A half-year report that ranks first in global shipments but records a book loss of over 3 billion yuan, a convertible bond whose conversion price has been revised downward twice within one year, and a full-year shipment target cut have made JinkoSolar’s performance in the first half of the year particularly eye-catching.
On September 3, the RMB 10 billion convertible bond it previously issued continued to revise its conversion price downward, aiming to ease the pressure of maturity redemption; not long ago, it just lowered its full-year shipment target from 75-85GW to 60-70GW.
What is more difficult to interpret than the financial statements is the sudden change in the power landscape.
In March, JinkoSolar, the A-share listed company, revised its articles of association for the first time, adding the clause that “a vice chairman can be set up”. Chen Kangping, a veteran figure in the “Iron Triangle”, resigned as general manager and took this position. Cao Haiyun with a financial background, Jiang Rui who came from a brokerage firm, and Chang Chen, the post-85s financial director, all joined the core management team. Just four months later, Chen Kangping completely resigned from his position and withdrew from the listed company entirely. The highlight on August 26 was that Li Xiande, the founder of the company, resigned as CEO of JKS, the New York Stock Exchange listed entity, and was succeeded by Du Wei, who has a background in strategic investment.
Many media comments said that for JinkoSolar and Li Xiande, this set of combined punches may mean that the years-long obsession with “global No.1” has loosened.
Li Xiande is known as a “tough guy”. During the photovoltaic crisis in 2009, he spent 300 million yuan in a week to buy the dip; in 2023, he invested tens of billions of yuan to rush the TOPCon (Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact) production capacity, thus becoming the richest man in Jiangxi Province… He believes in reverse philosophy — the more the market is in a downturn, the more confident you should be.
But this summer, he has repeatedly “stepped on the brakes”.
China Entrepreneur learned from JinkoSolar that this personnel change is a planned management handover to facilitate the founder to focus on long-term strategic layout.

Source: Visual China
JinkoSolar, which is still advancing aggressively in recent years, is an extreme sample of this photovoltaic winter. In 2025, the company ended its 12-year consecutive profit record, with a net loss attributable to shareholders of 6.882 billion yuan. Entering 2026, the bleeding has not stopped — in addition to the poor revenue and profit data, financial expenses surged 589% year-on-year to 1.546 billion yuan, exchange losses became a “new black hole” on the income statement, and its asset-liability ratio has reached as high as 76.17%.
However, the two listed companies completed the reshuffle of the core management line in the same period, and the new helmsmen are not from the traditional manufacturing industry, which inevitably makes the industry speculate that Li Xiande is going to make major adjustments to his business strategy.
Cao Haiyun, who took office not long ago, clearly stated in an exclusive interview in June that in the next three years, JinkoSolar will “firmly not follow the trend of low-price scale involution”, and shift the strategic priority from expanding production scale to “in-depth technological breakthroughs, large-scale coordination of solar and energy storage, and global resilience upgrading”. By actively lowering the shipment guidance, the company even put “profit, cash flow and order quality” before scale.
The international market is becoming more complex, and JinkoSolar’s overseas revenue accounts for more than 75%, which was originally its biggest confidence to get rid of the involution in the domestic market. However, as markets such as the United States strengthen compliance control over Chinese photovoltaics, and exchange rates fluctuate, the cost risk of heavy assets has increased accordingly. Many shareholders are puzzled, and someone on Xueqiu asked: The overseas proportion and gross profit margin are both at a high level, why is there such a large loss?
This is not a difficult question to answer, but it does require a solution. Judging from the half-year report, the answer given by JinkoSolar is energy storage — up to now, the signed energy storage orders are about 5GWh, high-potential orders are 5.3GWh, and reserve orders exceed 20GWh. Estimated at market prices, this is an income source with a scale of tens of billions of yuan.
But this is not enough for Li Xiande to break out of the logic of the manufacturing industry. Some industry observers pointed out that JinkoSolar is caught in a dangerous paradox — to get rid of losses, it must reduce costs and improve efficiency; to reduce costs and improve efficiency, it must increase R&D investment, which will exacerbate cash flow pressure in the short term.
Moreover, all manufacturing companies involved in overseas business face the same challenge — the non-operational risk of exchange rate management may be more difficult to tame than the price war in the main business, and the difficulty has been increasing in recent years.
From this perspective, Li Xiande is not “stopping”. Changing leaders on both A-share and US stock markets, family members retreating from the front line of operation, financial professional managers taking over both platforms, and the strategic weight of energy storage business being greatly increased — these actions point to, perhaps not a retreat, but a systematic reconstruction from the top-level power structure to the financial operation logic.
