisation by 15 December 2026, initial operation by 30 December 2026, and commercial operation by 28 February 2027.

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Warsaw-headquartered R.Power, a pan-European Independent Power Producer, has signed a project finance facility with a total value of EUR 41.6 million (EUR 34.1 million and RON 39.5 million [approximately EUR 7.5 million]) for a portfolio of four PV projects in Romania totaling approximately 75 MWp. 
The facility has been provided on a club deal basis, split equally between ING Bank NV and UniCredit Bank SA. 
The four PV projects, including a 55 MWp high-voltage project, are due to be connected in 2027. They form part of R.Power’s growing solar, hybrid, and energy storage pipeline in Romania, which now amounts to 2 GW. This includes two operational PV projects and several PV projects awarded Contracts for Difference in Romania’s 2024 auction process.   
The transaction brings the total project finance secured by R.Power in 2026 to approximately EUR 250 million. 
R.Power’s overall CEE solar pipeline now stands at 10 GW, spanning Poland and Romania. As this PV portfolio matures, R.Power is also exploring opportunities to maximize the value and resilience of certain sites through co-located battery energy storage, alongside its standalone BESS project pipeline, the company said.  
“This transaction is a good example of how our CEE solar portfolio is maturing. We have built a substantial pipeline of well-located, grid-secured assets across the region, and we are now seeing that pipeline translate into financed, operational capacity,” Michał Swół, Chief Investment Officer at R.Power, said.
“We are pleased to support R.Power in advancing its Romanian solar portfolio, a transaction that further reinforces ING’s commitment to accelerating the energy transition and achieving our Net Zero ambitions. Romania is increasingly attractive for renewable energy investments, supported by strong long-term fundamentals and a growing pipeline of bankable projects,” Oana Mogoi, Head of Energy at ING Bank Romania, said.
“UniCredit is pleased to support R.Power in financing this photovoltaic portfolio in Romania, further strengthening our partnership across geographies. This transaction highlights our ability to deliver cross-border structured energy solutions and our continued commitment to advancing high-quality renewable projects and the energy transition in Romania,”  Daniel Sava, Advisory & Financing Solutions Director at Unicredit Bank S.A. (Romania), said.
Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Warsaw, R.Power has evolved into a pan-European IPP, with 1.4GW of projects operational or under construction. R.Power’s European growth strategy centers on a significant pipeline of advanced, grid-secure battery energy storage (BESS) projects, both standalone and hybrid with solar PV. The company has over 10GW of grid-secured, utility-scale BESS, hybrid, and renewable generation projects spanning major markets including Poland, Romania, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. 
(Photo: Doric1950/ Dreamstime)
simona@romania-insider.com
Warsaw-headquartered R.Power, a pan-European Independent Power Producer, has signed a project finance facility with a total value of EUR 41.6 million (EUR 34.1 million and RON 39.5 million [approximately EUR 7.5 million]) for a portfolio of four PV projects in Romania totaling approximately 75 MWp. 
The facility has been provided on a club deal basis, split equally between ING Bank NV and UniCredit Bank SA. 
The four PV projects, including a 55 MWp high-voltage project, are due to be connected in 2027. They form part of R.Power’s growing solar, hybrid, and energy storage pipeline in Romania, which now amounts to 2 GW. This includes two operational PV projects and several PV projects awarded Contracts for Difference in Romania’s 2024 auction process.   
The transaction brings the total project finance secured by R.Power in 2026 to approximately EUR 250 million. 
R.Power’s overall CEE solar pipeline now stands at 10 GW, spanning Poland and Romania. As this PV portfolio matures, R.Power is also exploring opportunities to maximize the value and resilience of certain sites through co-located battery energy storage, alongside its standalone BESS project pipeline, the company said.  
“This transaction is a good example of how our CEE solar portfolio is maturing. We have built a substantial pipeline of well-located, grid-secured assets across the region, and we are now seeing that pipeline translate into financed, operational capacity,” Michał Swół, Chief Investment Officer at R.Power, said.
“We are pleased to support R.Power in advancing its Romanian solar portfolio, a transaction that further reinforces ING’s commitment to accelerating the energy transition and achieving our Net Zero ambitions. Romania is increasingly attractive for renewable energy investments, supported by strong long-term fundamentals and a growing pipeline of bankable projects,” Oana Mogoi, Head of Energy at ING Bank Romania, said.
“UniCredit is pleased to support R.Power in financing this photovoltaic portfolio in Romania, further strengthening our partnership across geographies. This transaction highlights our ability to deliver cross-border structured energy solutions and our continued commitment to advancing high-quality renewable projects and the energy transition in Romania,”  Daniel Sava, Advisory & Financing Solutions Director at Unicredit Bank S.A. (Romania), said.
Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Warsaw, R.Power has evolved into a pan-European IPP, with 1.4GW of projects operational or under construction. R.Power’s European growth strategy centers on a significant pipeline of advanced, grid-secure battery energy storage (BESS) projects, both standalone and hybrid with solar PV. The company has over 10GW of grid-secured, utility-scale BESS, hybrid, and renewable generation projects spanning major markets including Poland, Romania, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. 
(Photo: Doric1950/ Dreamstime)
simona@romania-insider.com
Warsaw-headquartered R.Power, a pan-European Independent Power Producer, has signed a project finance facility with a total value of EUR 41.6 million (EUR 34.1 million and RON 39.5 million [approximately EUR 7.5 million]) for a portfolio of four PV projects in Romania totaling approximately 75 MWp. 
The facility has been provided on a club deal basis, split equally between ING Bank NV and UniCredit Bank SA. 
The four PV projects, including a 55 MWp high-voltage project, are due to be connected in 2027. They form part of R.Power’s growing solar, hybrid, and energy storage pipeline in Romania, which now amounts to 2 GW. This includes two operational PV projects and several PV projects awarded Contracts for Difference in Romania’s 2024 auction process.   
The transaction brings the total project finance secured by R.Power in 2026 to approximately EUR 250 million. 
R.Power’s overall CEE solar pipeline now stands at 10 GW, spanning Poland and Romania. As this PV portfolio matures, R.Power is also exploring opportunities to maximize the value and resilience of certain sites through co-located battery energy storage, alongside its standalone BESS project pipeline, the company said.  
“This transaction is a good example of how our CEE solar portfolio is maturing. We have built a substantial pipeline of well-located, grid-secured assets across the region, and we are now seeing that pipeline translate into financed, operational capacity,” Michał Swół, Chief Investment Officer at R.Power, said.
“We are pleased to support R.Power in advancing its Romanian solar portfolio, a transaction that further reinforces ING’s commitment to accelerating the energy transition and achieving our Net Zero ambitions. Romania is increasingly attractive for renewable energy investments, supported by strong long-term fundamentals and a growing pipeline of bankable projects,” Oana Mogoi, Head of Energy at ING Bank Romania, said.
“UniCredit is pleased to support R.Power in financing this photovoltaic portfolio in Romania, further strengthening our partnership across geographies. This transaction highlights our ability to deliver cross-border structured energy solutions and our continued commitment to advancing high-quality renewable projects and the energy transition in Romania,”  Daniel Sava, Advisory & Financing Solutions Director at Unicredit Bank S.A. (Romania), said.
Founded in 2010 and headquartered in Warsaw, R.Power has evolved into a pan-European IPP, with 1.4GW of projects operational or under construction. R.Power’s European growth strategy centers on a significant pipeline of advanced, grid-secure battery energy storage (BESS) projects, both standalone and hybrid with solar PV. The company has over 10GW of grid-secured, utility-scale BESS, hybrid, and renewable generation projects spanning major markets including Poland, Romania, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. 
(Photo: Doric1950/ Dreamstime)
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KITCHENER, ON, June 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Canadian Solar Inc. (the “Company” or “Canadian Solar”) (NASDAQ: CSIQ) today announced that its Baotou ingot manufacturing facility and Suqian solar cell manufacturing facility achieved the Silver Level Solar Stewardship Initiative (SSI) Supply Chain Traceability Certification. Canadian Solar is the first manufacturer to achieve Silver certification under the SSI Supply Chain Traceability Certification for both ingot and cell production. This certification demonstrates the Company's commitment to transparency and traceability across its upstream suppliers and to advancing responsible sourcing.
The SSI Supply Chain Traceability Standard is designed to enhance visibility into material sourcing and manufacturing processes across the solar value chain, supporting industry efforts to advance responsible and sustainable production practices. All certification audits are performed by independent third-party firms under the defined SSI audit protocol (ingot and cell).
Colin Parkin, Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Solar, said, “Achieving SSI Supply Chain Traceability Certification for our ingot and cell manufacturing facilities marks an important milestone in strengthening transparency and accountability across our supply chain. As the industry continues to evolve, we are committed to advancing responsible manufacturing practices and enhancing confidence in the integrity of solar products worldwide.”
In 2025, Canadian Solar's Suqian solar cell factory and Baotou ingot factory underwent the SSI ESG assessments and received Silver and Bronze certifications, respectively. The certified sites are publicly listed by the Solar Stewardship Initiative and can be viewed on its official website under Currently Certified Sites.
The announcement coincides with Intersolar Europe in Munich, where Canadian Solar will present its latest technologies and initiatives at booth B2.250.
About Canadian Solar Inc.
Canadian Solar is one of the world's largest solar technology and renewable energy companies. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in Kitchener, Ontario, the Company is a leading manufacturer of solar photovoltaic modules; provider of solar energy and battery energy storage solutions; and developer, owner, and operator of utility-scale solar power and battery energy storage projects. Over the past 25 years, Canadian Solar has successfully delivered nearly 177 GW of premium-quality, solar photovoltaic modules to customers across the world. Through its subsidiary e-STORAGE, Canadian Solar had shipped over 20 GWh of battery energy storage solutions to global markets as of March 31, 2026, and had a $3.5 billion contracted backlog as of May 8, 2026. Since entering the project development business in 2010, Canadian Solar has developed, built, and connected approximately 12.2 GWp of solar power projects and 6.4 GWh of battery energy storage projects globally. Its geographically diversified project development pipeline includes 24 GWp of solar and 81 GWh of battery energy storage capacity in various stages of development. Canadian Solar is one of the most bankable companies in the solar and renewable energy industry, having been publicly listed on the NASDAQ since 2006. For additional information about the Company, follow Canadian Solar on LinkedIn or visit www.canadiansolar.com.