However, when “the first shipment volume” can no longer prevent losses, whether his new script can work is still an unanswered question.
To understand the meaning of Li Xiande’s “stepping back half a step”, we have to go back to his history of starting a business.
In the photovoltaic industry, the first impression the outside world has of him is a refined Jiangxi “scholar” who loves writing essays, but he is called a daring “tough guy” by his peers — his contrasting and wild business style is widely spread.
Li Xiande showed his sensitivity to capital very early. In 2007, he “used the chicken to lay eggs”, receiving nearly 200 million yuan in advance payments from downstream customers, and immediately expanded his production capacity. He continued to expand the following year: in May, he obtained 35 million US dollars from a Singaporean private equity fund; in August, he obtained more than 20 million US dollars from institutions such as Shenzhen Venture Capital.
But after getting the money, he suddenly calmed down. After seeing the figures of “polysilicon demand increased by 30% while supply surged by 120%”, he took the initiative to step on the brakes. Then, during the large-scale photovoltaic industry reshuffle affected by the US subprime mortgage crisis, he escaped the disaster with a huge amount of cash in hand.
In 2009, when more than half of the photovoltaic enterprises were still stuck in the mire, Li Xiande only spent a week to acquire the first photovoltaic enterprise in Haining, Zhejiang — Sun Valley Energy, with nearly 300 million yuan. The cell production lines owned by this company just filled the gap of JinkoSolar from silicon wafers to cells.
The next year, he took JinkoSolar to list on the New York Stock Exchange, becoming the first Chinese photovoltaic enterprise listed in the United States after the financial crisis, and raised 70 million US dollars.
After this battle, Li Xiande and JinkoSolar became famous throughout the industry.
Later, while heavily investing in Europe and the United States, he also entered Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, making JinkoSolar the most aggressive photovoltaic company in global expansion; in addition, he took the lead in betting on monocrystalline silicon, raising the production capacity to the first echelon of the industry before the industry was still hesitating between monocrystalline silicon and polycrystalline silicon, and reached the top of global module shipments at one stroke.
After establishing the market scale, Li Xiande’s capital movements became more intensive.
In 2020, after the “dual carbon” goal was proposed, domestic market demand grew rapidly. JinkoSolar, which was only listed overseas, could not raise funds as fast as its domestic competitors, and its shipment volume was overtaken by LONGi Green Energy, even falling to the fourth place in 2021.
Li Xiande’s choice was to spin off his main operating subsidiary, Jiangxi JinkoSolar, to list on the A-share market. At that time, some investment bankers said that compared with the path of privatization and delisting before returning to A-shares, spinning off part of the assets would greatly shorten the whole process. But this corresponds to the subsequent governance problems of the “parent-subsidiary” structure, the asset value discount caused by “incomplete” assets, and potential regulatory and compliance risks.
But he just wanted to save time. In 2022, the A-share photovoltaic sector was in a boom period. After JinkoSolar landed on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board, its market value exceeded 100 billion yuan on the first day.

Source: AI Generated
The financing channels were completely opened. By August 2023, JinkoSolar had carried out three huge financings, with a total scale of nearly 30 billion yuan. Li Xiande then proposed “All In” TOPCon, recaptured the first place in global module shipments in 2023, and became the richest man in Jiangxi with a personal net worth of 35.3 billion yuan.
JinkoSolar’s dual listing structure of “US stock + A-share” is very rare in the photovoltaic industry.
In essence, the US stock market is its “birthplace”. With the logic of exchanging technology for financing, it completed the A-share listing — some media called this a kind of “arbitrage”, using mature overseas technology to exchange for high valuation and low-cost capital in the domestic capital market.
But in the current environment, the disadvantages of this structure are becoming more and more obvious. The most intuitive result is that JinkoSolar’s financial expenses in the first half of the year were as high as 1.546 billion yuan, a year-on-year surge of nearly 6 times, mainly dragged down by exchange losses.
JinkoSolar’s overseas revenue proportion is still growing, exceeding 75%. When the exchange rate fluctuates, the foreign currency assets on the books will generate floating changes.
What is more fatal is that frictions in overseas markets are escalating day by day. First Solar, a US photovoltaic enterprise, filed a “337 Investigation” application with the US International Trade Commission (ITC), listing 47 leading global photovoltaic enterprises including JinkoSolar as defendants, pointing to core patent infringement of TOPCon cells, among which 8 JinkoSolar-related entities were included in the list.
The photovoltaic industry has reached the moment when the capital blood bar is “almost empty”. How to allocate the overseas assets that used to be the source of profit so as not to drag down the performance has become a top priority.