Safe Harbor/Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements in this press release, including those regarding the Company's expected future shipment volumes, revenues, gross margins, and project sales are forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These statements are made under the “Safe Harbor” provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by such terms as “may”, “will”, “expect”, “anticipate”, “future”, “ongoing”, “continue”, “intend”, “plan”, “potential”, “prospect”, “guidance”, “believe”, “estimate”, “is/are likely to” or similar expressions, the negative of these terms, or other comparable terminology. These forward-looking statements include, among other things, our expectations regarding global electricity demand and the adoption of solar and battery energy storage technologies; our growth strategies, future business performance, and financial condition; our transition to a long-term owner and operator of clean energy assets and expansion of project pipelines; our ability to monetize project portfolios, manage supply chain fluctuations, and respond to economic factors such as inflation and interest rates; our outlook on government incentives, trade measures, regulatory developments, and geopolitical risks; our expectations for project timelines, costs, and returns; competitive dynamics in solar and storage markets; our ability to execute supply chain, manufacturing, and operational initiatives; access to capital, debt obligations, and covenant compliance; relationships with key suppliers and customers; technological advancement and product quality; and risks related to intellectual property, litigation, and compliance with environmental and sustainability regulations. Other risks were described in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its annual report on Form 20-F filed on April 10, 2026. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot guarantee future results, level of activity, performance, or achievements. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. All information provided in this press release is as of today's date, unless otherwise stated, and Canadian Solar undertakes no duty to update such information, except as required under applicable law.
CANADIAN SOLAR INC. INVESTOR RELATIONS CONTACT
Wina Huang
Investor Relations
Canadian Solar Inc.
[email protected]

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Plan Commission votes to deny special use permit for proposed solar farm at 36th and Payson Road  Muddy River News
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Heliene, SEG Solar and Canadian Solar have filed a new anti-circumvention inquiry with the US Department of Commerce against Hanwha and other solar cell producers regarding the import of solar cells from South Korea to the US.
This comes a little over a month after a similar petition—filed by a coalition led by The Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade (AASMT)—was filed against Toyo Solar and Origin Solar Manufacturing in Ethiopia, reinforcing the US solar industry’s accelerated protectionist stance (subscription required) against non-domestic-made solar products.
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Unlike the previous anti-dumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) case filed, where Hanwha was part of the coalition with the AASMT, Hanwha finds itself on the other side of the petition. Heliene, SEG Solar and Canadian Solar—styling themselves as the American Manufacturers for ENergy Resilience (AMER)—identified Hanwha as the “leading exporter” of crystalline silicon PV (CSPV) cells from Korea to the US in the inquiry report.
The three solar manufacturers are alleging that by using Chinese wafers, the South Korean cell producers are circumventing the AD/CVD imposed against Chinese crystalline silicon solar cells, whether assembled or not into modules that have been in place since 2012.
Moreover, the inquiry request filed by law firm Lighthill PC, on behalf of AMER, highlights that Korean producers require no domestic research and development (R&D) to complete crystalline silicon (cSI) solar cells using Chinese-origin components.
“Based on available evidence, effectively no ongoing Korean R&D for solar-grade polysilicon, ingot, wafer production exists in Korea because those key CSPV inputs are no longer produced in Korea,” reads the report. “Instead, companies like Hanwha Solutions import ingots and wafers and other key CSPV components from China to produce its cells in Korea.”
Despite directly naming Hanwha and its subsidiary, Hanwha Qcells, or HD Hyundai Energy Solutions, among others, AMER requested the Department of Commerce to conduct a country-wide anti-circumvention inquiry in South Korea.
PV Tech reached out to Hanwha for comments on the alleged anti-circumvention request filed against it and its subsidiaries.
“The case is one of the more interesting cases of AD/CVD to have been put forward recently, and to be honest, one of the least expected. The main cell manufacturer in South Korea that ships to the US is Hanwha QCells, which has made a very significant investment in the US market and has been a petitioner in the majority of the last few AD/CVD cases. They now find themselves becoming the main target of this petition,” explained Moustafa Ramadan, head of PV Tech Market Research.
“Secondly, whereas some Southeast Asian and now some African countries were clear examples of the game of whack-a-mole continuing, South Korea did not seem to be as clear. However, what is clear is the message coming from the US administration, if you want to be in the US you need to manufacture in the US.”
As highlighted by Ramadan, Hanwha Qcells invested more than US$2.5 billion to build a vertically-integrated facility in Georgia, which recently began producing solar cells. Full production—including ingots and wafers—is expected for the third quarter of this year with an annual nameplate capacity of 3.3GW each for ingots, wafers and cells and 3.5GW for modules.

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By Jason Plautz, Camille von Kaenel | 06/24/2026 06:48 AM EDT
With federal incentives gone and local resistance rising, some industry players want a checkoff-style fund to promote renewable energy.
Electricians install solar panels on top of a garage at LaGuardia Airport in New York on Nov. 9, 2021. Mary Altaffer/AP
Is it time for “Got Solar?”
After a brutal start to the second Trump administration, some solar energy insiders are pushing for a public relations blitz to boost the industry’s image and counter opposition from landowners or local officials who have stalled large projects.
There’s even talk of borrowing a tactic from the agriculture industry and tacking a small fee on new solar panels to support public education and workforce development campaigns. The checkoff model is best known for the “Got Milk?” ads — backed by a surcharge on dairy products — that featured celebrities such as Michael Jordan, Britney Spears and the Simpsons with milk mustaches.
“We need to do more to talk about the benefits of solar power, to get away from some of the opposition that has demonized solar power,” said Luigi Resta, CEO of the Utah-based solar company rPlus Energies. “Solar power is ours, we have a right to it.”
Resta’s company has released three self-funded ads with the tagline “Our Power,” including one from the perspective of a solar energy worker comparing his job to the work of his coal mining grandfather.
A checkoff fee could fund similar ads — if industry groups can get on board.
The idea has been kicking around for years, but it’s picked up steam in Democratic-led statehouses across the country in the year since President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans eliminated renewable energy tax credits in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The solar industry is badly outspent by fossil fuel interests in Washington, contributing to a roller coaster of policy and tax incentive changes.
But within the industry, there’s debate about whether an image makeover would make a difference — especially if it involves a small price increase at a time when energy affordability is front and center.
It’s getting the most serious look in California, one of the country’s largest renewable-energy markets. But there’s been discussion too in states such as Virginia, Colorado, New York and Maryland. 
California lawmakers and energy companies have been in early conversations since last year on a possible measure to raise money for the industry.
The talks come as Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state officials have sought to accelerate the permitting of renewable energy projects to meet increasingly strict emissions targets, handle rising demand for electricity, and make up for the loss of federal incentives — all while reckoning with rising anger over high electric bills.
“I’m open to doing it,” said state Sen. Henry Stern, a Democrat from Santa Monica, who’s working with the lobbying group Coalition to Power America to draft legislative language.
The draft bill, which has not yet been introduced, would set up an independent board composed of energy industry representatives that could levy a fee on solar, battery and wind projects. The money could be used to fund research and marketing aimed at speeding renewable energy projects.
Talking points circulated with the draft bill say its goal is to pool and organize industry resources to build utility-scale renewable energy faster and eventually bring down ratepayer costs with cheaper renewable energy. They also emphasize “safety awareness,” a nod to the pushback battery projects have received in local communities after a spate of fires.
Early discussions within industry groups, however, have laid bare disagreements over which projects should be eligible and who should control the funding, stalling negotiations. The issue of energy affordability looms large too, and it is generating some opposition to any added fee on new energy.
“I’m just waiting to see if they can agree,” Stern said. “There’s competing industry priorities.”
The state Legislature has until Aug. 31 to pass bills, which must then get a signature from Newsom to become law.
California Energy Commission Chair David Hochschild, meanwhile, has convened industry players to discuss the idea of marketing funding, according to an email invite obtained by POLITICO.
Niki Woodard, a spokesperson for the California Energy Commission, said the agency does not comment on pending legislation but added that “we support efforts that help California deploy clean energy resources faster in support of our climate and energy affordability goals.”
A bill to create a checkoff program was also floated this year in Virginia, although it was unsuccessful.
Commodity checkoff campaigns have been widely used in the agriculture sector, supporting products such as eggs, beef, cotton, Haas avocados, softwood lumber and even Christmas trees.
USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service currently oversees 21 research and promotion boards. The campaigns must focus on generic promotion, rather than ads for individual products, and can’t include political lobbying.
It’s still unclear what a solar checkoff campaign would look like. The bill introduced in Virginia would have placed a 2-cent-per-watt fee on new solar projects and energy storage systems, with proceeds going to a state treasury fund managed by a 13-member promotion board.
The draft legislation circulated in California this year would impose a similar 1.3-cent-per-watt fee on solar panels. That would add roughly 0.65 percent to the estimated $2-per-watt cost of commercial solar and 0.45 percent to the $2.90-per-watt cost of rooftop solar, according to federal figures.
The bill would also create a $2-per-kilowatt surcharge for energy storage and a $7-per-kilowatt-hour fee for land-based wind projects. The members of the board overseeing the money all would come from the renewable energy industry.
According to a memo circulated as part of the California discussions, the solar fee could raise between $35 million and $81 million per year. The storage fee could raise between $61 million and $86 million.
Many developers, however, question whether that fee is worthwhile, especially when the economics of solar power have made it one of the cheapest new sources of energy.
Even “Got Milk,” while a brand awareness juggernaut, did not stem a decline in cow’s milk consumption.
Some industry officials granted anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations said it might be better to just let solar win on the economic merits alone. Others said there was disagreement over which types of projects should pay a checkoff fee and who should control the resulting funding.
Supporters of the program say it’s a necessary step to get a leg up in Washington, especially after recent policy defeats have left companies sore over federal lobbying failures. For example, industry veteran Steve McBee recently launched a fundraising and advocacy group to shake up traditional clean energy lobbying.
By the numbers, the Solar Energy Industries Association spent $2.8 million on federal lobbying in 2025, by far the group’s biggest outlay, according to data from OpenSecrets. The American Clean Power Association spent more than $5 million that year, also the group’s biggest year.
But those totals pale in comparison to more established energy interests. The Edison Electric Institute, which represents investor-owned utilities, spent $9.4 million that year. The American Petroleum Institute spent $7.8 million, and even individual companies such as Occidental Petroleum and Exxon Mobil outspent the clean energy groups on their own.
SEIA declined to comment. A spokesperson for the American Clean Power Association said the group is not participating in checkoff conversations and declined to comment.
An industry official granted anonymity to discuss the fluid negotiations said the checkoff program is not designed to compete with existing lobbying groups and that the checkoff funds would not support any direct staff. Instead, a governing board would make grants that could go to ACP or SEIA to address the “noneconomic barriers to accelerated deployment of zero-fuel-cost clean energy.”
“However,” the source added, “neither SEIA nor ACP have substantial state and local presence, which is where these barriers to deployment show up, so there is a gap to close.”
The Coalition to Power America, which worked with Stern on the California bill and also advocated for the Virginia bill, is founded by Tom Matzzie, the CEO of CleanChoice Energy.
Matzzie, who has also bankrolled efforts to oust elected officials who oppose renewable energy, declined to comment.
The industry must also navigate issues beyond Washington, with policies around land use, permitting and incentives differing across states, utilities, counties and local governments.
“Trump’s actions are federal, but at the end of the day these projects are implemented at the local level,” said KC Becker, the head of the Colorado Solar and Storage Association and a former speaker of the Colorado House.
“And that takes resources to show up and understand where local governments are or their level of engagement and knowledge,” Becker added. “That means working with municipalities, utilities, building departments, every level of the government.”
Andrew Birch, the founder of the Australian company Open Solar who has also worked in the U.S., said there is a challenge with rooftop solar, which is more expensive in the U.S. than other countries in large part because of slow permitting rules that delay installations. Birch has advocated for the industry to push a federal permitting process to ease the delays and lower costs but said there has been little engagement.
“In the states, we can’t get through the barrier of permitting reform until we get organized as an industry,” Birch said. “We’re an industry that employs several thousand people in every state. Why does the coal industry have such a massive lobby? If we behave like the energy industry that we are, we should have a much bigger presence.”
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Chinese module manufacturer LONGi has launched its Hi-MO 9 Prime series of modules at Intersolar Europe 2026, which have a conversion efficiency of 25.2% and a power output of 680W.
The new modules use the company’s hybrid passivated back contact (HPBC) cell architecture, and measure 2,382mm by 1,134mm by 30mm. The industry standard for large utility-scale panels.
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LONGi claims that the modules can reduce power loss by more than 70%, compared with non-BC modules, during periods of shading. The Hi-MO 9 Prime has a first-year power degradation of less than 1% and a maximum 0.35% annual degradation rate from year two to 30 of its operation, retaining 88.85% of its original power output after 30 years.
The module is on display at LONGi’s stand at this year’s Intersolar Europe event, currently underway in Munich, Germany. This year’s event has already seen a number of new product launches from companies in the European solar sector, and LONGi itself has timed product launches and announcements around the conference; last year, LONGi announced the latest generation of its Hi-MO 9 module ahead of the 2025 edition of the event.
The company also announced the launch of four “scenario-based” variants of its Hi-MO 9 BC series of solar PV modules, designed for use in hail-prone, coastal, windy and dusty environments.
The Hi-MO 9 Ice-Shield module is the first variant, and is intended to be used in hail-prone environments. The front glass of the module is 3.2mm thick, compared to the industry convention of 2mm, and LONGi claims that this has improved overall impact resistance by 4.5 times. Hailstorms have been a significant threat to module operation for several years now, and US-based climate insurance provider kWh Analytics argued that modules would need to be strengthened beyond the standard 2mm glass thickness in order to withstand hail damage.
The next variant, the Sea-Shield module, is designed for use in “corrosive offshore environments”, by using a weather-resistant anodised film, an anti-corrosion frame and a sealed junction box to protect the module’s components from water and corrosive salt damage that is common in coastal solar deployments.
The Hi-MO 9 Edge, meanwhile, uses a steel frame, rather than the industry standard aluminium, which gives the module a 150% boost in material strength and a 25% increase in wind load capacity, according to LONGi.
This means the module is less likely to be damaged by strong winds, which are an increasing threat to modules as they become larger, in order to capture more sunlight, but are then exposed to high wind speeds. Earlier this year, technical advisor VDE Americas also noted that high wind speeds can contribute to the damage inflicted on modules by hailstorms.
LONGi’s fourth regional variant is the Hydro Clear module, which aims to tackle “dust and snow accumulation” in environments where these conditions are common. The company uses a “patented frame design” to eliminate the gap between the short edge of the frame and the front glass, an area in which snow and dust are prone to build up, according to LONGi.
The company noted that all four module variants have “achieved full commercial readiness” and are on display at its booth at Intersolar Europe.

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“We had a spike tonight where I made $37 in about 2 hours, export price spiked around $9.50 per kwh.”
Photo Credit: iStock
For one Australian homeowner, a large rooftop solar setup did more than lower power bills. The system combines a 20-kilowatt solar array, a 10-kilowatt hybrid inverter, and 50 kilowatt-hours of battery storage, which the homeowner said has allowed the house to ride through blackouts while also generating monthly bill credits worth hundreds of dollars.
In a Reddit post, the original poster said the system was installed in October 2025 and that they have been “completely grid independent and every bill has been in credit” since then.
Recent outages, they said, were so seamless that they barely registered: “We’ve had a couple of blackouts since then and honestly, I wouldn’t have even known if my monitoring app hadn’t sent me a notification. The whole house just kept running as normal.” They added that their best month produced a $545 credit.
The homeowner wrote, “A few of my mates got similar systems around the same time, and we’ve become complete solar nerds comparing production, battery cycles and export credits.”
In the comments, one user wrote: “If by ‘nerd out’ you mean ‘have a spreadsheet tracking production, consumption, and cost data’ then yes.”
The original poster said the credit remains on the utility account and can be transferred to a bank account once every three months. They also said electricity purchase prices are “around 0.55c per kWh” and estimated a solar payback period of 2 to 3 years, and 6 to 10 years to break even on their battery system.
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That kind of outcome is not universal, particularly outside Australia. One commenter in the U.S. said, “Here in the U.S., my utility pays out at only .02 cents a kilowatt hour while charging .11 or .13. The best I’ve seen was an $8 credit.” Another shared a stronger result: “the utility sent us a check for $910 for the 7.7mWh net we’d exported for the year.”
Incentives, utility rules, and local rate structures can dramatically affect how quickly solar and batteries pay off for households.
In the Australian homeowner’s case, those variable prices created major upside: “Our import and export prices change every 5 minutes. We had a spike tonight where I made $37 in about 2 hours, export price spiked around $9.50 per kwh.”
There are a few ways you can benefit from solar power. The easiest and cheapest way would be to sign up for community solar if it’s available in your area. However, it’s likely not available where you live yet. Community solar projects are expanding, so keep an eye out for one coming to your region. 
The other option would be to add panels to your home. You can generally do this in two ways: buying them straight up or leasing them. 
If you’re looking to buy, look no further than EnergySage. Its free tools can provide all the information you need to get started, and you can save up to $10,000 in costs through competitive bidding among vetted local installers. 
If you’re not in a place to make a major investment, you can also lease your panels for $0 down through Palmetto’s energy plan. 
No matter how you go solar, it will almost always be a good financial decision. “It’s probably one of the best financial decisions I’ve ever made,” the original poster wrote.
Get TCD’s free newsletters for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here.
© 2025 THE COOL DOWN COMPANY. All Rights Reserved. Do not sell or share my personal information. Reach us at hello@thecooldown.com.

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Controversial 2,000-acre solar farm in Stockton may avoid new rules: Here’s why  AL.com
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Utah’s largest solar and battery storage project is now officially generating electricity.
Developer rPlus Energies announced that the $1.1 billion Green River Energy Center in Emery County, Utah, is now commercially online. The commissioning ceremony took place on June 22. The project combines 400 megawatts (MW) of solar with a 400 MW/1,600 megawatt-hour (MWh) battery energy storage system.
The scale is impressive: Green River Energy Center is built with 993,492 solar panels and 484 Tesla Megapacks, making it the largest solar-plus-storage facility in electric power company PacifiCorp’s six-state service territory.
According to rPlus Energies, the project is expected to generate more than $55 million in property tax revenue for schools and public services. Construction also supported hundreds of jobs, including work performed by local contractors.
Project partners said they committed $375,000 in scholarships for local students pursuing careers that will help strengthen the region’s workforce and energy industry.
The partners also announced a $45,000 donation to the Ferron Fire Department, which serves the area near the project.

Utah is working to increase electricity production through Operation Gigawatt, a state initiative launched in 2024 that aims to double energy production over the next decade to meet growing power demand.
Operation Gigawatt intends to rely mostly on advanced nuclear energy and geothermal energy, along with a mix of renewable and battery storage facilities. However, the state’s plan is not to shut down existing fossil fuel plants, but to add new power capacity to them rather than replace them.
Read more: California solar is crushing natural gas this year
If you’ve ever considered going solar, make it easy by finding a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing by checking out EnergySage. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them. 
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online, and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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Michelle Lewis is a writer and editor on Electrek and an editor on DroneDJ, 9to5Mac, and 9to5Google. She lives in White River Junction, Vermont. She has previously worked for Fast Company, the Guardian, News Deeply, Time, and others. Message Michelle on Twitter or at michelle@9to5mac.com. Check out her personal blog.
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Enphase Energy Launches IQ9N Microinverter For Residential Solar Market In The United States  SolarQuarter
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As European households move toward higher self-consumption of renewable energy through the use of battery storage, HiTHIUM has strategically expanded to bring industrial-grade storage to the home. Designed for developed markets, the company brings its new ARKVOLT series to European residential energy storage customers at a pivotal time for the continent’s energy transition.
Safe, efficient, reliable, and flexible energy storage is the missing piece for homeowners turning to solar power as a low-carbon way to power their lives. With its ARKVOLT series, HiTHIUM prides itself in offering the high performance and high returns customers look for when selecting a home battery. Making energy storage solutions available and accessible for householders can help ease stress on local electricity grids and take the pressure off large-scale renewable energy projects and dispatchable generation by absorbing excess energy during peak generation times and storing it to release on demand.