Du Wei, the newly appointed CEO of JinkoSolar’s US stock platform at this time, is obviously more professional in “capital”. He is not from the traditional manufacturing industry, holds a master’s degree in finance, and his past resume focuses on capital allocation and investor relations — he once served as executive general manager of investor relations at Fosun Yuyuan Co., Ltd.; in 2021, he joined the JinkoSolar system, successively serving as chairman assistant, general manager of strategic investment, and vice president of strategic investment.
For Li Xiande, on the one hand, there is the uncertainty of the overseas market, and on the other hand, it is the critical period of technical confrontation between BC (Back Contact) and TOPCon in the domestic market. The strategic choice at this time will determine the life and death of JinkoSolar.
His “stepping back half a step” is more like risk avoidance — the tricky front line of the US stock market is handed over to more professional professional managers, and the core position he wants to hold is the A-share base camp loaded with industrial assets.
JinkoSolar’s situation in China really requires a major reorganization.
The primary task is “debt reduction”. On September 3, JinkoSolar held an interim shareholder meeting to revise the conversion price downward, further lowering it from 6.35 yuan/share to 4.36 yuan/share.
This is the “Jinkang Convertible Bond” with a scale of 10 billion yuan issued in 2023, which is used for the construction of projects such as annual production of 11GW high-efficiency cells, 8GW highly automated modules, 20GW rod pulling and square cutting, and supplementing working capital. This convertible bond was regarded as the largest capital operation after JinkoSolar’s return to A-shares at that time.
Including the 56GW vertical integration project of the “Shanxi Large Base”, and the tens of billions of yuan projects in Haining, Zhejiang and Shangrao, Jiangxi, JinkoSolar invested huge sums of money in TOPCon only in the first half of 2023.

Source: AI Generated
But the subsequent cold winter period turned a series of capital operations into a heavy historical burden. Last year, the conversion price of “Jinkang Convertible Bond” had been revised downward from 13.48 yuan/share to 6.35 yuan/share. The intention is very clear: JinkoSolar encourages holders to convert their bonds into shares, so as to ease the pressure of maturity redemption, and does not hesitate to dilute more equity for this purpose.
In the early stage, many investors on Xueqiu made sharp remarks: the JinkoSolar system is in a state of high debt, high capital expenditure and low own cash flow, and the new business is more like a “story asset” created for financing; the model of “renewing loans by themes, sustaining life by financing, and maintaining collateral by stock price” will eventually end up with the story unable to continue, the capital chain completely broken, the project unfinished, and the valuation returning to zero…
Up to now, JinkoSolar has recorded losses for 7 consecutive quarters.
This year, Li Xiande started to make adjustments. Different from the “professional manager” model he often talks about, JinkoSolar’s core management has long had a strong family co-governance attribute, but this structure has changed this year.
In March, Chen Kangping resigned as general manager of JinkoSolar’s A-share listed company and transferred to the post of vice chairman. At that time, the industry speculated that JinkoSolar was gradually downplaying the color of a family business. Four months later, Chen Kangping resigned all his positions including vice chairman, director and member of the Strategy and Sustainability Committee, completely withdrawing from the listed company and all its subsidiaries.
The new successor is Cao Haiyun, the former person in charge of finance. Similar to Du Wei’s background, he also has strong financial attributes — a financial veteran with Chinese Certified Public Accountant and American Certified Public Accountant qualifications, and experience from PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Chen Kangping has a deep foundation in the JinkoSolar system. Since joining the company in 2007, he has been present at every stage of the company’s financing, listing, and capital operation. He is also the brother-in-law of Li Xiande, forming the “Iron Triangle” of JinkoSolar with Li Xiande and Li Xianhua. The three indirectly control more than 50% of the company’s shares — which is also regarded as the underlying bond that there has never been internal strife in the
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Imagine a battery that never needs to be plugged in. A battery that charges all day from sunlight and continues to recharge at night under nothing more than the glow of an ordinary desk lamp. Researchers from UNIST (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology) and the University of Cambridge have turned this concept into reality with a new photobattery that achieves a 70% charge in just 10 minutes under standard sunlight and continues to harvest energy from indoor lighting.
The study, published in the August 2026 issue of Energy Storage Materials, represents a significant leap forward in a field that has struggled for years with low efficiency and limited practical applications. The secret? A modular design that separates the solar-harvesting component from the storage unit, allowing each to be independently optimized.