HiTHIUM’s ARKVOLT series redefines premium residential energy architecture and residential energy storage safety standards through three flagship product lines.
Its flagship mainstream solution – the F8S Series – adopts DC-BOOST technology to increase system throughput by 15% while eliminating series matching issues and long-term cell inconsistency inherent in traditional high-voltage systems. The ARKVOLT F8S Series’ independent battery management supports mixing old and new batteries and seamlessly accommodates 6-15 kW inverters and 8-32 kWh configurations to meet diverse household energy demands. Additionally, it has a lifespan of 11,000 cycles.
The R30 Series, a high-capacity all-in-one system, achieves 30 kWh with only 16 units of 587 Ah ultra-large battery cells. Its highly integrated architecture increases volumetric energy density by 20% over traditional 100 Ah solutions and is specially optimized for large homes and small commercial applications with limited space. With a 300 A high-current direct-output design that minimizes the need for external accessories, the ARKVOLT R30 series reduces system cost by 20% and shrinks installation time by 60%.
HiTHIUM’s ARKVOLT suite is completed by the L16 Series, a low-voltage modular system designed for universal compatibility and environmental resilience. Built on standard 51.2 V architecture, the L16 Series is compatible with 5-6 kW single-phase inverters and supports up to 32 units in parallel. The split modular design – enabling a weight of 65 kg per module – solves the difficulty of transporting large-capacity batteries indoors.
Safety is at the core of HiTHIUM’s business. The R30 is an indoor system that carries an IP20 rating, while the F8S and L16 each feature an IP65 rating. The products are fully IEC, CE, and UN38.3 compliant in accordance with international standards.
Quality and flexibility are embedded in the products’ dustproof and waterproof design, while semi-outdoor installation is possible. Customers in cold climates can choose to add a heating film that enables charging at temperatures as low as -20 C. The highest operating temperature is 55 C.
All ARKVOLT products support 95% depth of discharge (DoD). According to HiTHIUM, this compares favorably with conventional 80% DoD designs and significantly increases total lifetime energy throughput. High cycle life is another advantage, with the ARKVOLT series capable of supporting 11,000 cycles.
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The four high quality PV projects, including a 55 MWp high-voltage project, are due to be connected in 2027, providing valuable additions to Romania’s rapidly expanding utility-scale clean energy generation capacity.
They form part of R.Power’s growing solar, hybrid and energy storage pipeline in Romania, which now amounts to 2 GW.  This includes two operational PV projects and several PV projects awarded Contracts for Difference in Romania’s 2024 auction process. 
“This transaction is a good example of how our CEE solar portfolio is maturing” said Michał Swół, Chief Investment Officer at R.Power. “We have built a substantial pipeline of well-located, grid-secured assets across the region, and we are now seeing that pipeline translate into financed, operational capacity. The confidence that ING and UniCredit have shown in this portfolio reflects the quality of the underlying development and commercialization work as well as the strength of the relationships we have built with our lending partners over many years.”
The transaction is the latest in a sustained period of financing activity for R.Power and brings total project finance secured in 2026 to approximately 250 million euros, emphasising the pace at which the company’s pipeline in Central and Eastern Europe is translating into financed capacity.
“We are pleased to support R.Power in advancing its Romanian solar portfolio, a transaction that further reinforces ING’s commitment to accelerating the energy transition and achieving our Net Zero ambitions” said Oana Mogoi, Head of Energy at ING Bank Romania. “Romania is increasingly attractive for renewable energy investments, supported by strong long-term fundamentals and a growing pipeline of bankable projects. ING continues to finance projects that contribute directly to Romanian’s future, through competitive solutions and a positive and sustainable impact on the long run, supporting leading experienced sponsors such as R.Power and well-grounded structured energy projects.”
R.Power’s overall CEE solar pipeline now stands at 10 GW, spanning Poland and Romania. As this PV portfolio matures, R.Power is also exploring opportunities to maximise the value and resilience of certain sites through co-located battery energy storage, alongside its standalone BESS project pipeline.
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This is the text version for a video—Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) and Internal Rate of Return for Photovoltaic (PV) Projects—about how NREL conducts such pro forma analysis.
It’s Part 4 of NREL’s Solar Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) Tutorials video series.
[Audio begins]
Hello. Thank you for joining us for this section of the tutorial, Methods and Demonstration of LCOE and IRR Calculations, which will be ran by myself, Mike Woodhouse and Kelsey Horowitz.
A review of the topics that our team worked on.  In the upper left you can see an overview of the component manufacturing costs analysis that Brittany and Kelsey went over earlier; systems capital costs analysis that Vignesh just went over in the previous section. And today we’ll be diving into some examples and technical details of project pro forma analysis and that’s what we’ll be diving into in this section.
So, zooming in on that graphic and discussing the metrics that we’ll be shooting for, they include LCOE, which you most likely have heard of. Another one, internal rate of return, which has some advantages that we’ll discuss later. And then a newer metric for us, the levelized cost of solar plus storage, which is also a pro forma analysis involving cash flows.
And on the bottom you can see a graphical representation of the cash flows that could represent what occurs during a life of a PV project beginning with the cost shown on the far left, the upfront capital cost for the installation. So that’s the time from scoping the project to getting it built and commissioned and finally generating power. The would be T = 0 in terms of kilowatt-hour generation.
Then another benefit shown on the top in addition to the kilowatt-hours shown is any incentives that can be monetized like tax credits are relevant in the U.S. for Year 1. Also, depreciation incentives using a tax shelter there can have benefits for PV systems. And then also benefits are feed-in tariff or PPA revenues. We’ll talk more in detail about that later. And residual value on the far right, that enters into the question of what is a PV system and storage system worth at the end of its lifetime? For example, do the components have any recycling value or are they a hazardous waste issue? Or also residual value could also possibly consider the kilowatt-hours that could be generated past the analysis period depending upon how you define that term.
Another cost to track over the lifetime, the lifecycle, in addition to the upfront capital costs are O&M expenses and that includes preventative and routine O&M. Routine O&M could probably be something like module cleaning if you have a set cleaning schedule. Preventative O&M could be vegetation management, things like that, and asset management, so that’s managerial tasks for maintaining the payments to insurance companies and whatever have you. [Laughs]
Then there can also be corrective O&M issues:  battery inverter repairs. Unplanned weather events can also cause corrective O&M responses. Not all cashflows in a PV project are known ahead of time. You try and budget them and predict them as best as possible, but corrective O&M is another item that can enter into the picture at some point.
So, let’s first talk about the capital costs for PV systems. That was covered by Vignesh, and I’ll just summarize it again here. These are representing module pricing and total system pricing more for the U.S. market, not rest of world, so the pricing could look higher relative to rest of world. And then the breakdown of system costs that we derive for Q1 2020 coming in around 95 U.S. cents per watt. So that’s the capital cost that we’ll be using in the model example that I’m going to go through. And I should’ve clarified that that system is for cost model results for a one-access tracking utility-scale system.
The next item is O&M, and O&M includes the preventative planned and unplanned items shown here, and there can be more that can happen. But here’s a list of them at any rate, and we won’t necessarily dive too much into the details of O&M for the purpose of this briefer tutorial.
So now we have an overview of some of the pieces that go into the project proforma. And next let’s talk about how one calculates LCOE and IRR for PV projects. And what we’re going to step through is how to do this within NREL’s System Advisor Model (SAM), which is within NREL’s Strategic Energy Analysis Center, which our team is also within. So, our team does work with the SAM team quite a bit, actually.
And when you do LCOE modeling within SAM, there are two modes that you can select, and it really changes how the cash flow model works within SAM. The first mode is calculating the internal rate of return mode. This is within the SAM software. This is where you click the button for specified PPA price. This is the mode for when the PPA rates are set as input, so if you have a given PPA rate schedule, which could be very relevant to an actual project going in, and if you want to incorporate changes like merchant rates at some point in the pro forma anything where there’s the PPA rates are changing. It’s easiest actually to do this in IRR mode. So, in that you get to change the PPA rates over the time period for the pro forma.
And then the IRR by definition is a discount rate for which the net present value of cash inflows so for a PV project that would – utility-scale PV project, that would most likely include PPA revenues and monetized tax benefits. And it’s when the present value of cash inflows equals the net present value of cash outflows, so that would be the installation cost and the O&M expenses. So, it’s the … what that means is that a higher IRR corresponds to essentially more PPA revenues or greater tax benefits and lower installation costs and lower O&M expenses.
The other mode that you can calculate within SAM is LCOE, and in that case that’s where you specify the IRR target. That is saying that the rate of return still holding that identity where the net present value of cash inflows equals net present value of cash outflows. So, it’s when that IRR is fixed, and you are trying to calculate the PPA rate basically to achieve that IRR. And there are two different modes, but they have their advantages, disadvantages. Actually, it’s not used as commonly. I actually see a lot of advantages in doing IRR mode primarily because of the flexibility it has with inputting various PPA rates over the life of the project, and it’s just clearer to understand the PPA revenue side.  
So, when you run the calculations solar resource, obviously, it affects the result. That’s intuitive. The production of more kilowatt-hours, if you think about the simplified LCOE calculation, dollars per kilowatt or just simplified LCOE dollars per kilowatt-hour. More kilowatt-hours increase the denominator so that lowers the LCOE. In terms of cash flows you can also think of more kilowatt-hours generating more PPA revenues, but we’ll talk more about that later and how that can improve IRR if you’re thinking about it that way. But anyway, we all know that lower LCOE is in sunnier locations, and some of the lowest PPA rates that one will find are typically in the sunniest locations of the world.
Now I’m going to step you through an example of how one could do a conceivable technology evaluation using LCOE IRR methods, and it’s one where we want to examine the impacts of different module warranties on PV project economics. So, what do I mean by that? Let’s look at these curves. The top curve represents zero degradation profiles, so that would mean that the first-year energy yield that you get from the project does not change over time. There’s no degradation. That is a hypothetical, completely theoretical. I don’t know that that’s ever been observed in principle.