Table of Contents
A photobattery is a device that combines energy harvesting and energy storage into a single unit. Unlike a traditional solar panel system, which requires separate panels, inverters, and battery packs, a photobattery integrates the light-absorbing material directly with the electrochemical storage cell. The result is a compact, self-charging power source that can convert light into stored electrical energy without external wiring or complex electronics.
The concept has existed in research labs for over a decade, but previous designs suffered from a critical flaw: the materials optimized for absorbing light were poor at storing energy, and vice versa. Earlier photobatteries typically achieved efficiencies of only 5% to 10%, making them impractical for real-world use. The UNIST-Cambridge team’s approach of decoupling these two functions has finally broken through that barrier.
The key innovation in the UNIST-Cambridge design is its modular architecture. The photobattery consists of two distinct components: a solar cell module that captures light and converts it into electrical energy and a battery module that stores that energy. The solar cell modules are designed to be swappable, meaning they can be upgraded or replaced as solar cell technology improves without needing to replace the entire battery unit.
The solar cells used in the prototype are perovskite-based, a class of materials that has been revolutionizing the solar energy industry due to their high efficiency, low manufacturing cost, and ability to be tuned to absorb different wavelengths of light. For the photobattery, the perovskite cells are specifically optimized to harvest energy from both outdoor sunlight and the lower-intensity light found indoors.
The battery module remains fixed and is designed to efficiently store the energy harvested by the solar cells. By separating the storage function from the light-harvesting function, the researchers were able to optimize each component independently, resulting in a system that far outperforms earlier integrated designs.
In testing, the photobattery achieved a remarkable 70% state of charge within just 10 minutes of exposure to standard sunlight (approximately 1,000 watts per square meter). But perhaps more impressive is its performance under indoor conditions: at 1,000 lux, which is the typical brightness of a well-lit office, the photobattery continues to charge steadily.
The ability to charge from indoor lighting at 1,000 lux is what sets this photobattery apart from conventional solar-powered devices. Standard solar panels are designed for outdoor sunlight, which is roughly 100 times brighter than typical indoor lighting. They produce negligible power indoors. The UNIST-Cambridge photobattery, by contrast, is engineered to operate efficiently at the light levels people actually live and work in.
This opens up a vast range of applications for devices that operate indoors: Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, wearable health monitors, smart home devices, remote environmental sensors, and medical equipment. These devices typically rely on small batteries that need periodic replacement or recharging, creating maintenance burdens and electronic waste. A photobattery that can continuously recharge from ambient indoor light could make many of these devices effectively self-powered.
Researchers at UNIST have been at the forefront of indoor solar technology. Their work builds on years of research into indoor solar cells that can generate electricity from home lighting, a field that has been gaining momentum as IoT devices proliferate and demand for sustainable, maintenance-free power sources grows.
The photobattery is not the only technology attempting to harvest energy from ambient light indoors. Several approaches have been explored over the years, each with different trade-offs:
The modular photobattery addresses the limitations of all these approaches. It harvests efficiently in both indoor and outdoor conditions, stores energy for later use, and achieves far higher efficiency than previous integrated designs. Earlier work on printed solar cell technology that turns ambient light into energy laid important groundwork, but those systems still required separate battery storage.
The most immediate application for the photobattery is in IoT devices. Billions of sensors are deployed worldwide in homes, offices, factories, and cities, monitoring everything from temperature and humidity to air quality and structural integrity. Most of these sensors run on batteries that need periodic replacement, creating maintenance costs and environmental waste. A photobattery-powered sensor could operate indefinitely, harvesting energy from the ambient light in its environment.
Wearable health monitors, hearing aids, and other small medical devices could benefit enormously from self-charging batteries. Imagine a continuous glucose monitor that never needs its battery replaced because it charges from the light in your home, or a hearing aid that recharges itself under ordinary room lighting.
Smart home devices such as wireless light switches, door sensors, and security cameras often struggle with battery life. The photobattery could eliminate the need for battery replacements in these devices, making smart home systems truly maintenance-free.
The broader trend toward indoor solar energy devices that eliminate the need for batteries has been building for years, and the UNIST-Cambridge photobattery represents a major step forward in making that vision practical.
The research was led by Professor Tae-Hyeok Kwon of UNIST’s Department of Chemistry, in collaboration with Professor Michael De Volder of the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing. The team’s work was published in Energy Storage Materials, a leading peer-reviewed journal in the field of energy storage research, in its August 2026 issue. The breakthrough was first reported in the French science magazine Science et Vie and subsequently covered by Korean media outlets.
The study builds on UNIST’s strong track record in energy research. The institution has been a leader in battery technology and solar energy research, and this collaboration with Cambridge brings together expertise in perovskite solar cells, electrochemistry, and advanced manufacturing.