So in practice there’s in silicon there’s a lot of times a Year 1 D Rate given on the module warranty datasheets and really these data sheets, perhaps marketing materials as much as anything, but looking at some module data sheets, we found one for an n-Type module. And the N-type module had the lowest Year 1 D Rate given of just two percent that we could find. And then for mono PERC modules, for example, there typically seems to be a higher D rate. Some can be as low as two percent, but what we’re using in this example is what I’ve called a conservative mono PERC warranty degradation profile.
So this is, again, taken from a module data sheet and I’m calling it “conservative” because it gives a high D Rate in Year 1 of three percent and then a pretty high degradation rate, relatively high degradation rate of .7 percent per year for 25 years. That compares to the anti-module of .3 percent per year. So, the conservative warranty profile is higher, relatively high Year 1 D Rate and then a relatively high degradation rate. One can find aggressive, you might call them, mono PERC warranty degradation profiles where there’s 2, 2.5 percent in Year 1 and then I’ve seen some as low as .4 percent per year as the degradation rate.
So, there are different warranty profiles offered by different modules, and this is not to say that n-Type is better than p-Type. Let’s be clear we’re just looking at some warranty profiles given the module data sheets. And we want to translate that to impacts of PV project economics.
You can see this within SAM by going to the tab. It’s within the SAM model called “lifetime and degradation.” It’s when you’re inputting the various input parameters within SAM. And then you’ll see pop up “annual DC degradation rate.” You can use a fixed value so that would be applying one degradation rate across all years or in this example we’re showing a higher D Rate in Year 1 because module warranties most recently, as far as I can tell, give a different Year 1 D rate and then a higher Year 1 D rate than the later degradation rate.
So, if you want to input those customized inputs, you need to go within SAM and edit the degradation schedule. Some tricks that I have found to do this include if you’re doing it in Excel, if you’re trying to program these numbers like 3, 3.68, 4.25 you can see going down, maybe you’ve got a column with data in Excel. Sometimes it does not paste exactly into the SAM I found, and I have to go through the Notes app on a Mac. For you PC users, I don’t know what to tell you. [Laughs] Hopefully, you don’t have these glitches, but there are some tricks to swap that from Excel to SAM. Hopefully, you figure them out. I wish you luck.
After you’ve input the degradation profiles into SAM, you can calculate the project PPA revenues over the life of the project. And I’ll show you in the next slide what this looks like more within an actual SAM model. But for now, these are just results that you could create on a spreadsheet. You take the dollars per kilowatt-hour or dollars per megawatt hour more typically in utility scale, PPA rate x the energy yield x the system size and that’s how you calculate PP revenues in dollars. Just look at the units, and you’ll see the things cross out and give you the units of dollars. So, again, that’s variable PPA rates affect PPA revenues at different years and then energy yield. Higher energy yield is going to create more project revenues and then, obviously, bigger systems would also in pure dollar terms generate more revenues.
So, in this example that I’ve shown, we’ve taken the warranty profiles and multiplied those three factors over the different years. And to remind you, degradation profiles are applied against the first-year energy yield. So as the energy yield declines, the project PPA revenues decline. And so with those different warranty profiles within SAM, you would calculate these different revenue trajectories, and you can see a difference in lost revenues due to the different warranty profiles.
Just to show you where this appears within SAM is what I’m … [Audio skips to next slide]
After calculating project revenues, the next step, the next line in the SAM cashflow model and a lot of other PV project proforma models, is project earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization or EBITDA. EBITDA = PPA revenues minus O&M expenses. So, this is where your O&M factors come in is at the EBITDA stage. And what we’ve shown here, this example of some $6.00 per kilowatt per year O&M expense. That’s the Year 1 O&M expense, and to that we’ve added a 2.5 percent real escalator. So, that is done after talking to some O&M service providers. A lot of them shared that it was their convention to express O&M costs with an escalator, typically understood in that on the order of two maybe to five percent per year. Presumably it includes maybe increased O&M expenses due to time. It’s just like budgeting for an extra O&M budget.
Some people might hold O&M flat, in which case the lines shown in this figure would not be curved. They would be completely flat across the top. But if you look at this, even the zero-degradation profile is curving down because of the escalator that we have included in O&M. Without an escalator, the zero-degradation profile would be completely horizontal.
Now looking at the other degradation profiles, the warranty degradation profile for the n-Type versus the p-Type, again, the n-Type was projected to generate more PPA revenues than the p-Type conservative profile. And so that does also translate to more EBITDA for the n-Type, and so the p-Type would have some lost earnings due to the different warranty profiles. Again, this is just an example system based upon warranty profiles, not saying at all that n-Type is better than p-Type, just looking at warranty profiles.
So now you can see these results also in SAM. It’s below revenues, as I mentioned, and EBITDA, again, shows up as its own line item and it’s PPA revenues minus O&M expenses.
Now, to be honest, if you are doing technology evaluation, I don’t see any problem with stopping at EBIDTA because there you’ve caught all of the technology factors essentially including the degradation characteristics and also the O&M aspects, so the technical aspects of the PV project and storage project could possibly end at EBITDA. However, if you want to account for the interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization so a lot of the tax side, the financing side, then you carry it some steps further, and then you can get to LCOE and IRR.
LCOE and IRR are presumably after tax calculations, and so that factors into the next steps, and it is beyond the scope of this tutorial to go into all the different tax benefits and how to monetize them even within SAM. Different workshop altogether.
But just to summarize, if you did want to go into SAM and input some representative tax assumptions – and I’ll discuss the U.S. here – it’s understanding that a relevant depreciation schedule is five-year MACRS. That’s typical, and in 2020 it’s possible to qualify for a 26 percent investment tax credit in the United States. Next year it’ll be 22 percent for utility scale, and then in 2022 it is 10 percent.
So, in the results of that shown here do this over a 30-year analysis period assumed a $0.95 per watt capital cost that was given in the earlier slide and from Vignesh. We talked about the O&M expense and the energy yield of 2,350. It’s our understanding that’s close to the mean. I believe that was from an LBNL study. So, when you do that, and you can do this totally – these results shown are actually SAM results. Using a $30.00 per megawatt hour fixed PPA rate, we calculated an improvement in IRR of .93 percent or 93 basis points and a lowering in LCOE by $1.2 dollars per megawatt-hour when the IRR is held constant at six percent.
Now if the technology generates more PPA revenues over the lifetime of the project in principle one could pay more upfront for the technology. It has a higher net present value. All of those PPA revenues in the future and higher EBIDTA in the future can be translated back to in the present value after taxes. And what I’ve shown here is just an example break-even analysis for this example shown here, and we calculate that the value of the different warranty profiles works out to be on the order of five to six cents per watt, which is quite remarkable if we consider rest of world module pricing nowadays, not U.S. pricing but rest of world is probably, as far as we hear, 20 or 25 cents per watt. So, this is the value of the module based upon the warranty profile could be on the order of 25 percent or so of the total module selling price. So, this is an interesting topic we feel going forward diving into the total value of the module being more than just the initial price.
I just wanted to… It is with some hesitation that I included this last slide, but I wanted to show an equation roughly for LCOE, and sometimes I think as a community we like to look at this because we’re trying to simplify it and put it all on a PowerPoint or maybe something that will fit within a paper. Really LCOE and IRR calculations most likely involve spreadsheets and pro forma cash flow analysis, but sometimes we try and come up with an equation. It’s an exercise in folly if you ask me. [Laughs]
But nonetheless, here is one, and the advantage of it is you can highlight some technical opportunities like in installation cost, lower installation cost, lower LCOE, reducing the numerator. And installation costs can be reduced by improving efficiency, lower component costs, and then also you get a lower installation cost for fixed tilt versus tracking, for example, the system architecture. But when you do LCOE, you have to consider energy yield, and so maybe there again if it improves energy yield and PPA revenues, it can be worth more paying more upfront initially.
The other important part of LCOE is monetizing any tax credits, and so an item within this equation is depreciation. That’s a significant tax benefit – can be and another one within the United States anyway is the investment tax credit. But if you are not in the U.S. and doing LCOE calculations, I would encourage you to also research what tax incentives can be monetized and would be relevant for your pro forma analysis because it can significantly impact the results.
The other… The denominator, the capacity factor term basically, energy yield. That is the kilowatt-hours generated. So, more kilowatt-hours increases the denominator, lowers LCOE and that, of course, is the function of the system location, the orientation, its tilt angle, whether it’s tracking or not. Bifaciality is another hot topic now for increasing energy yield. Temperature coefficient plays that’s where that comes in, and low light level efficiency if that’s relevant at all so climate effects also affect the capacity factor term, and that’s why greater solar resource equals lower LCOE. The other one, recycling and repowering, we didn’t talk about that. But the recycling or repowering ideas could also factor into residual value. And also the residual value of remaining kilowatt-hours if the project was ended should be considered.
Another factor that’s kind of a liability driven in LCOE calculations since the discount rate is fixed is the PV module and system reliability. Presumably more reliable systems also have benefits in lower discount rates. They lower O&M expenses and, yeah, numerous benefits. And that is the end of my section, thank you. And next I will hand it to Kelsey.
All right, now I’ll walk you through two NREL tools that you can use for calculating levelized cost of energy or LCOE.
The first is NREL’s System Advisory Model or SAM. There’s a link to SAM’s website here. It has a lot of different features, including very sophisticated financial models, many different options for modifying the specifics of module and system technologies and design and for PV the ability to pair with storage and look at how that could impact your project economics.
This can and has been used in detailed site planning and analysis, and we also use SAM on our team for creating the benchmark LCOE numbers that come out in our annual reports. But some researchers find that SAM has a learning curve and can be a bit of  a black box and difficult to accurately and quickly understand potential impacts of different R&D directions without potentially introducing some confounding factors if you don’t really know what you’re doing.
So, because of that, we introduced NREL’s simplified online PV LCOE calculator that also has a link to it here, and this is a much more simplified tool. It’s just online, and it’s specifically targeted at PV researchers who want to quickly explore the potential impacts of different high-level R&D directions. This is also PV specific whereas SAM allows you to calculate LCOE for a myriad of different energy technologies. It’s not as accurate or as fully featured as SAM, so I wouldn’t use this for detailed project planning.
On the other hand, it does include some things that SAM doesn’t like a breakdown of the cost components within a PV module. One caveat to this is that it was last updated in mid-2018, which I’ll talk about a little bit more when I demo the tool. And we are planning an update for the calendar year so, hopefully, that’ll be updated, and in the meantime, this can still give you a rough sense of potential value of different R&D directions.