The researchers are now focused on scaling the technology for commercial applications. The modular design is a key advantage here: as perovskite solar cell technology continues to improve, the solar harvesting modules can be upgraded without replacing the battery units. This future-proofing could make photobatteries a compelling long-term investment for device manufacturers.
Several challenges remain before photobatteries reach consumers. Manufacturing costs need to come down, the long-term stability of perovskite cells in real-world conditions needs to be validated, and the technology needs to be integrated into actual products. But the efficiency gains demonstrated by the UNIST-Cambridge team suggest that these challenges are engineering problems rather than fundamental scientific barriers.
The development also fits into a broader shift in energy technology. Just as home hydrogen batteries are redefining how we store energy at scale, photobatteries could redefine how we power the smallest devices. And just as solar batteries have transformed residential energy storage, the integration of harvesting and storage at the device level could transform how we think about portable and IoT power.
A photobattery is an integrated device that combines light-harvesting solar cells with energy storage in a single unit. Unlike traditional solar panel systems that require separate panels and batteries, a photobattery converts light directly into stored electrical energy in one compact device.
The UNIST-Cambridge photobattery uses a modular design with two components: a swappable solar cell module that captures light and converts it to electricity, and a fixed battery module that stores the energy. The solar cells are made from perovskite materials optimized for both outdoor sunlight and indoor lighting conditions.
Photobatteries offer several advantages over traditional power sources: they are self-charging, eliminating the need for external power sources or battery replacements; they work with indoor lighting, not just sunlight; their modular design allows the solar harvesting component to be upgraded independently; and they are compact enough to power small IoT devices and wearables.
Under standard sunlight, the UNIST-Cambridge photobattery reaches a 70% state of charge in just 10 minutes. Under indoor lighting at 1,000 lux (typical office brightness), the battery continues to charge steadily, though at a lower rate.
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Solar N Plus, Chinese photovoltaic (PV) and clean energy manufacturer, offers customized rooftop solar solutions for commercial and industrial businesses facing rising electricity costs. For manufacturing plants, the company provides high-power modules up to 740W to maximize output in limited areas. For warehouses and logistics hubs, it supplies lightweight modules that are 56% lighter than conventional panels for large-span roofs. For shopping malls and office buildings, it provides all-black modules designed to integrate with modern building exteriors. The modules feature 1% power loss in the first year, an 87.4% output guarantee after 30 years, minimal LID/LeTID degradation, low-light performance, and insurance support from Ping An and Lloyd’s Ariel Re.
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The orders relate to domestic contracts for manufacture and supply and were described in the filing as being governed by the terms of the respective purchase orders. The company recorded that neither the promoter nor the promoter group has any interest in the entities awarding the contracts. The filing also stated that the transactions would not fall within the ambit of related party dealings. The time period for completion has been set as scheduled across December 2026.
The work involves production and delivery of solar PV modules, encompassing manufacturing, quality assurance and logistical dispatch to the contracting entities. The company outlined the aggregate value of the contracts and confirmed that the orders will be executed as per contractual terms. Solex will incorporate these orders into its manufacturing plan and order book reporting. The filing did not provide further operational or counterparty details.
Solex’s registered and corporate office is located in Surat, Gujarat, and the corporate identity number appears on the public filing. The company used the disclosure to inform investors and regulators of the material commercial development. The announcement therefore updates stakeholders on confirmed contract awards and their scheduled execution within the stated timeframe. The public filing also made reference to applicable regulatory circulars and internal compliance processes, indicating that the company had followed prescribed disclosure procedures when reporting the material contract awards to the exchange.
Solex Energy (Solex) has received work orders from domestic entities for the manufacture and supply of solar photovoltaic (PV) modules. The orders are scheduled for execution across December 2026 and aggregate to a total consideration of Rs 747.7 million (mn). The disclosure was filed in accordance with Regulation 30 of the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulations, 2015. The filing follows the company’s routine corporate disclosure obligations under securities regulations. The orders relate to domestic contracts for manufacture and supply and were described in the filing as being governed by the terms of the respective purchase orders. The company recorded that neither the promoter nor the promoter group has any interest in the entities awarding the contracts. The filing also stated that the transactions would not fall within the ambit of related party dealings. The time period for completion has been set as scheduled across December 2026. The work involves production and delivery of solar PV modules, encompassing manufacturing, quality assurance and logistical dispatch to the contracting entities. The company outlined the aggregate value of the contracts and confirmed that the orders will be executed as per contractual terms. Solex will incorporate these orders into its manufacturing plan and order book reporting. The filing did not provide further operational or counterparty details. Solex’s registered and corporate office is located in Surat, Gujarat, and the corporate identity number appears on the public filing. The company used the disclosure to inform investors and regulators of the material commercial development. The announcement therefore updates stakeholders on confirmed contract awards and their scheduled execution within the stated timeframe. The public filing also made reference to applicable regulatory circulars and internal compliance processes, indicating that the company had followed prescribed disclosure procedures when reporting the material contract awards to the exchange.