So now I’m going to go through and actually demo each of these tools for you.
I’m going to walk you through the comparative PV LCOE calculator. It has the web address in the slide deck as well, but it’s just nlr.gov/pv/lcoe-calculator. And, again, this tool’s really meant to be a simple way for researchers to quickly compare incumbent technologies to different proposed technologies or R&D directions to give some sense of their potential value if you don’t have bandwidth or expertise to really fully dive into SAM and make sure that you’re getting a reasonable result with it.
So, this is a somewhat simplified model, and this is what it looks like. You can see there’s this input section here, and then the blue box called Baseline and then a green box called Proposed. So, this blue box Baseline is basically meant to represent an incumbent technology that you would want to compare against. And if you click this preset button here, you can see that there’s a few different baseline preset options to select from. So, you can choose mono-Si, multi-Si or CdTe, which are the technologies with the largest market shares today.
You can also select a package type, so glass-polymer or glass, glass and a system type currently fixed tilt, utility scale, single-axis tracked, utility scale and roof-mounted, residential scale are supported. So, we don’t have commercial mounted onto commercial rooftop in here at this time. And then you pick a location. You can see there’s one location per state, so the state is used to calculate the installed system costs for that state. And then the location corresponds to the length at which we are taking irradiance data to calculate the LCOE for the specific model.
Okay so say I want to look at a multi-Si, glass-polymer backsheet single-axis tracked utility scale in Kansas City, Missouri. I click Use This Preset. It’ll automatically slide these bars and adjust the values, so that they match that preselected technology. And then if you want to do this, you can copy the proposed technology from the baseline. So this may be, for example, if you only have data about how one section of the cell or the system changes with your idea so, for example, you know that you have this new front layer that you’ve created that you think adds 60 cents per meter² for the front layer, but you don’t really have data on the cell cost, backlayer cost, all of these different components of O&M in balance-of-systems, for example. And so you just want to use the presets that are equal to what the incumbent or the baseline scenario because you think that those will stay the same.
Okay so let’s keep going with this example where I have an new front layer that I think costs 60 cents a meter² more than in the traditional cell, and I think that for this I will get a .4 percent boost in efficiency, but then nothing else about the cell will change. And so I can just drag these sliders and update the values. You can also type these in here if you want, so type in 470, 466, and the slider will adjust if you don’t want to actually manually move the slider.
And then if you scroll down here, you can see the baseline LCOE compared to the proposed LCOE, really trying to keep as many other assumptions constant as possible like, for example, the financial parameter discount rate. You could see in this case you get very small savings in LCOE and this particular location because of that small boost in efficiency that you saw, which reduced the tool install system costs and the module costs.
Module price, so one thing to note about this and to be careful of when doing research and trying to evaluate the value of that research is that price point does not always correspond to costs. So in this case this is really the potential cost savings you could get for the balance of module materials like the front glass and the backsheet, et cetera, as you have that higher efficiency, but in reality people may want to charge a premium for that module. And so you may or may not actually see this model cost savings similarly for this system’s installed costs, but it can at least give you some sense of the kind of fundamental value potential savings in terms of module costs, system costs, and proposed the LC weight of your proposed idea.
Like I mentioned in the slide, one caveat to this is the last time this website was updated was March 2018, so it’s using about two-year-old data for the system installed cost model. But system installed cost data actually comes from NREL from cost models that are published annually in our benchmark report. We are hoping to make an update this fiscal year or by the end of this calendar year. And then you’ll be able to see that if you look down in the section with the citation here. And those changes will reflect bold changes to the pricing of the input materials, the installation process itself and improvements to how our model captures impacts of efficiency on system cost. Okay so that’s this tool.
We’ll walk through SAM. This is in no way intended to be comprehensive or help you to be able to actually use SAM at the end of this conversation. But I just wanted to give you an overview, a sense of the look and feel of SAM and how it’s different from the online PV LCOE tool that we just walked through.
So, this is the welcome page for SAM and using the latest version, which is from February 29, 2020. You go up here and start a new project. You can see that SAM allows you to model a variety of different energy technologies, not just PV. If we look at PV, there’s a detailed PV model, PV watts which is only PV watts and then high-concentration PV.
Click on the Detailed PV Model, which is what we use most frequently, and you can see you can look at different types of systems, power purchase agreements, or distributive systems with different ownership models and classes. If you select the No Financial Model, it just uses SAM’s performance module, so you can see the energy production for the system, for example, throughout the year, but it won’t actually calculate the financial parameters or metrics associated with the system.
So, as an example, let’s go through one of these single-owner power purchase agreement systems. So here on the left you have all the different tabs where you can specify the parameters of your system and its finances. So, this location and resource page is just where you put in the location and resource that you want to use for the LCOE modeling and download the weather files here. The module tab is where you put in the module specifications, so there’s a few different options to do this. There’s two libraries One of them is the CEC performance model with module database, and you can see there’s a whole bunch of different options here for commercially available panels from different companies that have the specifications already loaded in here.
The other model with module database is the Sandia PV array performance model. You can click on help or just Google these different databases to get more details on what they are, what they assume and how they’re different. You can also just input efficiency versus irradiance here in a simple efficiency model as well as other characteristics of the panels. Or you can enter your own specifications within the CEC performance model here or use the single diode model.
When we’re doing techno-economic analysis for our benchmark reports, we typically use modules out of the CEC performance module database associated with the technology that we’re looking at from a leading company or a set of leading companies. And then similarly you can select an inverter from this database where they have information about inverters from many different commercial companies or specify some of your own input parameters and load things off an inverter data sheet.
This is the tab where you can put things like AC and DC sizing, the electrical configuration, tracking and orientation. This is something you want to be careful with if you’re doing these calculations … All right, here we go, sorry. When I had selected that other option for the inverter, it had blown up the DC to AC ratio to something really unrealistic. So, anyway, you want to be really careful when configuring all these parameters, so that you don’t get something crazy that causes you to get really high or really low LCOE values. It doesn’t really have anything to do with what you would actually see for the economics of your underlying system with a specific module technology. So, it takes some time to figure out how to configure all of these inputs. You can also input information about shading and more details on the layout of the array here. Losses, losses by type. You can put in monthly soiling values by pasting in an array here or manually entering values.
We just added this tab called Grid Interconnection Limits so, for example, if you can’t output more than a certain amount onto the grid, you can enter that here, and then it won’t let you produce PV beyond that limit on the AC side. You can also insert an array of curtailment values throughout the year. So, you can input degradation rate and other information about the lifetime of the system.
This is the System Cost tab, so what SAM really cares about is the final value here, which is calculated based on all these different inputs. So one of the things that we try to do if we’re doing a parametric analysis, for example, where we want to be able to just vary one cell easily and look at the potential impacts on LCOE is you can set everything to zero except the module cost and put the full system installed cost into this bucket, and then just vary the module cost using this Parametrics tab down here on the bottom left corner and see how that affects your LCOE.
SAM does try to do a good job of configuring their defaults not just for system costs but for all these different parameters. So, they take input from around the lab and other places. And these should be a pretty good representation of some defaults for the median values that you might see in a given year. It’s always good to check those things as well. You also input your operations and maintenance costs here. It’s where you configure your financial parameters. If you have no idea what these should be and you’re trying to compare between technologies, it’s helpful to leave these as the default.
There may be some cases where you actually have reason to believe that a certain technology would, for example, have a higher or lower discount rate if it’s risky or an earlier stage, for example. And so maybe you want to configure those but it’s sort of an advanced analysis. This is where you can input information about the revenue, so SAM doesn’t just calculate LCOE. It actually calculates revenues as well as present value, payback periods, and things like that. So, you can specify any compensation based on tie of delivery, incapacity payments, work curtailment payments if that exists or specify a target IRR, an internal rate of return, or a PPA price.
I’m going through this super fast just to give you a sense of what this tool is. There’s a lot more information and some resources I’ll provide on the next slide about how to use SAM, and you can always click this Help button up in the corner on a given tab as well. Incentives, federal, state incentives, and utility incentives. These are production-based or capacity-based and depreciation parameters. Again, if don’t even know what that means, just leave this alone to stay at the default value.
So, then you come down here and you click Simulate, and SAM creates all of these different output tabs. This is a summary that gives you some of the key metrics you might be interested in, so here’s the nominal and real LCOE for the system, PPA prices, energy yield, capacity factor, net present value, et cetera, here. And then they also have some nice summary charts that automatically output. You can look for more detailed information on a specific set of data here by filtering through these values on the data table. For example, you can look at losses, create your own graphs, look at the actual cashflow in each year. The system plots some different time series values, look at profiles for each month of the year, for example, get some statistics, create heat maps.
So, you can see there’s really a lot of sort of much more sophisticated capability in terms of both input configuration and reporting here, which can be good or bad depending on what you’re trying to do. Certainly, if you’re actually trying to get a very accurate assessment of costs for a specific project or get a little bit more into the weeds on some of the input parameters, this is a tool that will allow you to do that. I’m not going to go into these again just because we don’t have that much time. But you can see here down in the bottom left there’s also a lot of other cool functions with SAM, so you can do parametric analysis really easily here. You can do some stochastic analyses, P50. P90 analyses. And then you can also look at these different macros that have been created and run these.
You’re also able to create your own scripts in SAM, and there’s a Python interface, so you can interact with inputs and outputs of SAM, run SAM through Python, which is pretty nice so a lot of flexibility there. You can see this is where you create a new script and then just very briefly show you if you look at some of these distributed options. It looks very similar here.
But some of these things like these financial parameters, for example, are different because of the way that these systems are financed in the residential market. And then you can also input things like electricity rates for a given location, what type of metering there if it’s net metering or net billing. You can actually search for rates here for different utilities, so because I’m in Colorado with Xcel Energy, I can actually find their rates now. Show the active ones, and say I want to pick this time of use rate that they have so download and apply that rate here. And you can also input the electric load each month or throughout the year, so this is 8760 each hour of the year. And these things all affect the payback period and the finances for a distributed system that’s co-located with the load.