TransIndia Group has recently launched ‘The World View Collection’ at TransIndia Meridian, its residential development in Mumbai’s Sion-Matunga Corridor. The campaign introduces residences located on the 22nd floor and above, offering expansive views of the cityscape, Eastern Bay and the sea.The collection positions elevation as an integral part of the living experience, with the higher-floor homes designed around openness, changing skylines and wider city views. Rather than focusing only on floor height, the campaign highlights how elevated residences can offer a different perspective o..
Furniture designer Yuvraj Vohra has recently launched the new Villaro Design Studio on MG Road, Delhi, introducing a furniture brand built around an architectural approach to design, materiality and craftsmanship.Trained as an architect, Vohra approaches furniture as an integral part of the spatial experience rather than as standalone objects. Villaro’s design philosophy focuses on proportion, material expression and the relationship between furniture and its surrounding architecture.The collection explores combinations of stone, marble, wood, metal and upholstery, with materials treated as st..
India-Belgium economic relations are gaining renewed momentum following Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s three-day official visit to India from September 2–4, 2026. The visit, the first by a Belgian Prime Minister to India in two decades, focused on strengthening cooperation across trade, investment, defence, technology, connectivity and logistics.Belgium is an important European investment and trading partner for India, with cumulative foreign direct investment inflows of around $4.25 billion between April 2000 and March 2026. The country is a major European manufacturing, trade and..
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Battery fire highlights danger says solar farm opponents  The Southern Wire
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“Make sure the system is warrantied so you are not the first call down the road.”
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Someone who was laid off from a software engineering job said in a Reddit post that after learning the commercial solar business from the customer side, they had landed their first real project and were heading into negotiations.
“I’m excited, but I’m also very aware that there’s a lot I don’t know yet,” they wrote.
Before negotiations began, the poster said they had been working from the customer side, reviewing utility information, collecting quotes from multiple installers, and testing whether projects made financial sense.
Now that the deal was moving forward, they said they were watching for problems tied to referral terms, ownership of the customer relationship, change orders, utility timing, structural surprises, and savings projections that could be too optimistic.
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.
The advice they got was direct and practical.
“Do not make any promises on timelines,” one commenter cautioned, while another said a site visit with an engineer should happen before finalizing a quote because “an engineer will be able to catch interconnection and transformer issues right away.”
Going solar is one of the best ways to save money on home energy, and exploring EnergySage can help you get free solar installation estimates and compare quotes.
The poster noted in a reply that “40% of electrical bills is just demand charges,” highlighting why some commercial projects may need more than panels alone to produce major savings.
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Commercial buyers face many of the same information gaps as homeowners, only on a larger scale and with more money at stake. A mistaken assumption about utility approvals, project scope, or post-install support can delay a system and shrink the expected return.
Another theme in the responses was what happens after the system is built.
“Make sure the system is warrantied so you are not the first call down the road,” one commenter advised.
Others said battery installations can add their own requirements for permitting, spacing, trenching, fencing, and inspections.
💡Go deep on the latest news and trends shaping the residential solar landscape
Solar remains one of the best tools for lowering electricity costs and reducing dependence on polluting energy sources. But savings are not automatic — they depend on realistic modeling, sound engineering, and clear contracts.
For people considering solar at home, comparison shopping is one of the best ways to avoid overspending. EnergySage’s solar map shows the average cost of a home solar panel system by state along with details on solar panel incentives for each state.
Together, those resources can help readers get the best price for rooftop solar panels and access available incentives.
Adding battery storage to a solar setup is also one of the best ways to protect your home during outages, save money on energy, and go off-grid. It can help households store solar power for later use and reduce reliance on expensive grid electricity during peak periods.
Readers can also explore EnergySage for information about home battery storage options, including competitive installation estimates.
EnergySage’s free services can be especially helpful for anyone trying to make sense of quotes, equipment options, and installer promises. With EnergySage’s help, the average person can save up to $10,000 on a solar purchase and installation. That kind of transparency can help buyers avoid the same costly surprises that commercial newcomers in the thread tried to anticipate.
“Commercial solar on paper is fun, but margins are thin and most EPCs are not adept at post-install service to customers,” one of the aforementioned commenters said.
The thread shows that commercial solar can get messy once contracts, engineering, and execution are put to the test. These articles explore how business owners weigh payoffs and what buyers encounter when it comes to sales, approval, and construction issues.
• A business owner said their investment paid off after more than three years with solar.
• Solar buyers run into pushy sales red flags when pitches outpace realistic savings claims.
• In Mexico, officials moved ahead with a $100 million energy project set to reshape the grid.
• In rural India, one company showed solar ventures can scale while tackling reliability gaps.
For first-time commercial solar negotiators, a promising quote is only the start. What matters is whether the savings, timeline, and support hold up once the project leaves the proposal stage.
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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Solar Manufacturing In UP Gets A Fillip, Alpex Solar Set To Become Second Cell Maker From State Photograph: (AI)
Alpex Solar Ltd has now announced the inauguration of its 2.2 GW G12R TOPCon solar cell manufacturing facility in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, marking the company’s entry into solar cell production and making it the second solar cell manufacturer in the state after Fujiyama Power Systems.
The facility, located in the company’s existing industrial premises at Kosi Kotwan, Extension-2 in Mathura, will be inaugurated by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Union New and Renewable Energy Minister Pralhad Joshi. The company said this is the first TOPCon giga integrated manufacturing line in Uttar Pradesh.
Alpex had earlier announced a solar manufacturing plant in Mathura, but the commissioning was delayed from its initial timeline. With the inauguration of the 2.2 GW cell line, the company now moves beyond module assembly into upstream manufacturing.
The development comes at a time when Uttar Pradesh is rapidly emerging as a key solar manufacturing hub in India. According to the latest Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM-I) for solar modules by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), there are now 13 operational solar module manufacturers in the state.
Most of these units are concentrated in Greater Noida and Dadri in Gautam Buddha Nagar district, with additional factories in Ghaziabad, Mirzapur and Barabanki. The state has attracted a mix of large investments from established players as well as mid-sized manufacturers, supported by its proximity to the National Capital Region and improving industrial infrastructure.
On the solar cell side, Fujiyama Power Systems is currently the only other UP-based manufacturer, with 437 MW of enlisted solar cell capacity in the ALMM-II list of MNRE. With Alpex’s 2.2 GW unit now inaugurated, Uttar Pradesh will have a total of around 2.6 GW of operational solar cell manufacturing capacity. Alpex Solar said it plans to further expand its domestic manufacturing footprint, with a 2.5 GW solar wafer and ingot plant targeted for commissioning by June 2028.
Uttar Pradesh, has now emerged as a new hotbed for investments in the solar sector. This comes after states like Gujarat remained a dominant region for solar module manufacturig units, but now the landscape seems to be changing. While the state already has around 13 solar module makers and several other companies have planned to start solar cell units from the state, the eastern India state now heading towards becoming one of the key rising state for solar manufacturing. This is in addition other such rising states like Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and others. 
We are India’s leading B2B media house, reporting full-time on solar energy, wind, battery storage, solar inverters, and electric vehicle (EV)
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Some victims were allegedly persuaded to take out loans before handing over cash.
Photo Credit: U.S. Department of Justice
An Oregon man accused of posing as an NFL player on dating apps to scam women allegedly didn’t just fool his targets. Federal investigators contended his online trail was convincing enough to mislead Google’s AI-generated search summaries, which repeated the fake persona as if it were real.
The allegation raises fresh questions about how false information spreads when AI tools mistake repetition for proof.
According to Futurism, the FBI is accusing 35-year-old Daejon Labrayae Love and 18-year-old Taylor Jamie Chan of scamming about $1.3 million from at least 26 women across four states. 
The Justice Department’s press release noted that investigators are alleging that Love variously claimed to be a San Francisco 49ers player or a wealthy Swiss real estate developer, while Chan allegedly posed as his financial advisor.
The FBI said the pair used dating apps to meet women and steer them into fake investment opportunities. Some victims were allegedly persuaded to take out loans before handing over cash.
Court documents declared “some victims became suspicious of Love and searched for Love’s information through the internet.”
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“Due to Love’s false social media representations, search engines and artificial intelligence occasionally stated that Love was a bonafide 49ers player,” the filing added.
Authorities have said that misleading online footprint made the alleged scheme appear more believable.
Futurism noted that Love packed Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn with posts portraying himself as a sidelined member of the 49ers. In that way, the alleged fraud wasn’t limited to direct contact. Those social media posts also helped reinforce the broader false narrative.
AI search tools are increasingly used as quick credibility checks. Confident but inaccurate summaries can help fraud spread, erode trust, and make it harder to tell what’s real online.