Okay so now I’ll give you a couple tips for using SAM for PV R&D evaluation. Again, there are a lot of things that you should know, not just what I’m showing here because SAM is complicated, and you can easily convolute different effects if you don’t know how to use it. So, I really recommend diving more deeply into their documentation if you’re interested in using this tool. I’ve provided the link again here. You can see they also have a forum and people will answer questions for you.
If you are interested and you do really have the time to learn SAM, it is a very cool tool that you can do a lot of analysis with. So just two things that I’ve noticed when using SAM for PV R&D evaluation. One of them is if you’re trying to look at the effect of efficiency on LCOE, the only thing you need to change in SAM is the total installed system cost under the System Cost tab and that’s per watt. SAM does not automatically calculate how efficiency influences those installed system costs. So you’re going to have to manually compute those values or take data from our latest reports on those topics, which is what I would recommend, and then put it into that installed cost cell in SAM that we just looked at.
If you do change the efficiency using that simple efficiency model in the module tab that we walked through where you could change the efficiency of different irradiance levels, I’ve noticed that you can get some weird effects where the system design will change or the layout will change. And you can see things like the LCOE going up as efficiency increases if you change nothing else. And so you really need to know what you’re doing and be very careful to avoid those issues. So I would actually recommend not changing that if you’re trying to look at efficiency impact, just leaving that efficiency value fixed or using a module from a module database that has other characteristics outside of efficiency similar to what you would expect for your technology even with different efficiency levels.
And that works out because LCOE is actually normalized both in the numerator and denominator by efficiency, so it’s dollar per rated watt divided by watt hour per rated watt, and the rated watts depends directly on efficiency. And so you don’t actually need to change those if you just update the system installed cost and leave everything else the same. You should get the sense of how efficiency impacts the LCOE.
When you are picking that number to put in the installed cost box, I would recommend again using data from our most recent reports on this that use our bottom-up model. We’ve done some recent research that shows if you use a simple efficiency model where you categorize costs as area-dependent or power-dependent and then use a simple equation to calculate cost per watt with efficiency from that, that that is not really an accurate representation of the savings that you can get with the higher efficiency or penalty for lower efficiency. And I have a lot more recent data on this but haven’t quite been published yet. I’d be happy to discuss with you if you have questions.
A second tip for using SAM: if you’re trying to compare across technologies on a technology-only basis in the long term is to use a standard set of financial parameters. And, again, if you have no idea what those should be, SAM does a pretty good job of configuring the default, so it’s okay to just leave those as they are. But if you are trying to commercialize a new technology in the near term, just be aware that there could be some difference in financing costs as you’re pricing in that initial risk of any new technology.
So, again, different ways to use this tool and the online PV LCOE calculator depending on if you’re doing more long-term research planning, try to kind of prepare data for proposals or understand at a high level if a certain research direction is valuable versus near-term planning for projects or technology transfer. All right so that’s it. Hopefully, that was a helpful overview of those two tools.
[Audio ends]
To continue with Part 5 of the Solar TEA Tutorials video series, see Levelized Cost of Solar Plus Storage (Text Version).
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Last Updated May 13, 2026
The National Laboratory of the Rockies is a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation, operated under Contract No. DE-AC36-08GO28308.

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Roofsol Energy has secured INR 260 crore in financing from Aseem Infrastructure Finance to expand its commercial and industrial (C&I) solar IPP portfolio in India.
The company said the funding will support the development of its solar independent power producer (IPP) projects, including installations for JK Tyre & Industries Ltd, a tyre manufacturer, as well as around 100 MWp of additional C&I solar IPP capacity across the country.
Aseem Infrastructure Finance is a Reserve Bank of India (RBI)-registered non-banking financial company (NBFC), classified as an Infrastructure Finance Company (IFC).

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TotalEnergies ENEOS Expands Rooftop Solar Project with Ceres in Indonesia  SolarQuarter
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While transitioning from silver to base metals like copper in solar panels presents manufacturers with significant advantages in cost and availability, new research suggests it could potentially decrease the future economic viability of recycling end-of-life PV modules.
Researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Poland’s Gdansk University of Technology and the Polish Academy of Sciences, have analyzed the material composition of diverse solar panels in the Australian market as part of efforts to better understand the profitability of recycling processes for the growing PV waste stream in Australia and similar markets.
“There is still a lack of comprehensive, experimentally derived data on the material composition of diverse photovoltaic panels in the Australian market,” the researchers said. “This paper addresses this gap by providing a detailed characterisation analysis of 12 different PV panels from various manufacturers.”
The study shows that despite variability in material composition across the different panels, the key components – including aluminium, glass, ethylene and vinyl acetate (EVA) laminate, and solar cells – are all recyclable and meet raw material production requirements.
The researchers said the study also reveals potential barriers for future recycling with the variability between panels produced by different manufacturers posing a threat to effective commercial recycling processes.
Among the issues highlighted is the significant variance in solar cell composition with a reduction of silver content in newer panels. The copper content also varied depending on the cell technology of the panel.
“A consistent year-on-year decline in silver content was observed in solar panels, signalling potential decreases in economic revenue for recyclers,” the researchers said, adding that “this trend warns recyclers of potential decreases in future economic revenue, as silver comprises up to 47% of a panel’s recoverable value.”
The study also shows that the recyclability of each of the components depends heavily on the composition with both aluminium and glass being reduced in value as a result of contamination with various impurities. 
The research team said that while the glass can be recycled, there was obvious variability among the samples with the potential to significantly decrease the recyclability.
“As a result, the only option for recycling the glass in these cases may be downcycling the glass into concrete, aggregates and road base materials …severely diminishing the value of the glass,” they said.
The findings show that up to 98.3% of aluminium frames are suitable for recycling but warned that surface coatings containing high amounts of sulphur decrease purity and economic value.
The researchers said the findings of the study could be used to inform policy development, optimise recycling strategies, and better forecast the economic viability of recycling processes for the growing PV waste stream in Australia and similar markets.
Management of end-of-life solar modules is a significant issue in Australia with an estimated 4 million panels being decommissioned each year. Government analysis shows only 17% of those panels are currently being recycled and forecasts that the waste stream will increase to more than 90,000 tonnes annually by 2030, and a cumulative 1 million tonnes by 2035.
The study “Beyond assumptions: Experimental characterization of end-of-life photovoltaic panels composition for recycling in Australia” was published in Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells.
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A two-day conference in Austin, Texas, bringing together leaders in US solar manufacturing, equipment specification, and factory execution.
Saudi Arabia is accelerating its clean energy transition—join the SunRise Arabia Clean Energy Conference 2026 in Riyadh to explore how solar PV and energy storage are powering its digital economy.
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From pv magazine Australia
Australia’s rooftop solar market reached a record high in March 2026, with 341 MW of small-scale PV capacity registered, according to SunWiz.
The monthly total for systems up to 100 kW represents an almost 20% increase from February and puts the market 16% ahead of the same point in 2025, the analyst said.
SunWiz Managing Director Warwick Johnston said the surge reflects strong momentum in the Small-scale Technology Certificates (STC) market and points to a potentially strong year for rooftop solar installations.
He attributed the growth in part to the federal government’s AUD 7.2 billion Cheaper Home Batteries Program (CHBP), which provides rebates for energy storage systems installed alongside rooftop PV. The program has supported the deployment of about 300,000 batteries since its launch.
Johnston said increased battery adoption is driving demand for larger solar systems, as higher-capacity storage requires greater generation. This trend is pushing up both average system sizes and total installed capacity.
The increase in rooftop solar installations was recorded across all states, with the Northern Territory posting 43% month-on-month growth and New South Wales rising 32%. Most system size segments expanded, particularly those up to 50 kW, while the 75 kW to 100 kW segment declined slightly.
Battery installations also reached a record, with nearly 1.6 GWh of small-scale energy storage capacity registered in March, up 35% from the previous month.
SunWiz said the increase was driven by a surge in installations ahead of changes to the CHBP scheduled for May 1, when the rebate structure will shift from a flat per-kWh incentive to a tiered system based on battery size. The government said the revised scheme will maintain an average discount of about 30%.
Average battery size reached a record 40 kWh in March, with most systems clustered in the 40 kWh to 50 kWh range.
New South Wales recorded more than 600 MWh of battery installations during the month, a 44% increase from February and a new state-level high.
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Thursday, July 9, 2026
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Entries open in seven categories: Modules, Inverters, BoS, BESS, Manufacturing, Sustainability, Projects.
April 01 – August 31, 2026
A two-day conference in Austin, Texas, bringing together leaders in US solar manufacturing, equipment specification, and factory execution.
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Solar, wind, and batteries are outpacing every power boom in history — and they’re still speeding up  Yahoo
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Africa’s Biggest Solar Mini-Grid Operator Sells Stake to Expand  Bloomberg
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A $95 million rays: ARENA backs UNSW, CSIRO and other unis to improve solar panels  Startup Daily
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UPSC Weekly Concepts Snapshot | From solar-powered highways to coral reefs: What’s behind this week’s headlines?  The Indian Express
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Innagreen acquires 50MW UK PV site from RES  reNews
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Apostolos Tomaras
The signing of contracts for Cyprus’ first central electricity storage systems marks a major step toward reducing the solar energy that is currently being wasted from both residential and commercial photovoltaic systems.
The project involves the installation of three battery storage systems with a combined capacity of 120MW by the Cyprus Transmission System Operator (TSO). In simple terms, the batteries will store excess solar power that would otherwise be lost when photovoltaic systems are forced to reduce output to protect the stability of the electricity grid.

According to official figures, Cyprus lost 306GWh of solar energy in 2025 due to these curtailments. That amount of electricity would have been enough to help meet demand even during periods of high consumption, when the grid operator was forced to implement power cuts.
A key role in the project will be played by CYTA, which has been tasked with delivering the systems by the first half of 2027. Under the contract signed between the TSO and CYTA, the batteries are expected to be delivered in January 2027 and installed over the following two to three months, allowing them to become operational before the summer of that year.
The project
The storage systems are being implemented under a decision issued by the Cyprus Energy Regulatory Authority (CERA) in June 2025, instructing the TSO to develop energy storage facilities at three existing transmission substations.
The project carries a price tag of approximately €50 million and will be funded through the EU’s Thalia 2021-2027 Cohesion Policy Programme.
The three battery systems will be installed in different parts of the island:
The locations were selected to maximize the benefits of energy storage while allowing direct connection to the transmission network.
According to the TSO, this setup will not only store surplus renewable energy but also provide essential backup reserves to the electricity system without restrictions, benefiting the entire grid.
More projects waiting in the pipeline
Beyond the three government-backed systems, there is growing interest from both public organizations and private investors in energy storage.
The TSO currently has 36 applications on its registry for battery storage projects with a combined requested capacity of around 925MW.
The Electricity Authority of Cyprus (EAC) is among the most active applicants. According to the latest connection applications list published by the TSO, the EAC has submitted plans for:
Together, the two projects would add 180MW of storage capacity.
Several private-sector projects are also advancing. Among the most mature applications are:
Additional projects are planned in Arediou, Platanisteia, Orounta, Alambra and Palaiometocho, with a combined capacity of 60MW.
Solar cutbacks to continue for now
Until the first battery systems become operational, the TSO will continue curtailing solar production and may still need to implement electricity supply restrictions depending on demand levels.
Cyprus currently has more than 1,040MW of installed solar capacity, while average electricity demand stands at around 650MW.
Because there has been no large-scale storage available, the grid operator has had to regularly limit solar generation. As a result, 306GWh of renewable energy was lost in 2025, up significantly from the 167GWh curtailed in 2024.
According to EAC data, daily peak solar curtailments ranged from around 50-100MW on milder days, mostly during winter, to more than 300-400MW on sunny days during spring, summer and autumn.
Last month alone, daily peak curtailments ranged from roughly 80MW to more than 300MW.
Government sees boost for green energy
The government welcomed the signing of the contract, describing it as a milestone for Cyprus’ energy transition.
Energy Minister Michalis Damianos said the project demonstrates the government’s commitment to energy storage and the broader green transition strategy.
He said the batteries will help increase the use of renewable energy, create a more efficient and reliable electricity system, and reduce pollution.
The TSO also welcomed the growing investment interest from private developers, stressing that all storage projects are needed if Cyprus is to meet its national and European renewable energy targets.
Officials say the expected long-term result will be less wasted green energy, fewer emissions and, ultimately, lower electricity costs for consumers, alongside improvements in the overall reliability of the power system.
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With energy costs rising, Massachusetts should make solar simpler  The Boston Globe
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CEO Yair Amsterdam says the company’s flexible solar panels weigh just over 13 pounds, allowing installations on buildings and structures unsuitable for traditional systems
Israeli solar technology company Apollo Power showcased its latest innovations at Intersolar Europe in Munich, one of the world’s largest renewable energy exhibitions, as demand for flexible and scalable clean energy solutions continues to grow worldwide.
Speaking at the event, Apollo Power CEO Yair Amsterdam highlighted the company’s lightweight and flexible solar panel technology, which he said offers a significant advantage over traditional solar systems.
Unlike conventional solar panels, which typically weigh 66 to 88 pounds, Apollo Power’s panels weigh just over 13 pounds, allowing them to be installed on a wider range of surfaces and structures. The reduced weight allows them to be installed on a wider range of surfaces, including older buildings, sports stadiums and curved rooftops that may not be able to support standard glass panels.
“Most solar farms require heavy, expensive construction to support traditional solar panels,” Amsterdam said. “Our technology eliminates much of that need and opens up new opportunities for solar energy generation.”
The flexibility of the panels also enables installations on structures and surfaces that were previously unsuitable for solar power, expanding the potential footprint of renewable energy production.
Apollo Power is using the conference to introduce several new products, including solutions for lightweight structures, defense applications and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).
The annual exhibition has drawn more than 100,000 visitors and over 2,000 companies from around the world, serving as a major platform for emerging technologies in the solar industry.
Amsterdam described the event as an important gathering for innovators and industry leaders. “This is the place where the solar industry comes together,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to showcase technology and build partnerships.”
Asked about the reception toward Israeli companies amid ongoing geopolitical tensions, Amsterdam said the focus at the conference remained firmly on business and innovation.
“We are not speaking about politics here, only about solar energy,” he said, adding that discussions at the event have centered on technology and industry collaboration.
Amsterdam also pointed to Apollo Power’s manufacturing base in Israel as a competitive advantage. As Europe and the United States increasingly seek alternatives to Chinese-made solar products, he said the company is well-positioned to meet demand for high-quality solar technology produced outside China.

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That combination would allow electricity generated during the day to be stored for later use.
Photo Credit: Terra-Gen
A huge solar project has just cleared a major hurdle, and it could deliver a substantial financial boost along with cleaner power.
Terra-Gen, a renewable energy producer in the United States, has received county approval to move ahead with the Discovery Solar PV and Storage Project, a 7,700-acre facility. KGET reported that the Kern County Board of Supervisors approved the plan in a 3-1 vote on June 16 for a Mojave-area site in unincorporated Kern County, California.
Power from the proposed 1,400-megawatt solar installation would be paired with an 8-gigawatt-hour battery energy storage facility. That combination would allow electricity generated during the day to be stored for later use, helping keep power available after sunset and during periods of high demand.
Developers expect the site to create 470 construction jobs and begin operating by late 2029, according to KGET. The outlet also reported that Terra-Gen solar development vice president Sam Sours said the project is projected to generate about $44 million in property taxes in its first year, roughly $200 million by year five, and an estimated $750 million over its 35-year lifespan.
Large solar farms paired with battery storage can help strengthen the electric grid, especially during extreme heat, when energy demand tends to surge. That can improve reliability for homes and businesses while reducing dependence on polluting energy sources that contribute to unhealthy air.
The tax revenue could also be significant for Kern County. Property taxes from a project of this scale may help support public services, infrastructure, and other local needs without placing the full burden on residents. Construction jobs and continued energy investment could also bring economic benefits to the region.
💡EDF’s Vital Signs newsletter delivers stories about game-changing solutions close to home and around the world
These neighbors now pay nothing on their electric bill
In extreme weather, solar and wind help keep the lights on
With gas prices skyrocketing, it’s a great time to buy an electric vehicle
These wins prove fighting for our planet is worth it
Adding solar panels to your home can lower or even eliminate your energy bills, especially when paired with battery storage and energy-efficient electric appliances. 
If you’re interested in going solar, EnergySage is the perfect place to start. It has tons of free resources, including a Solar Calculator that can estimate your energy savings. EnergySage can also help you save up to $10,000 by getting competitive bids from vetted local installers. If buying panels isn’t in your budget, Palmetto’s LightReach leasing program costs $0 down and can save you up to 20% on your utility rate.
Get TCD’s free newsletters for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here.
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Jupiter International has begun production at its 1.25 GW TOPCon solar cell manufacturing line in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh. The site also houses 2 GW of monocrystalline PERC solar cell manufacturing capacity.
The company additionally operates a 1.3 GW integrated cell-and-module manufacturing facility in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, established in partnership with AMPIN. The facility was developed under the Indian government’s production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme. Modules produced through the partnership are intended for AMPIN’s captive use as well as supply to third-party developers.
Jupiter International is also developing a 3 GW solar cell manufacturing facility and a 1.5 GW module manufacturing facility in Nagpur, Maharashtra.

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The June issue of pv magazine Global is out now!
Available in print and digital – get your copy today!
Thursday, July 9, 2026
11:00 am – 12:30 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Be part of the high-level European conference on solar and energy storage, exploring bankable BESS projects, warranties, and energy management for residential and C&I sectors
Entries open in seven categories: Modules, Inverters, BoS, BESS, Manufacturing, Sustainability, Projects.
April 01 – August 31, 2026
A two-day conference in Austin, Texas, bringing together leaders in US solar manufacturing, equipment specification, and factory execution.
Saudi Arabia is accelerating its clean energy transition—join the SunRise Arabia Clean Energy Conference 2026 in Riyadh to explore how solar PV and energy storage are powering its digital economy.
Showcase your brand across all our platforms: from 13 websites in 7 languages to our magazines, daily newsletters, industry events and more. Reach your audience the right way!
We are participating in Intersolar 2026 again this year! Visit us at our Booth Hall 2 A2.250 to discuss the latest trends within the photovoltaic industry with the pv magazine team.
June 23-25, 2026 | MUNICH, GERMANY

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From pv magazine Australia
The next round of the Australian government’s Capacity Investment Scheme (CIS) is officially open, providing renewable energy project developers with the opportunity to register and bid for underwriting contracts for generation projects in the National Electricity Market (NEM).
CIS Tender 9 – NEM Generation is seeking an indicative target of 5 GW of renewable energy generation capacity and will be open to all NEM jurisdictions except New South Wales (NSW), where proponents can participate in the re-started NSW Roadmap generation tenders.
AusEnergy Services Limited (ASL), which is delivering CIS Tender 9 on behalf of the federal government, said allocations for the 5 MW total targeted include 300 MW generation target for Tasmania and 1.6 GW for Victoria where a 470 MW capacity limit on solar-only projects will apply following a request by the state government.
The remaining 3.1 GW capacity is yet to be allocated but could potentially be awarded to projects in Queensland or South Australia.
CIS Tender 9 also includes a dedicated 500 MW capacity allocation for projects that commit to implementing First Nations equity and/or revenue sharing arrangements. To qualify, proponents must demonstrate commitments with First Nations partners equivalent to at least 5% equity participation and/or revenue.
According to the tender guidelines, the tender is open to renewable power generation projects with an installed capacity of at least 30 MW and able to show a credible pathway to achieving commercial operations before the end of 2030.
Registrations for CIS Tender 9 close on 6 July 2026 with bids to close later that month. Successful bids are expected to be announced in November 2026.
The launch of CIS Tender 9 coincides with the announcement of the results of Tender 7 under the federal program that aims to deliver 26 GW of renewable generation capacity and 14 GW of clean dispatchable capacity by 2030.
To date the CIS has revenue underwriting agreements to 74 solar, wind and energy storage projects, totalling 24.93 GW of generation capacity and 34.67 GWh storage capacity.
The CIS has also underwritten a further 14 renewable energy projects totalling 1.9 GW of generation and 8.378 GWh of storage in the separate Western Australia market.
The outcomes of CIS Tender 8, which is seeking 4 GW of dispatchable capacity in the NEM, are expected to be announced next month.
Tender 10 – NEM Dispatchable Capacity is expected to open next month.
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The June issue of pv magazine Global is out now!
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