The AI boom also has a broader energy angle. AI systems can offer meaningful benefits, including helping utilities balance power demand, integrate renewable energy, and optimize the electric grid. However, those same systems can also consume enormous amounts of electricity and water, and rapid adoption may contribute to greater infrastructure strain and potentially higher energy costs.
The case points to another downside of misuse, security concerns, and unintended societal harm when AI systems present bad information as fact.
AI is powerful, resource-intensive, and still highly vulnerable to garbage in, garbage out.
This case uncovers the need for stronger safeguards around AI-generated search results, especially when summaries involve identity, employment, or financial claims. Better source vetting, clearer uncertainty labels, and faster correction systems could reduce the chances that a fabricated online persona gets echoed back as truth.
It’s best to avoid treating an AI summary as verification. A search result, even one written in an authoritative tone, shouldn’t replace checking official team rosters, public records, financial licensing databases, or trusted news reporting.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Love allegedly pointed to Google’s AI summary in his own defense, saying: “That’s Google. That’s not me, that’s Google.”
It also helps to stay cautious whenever a romantic connection quickly shifts toward investments, loans, or urgent money transfers. Pressure, secrecy, and promises of easy returns are classic red flags.
Cross-checking information through multiple independent sources can help keep a digital mirage from becoming a real-world loss.
This case sits inside a much bigger AI debate. The articles here look at misinformation alongside the industry’s mounting security, water, and electricity problems, while also highlighting efforts to use the technology in more practical ways.
• Across the tech industry, public outcries against AI advancements are intensifying over security, water, and jobs.
• At MIT, Priya Donti is using AI systems to optimize renewable grids instead of muddying facts.
• U.S. utilities are signing unprecedented deals with this industry as data-center power demand surges.
• Big Tech’s AI boom is outrunning the power grid as infrastructure spending races ahead.
• In homes near heavy data-center loads, massive power grid issue warnings reach everyday appliances.
They emphasize why AI should be judged by more than speed and polish. When safeguards fall behind, the same systems marketed for convenience can also add real-world costs, confusion, and strain.
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Thermal Drone Technology for Large Scale Solar PV Inspections  Unmanned Systems Technology
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The government of Comoros has switched on three solar projects with a cumulative capacity of 20 MW.
The newly-operational sites include a 12.86 MW array on the island of Grande Comore, a 4.05 MW installation on the island of Anjouan and a 3.1 MW installation on the island of Mohéli.
Project works also encompassed the deployment of two battery storage systems with a combined capacity of 8 MW/16 MWh across Grande Comore and Anjouan, as well as approximately 30 kilometres of 20 kV transmission lines.
The projects were implemented by Abu Dhabi-based developer Masdar and managed by energy infrastructure developer Global South Utilities. They were financed by approximately AED 84.4 million ($22.9 million) by the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development.
According to details published by Masdar, the three plants will generate approximately 33.75 GWh of electricity, equivalent to the needs of around 17,500 households.
The project’s expected annual solar generation is equivalent to approximately 13.3% of total electricity demand and 22.5% of actual generation in the country.
Comoros has been facing mounting challenges in its electricity sector, with around 3,000 power outages during the year. The country still remains heavily reliant on imported diesel, which accounted for 91% of its energy mix in 2024.
Jumaa Rashid Alromaithi, Ambassador of the UAE to the Comoros, said the project demonstrates how innovative renewable energy and storage solutions can help address the country’s energy needs and support its long-term development priorities.
“By strengthening the Comoros’ energy infrastructure and expanding access to reliable solar power, the project supports greater energy resilience while laying stronger foundations for economic and social development,” Alromaithi said.
There is an additional 46.9 MW of operational solar in the Comoros, according to figures published by the Africa Solar Industry Association (AFSIA) in its online project database.
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The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now!
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YUMA (AZFamily) — Arizona is currently home to about 100 solar farms, with several of those massive facilities operating right here in Yuma. While clean energy continues to expand across the region, fire safety experts warn that though solar-related fires are rare, they present intense, highly volatile hazards that can take days to control when they do ignite.
Just across the Arizona-California state line, firefighters battled a massive blaze Wednesday at the Mount Signal One Solar Plant. Local crews say fighting these unique electrical and chemical fires requires entirely different tactics compared to traditional structure blazes.
“Fires when they involve hazardous materials basically force us to slow down our stride,” said Cedric Cesena of the Imperial County Fire Department. “We have to ensure we are talking and looking with the technical experts who have the technical references that we can use.”
Many solar installations utilize lithium-ion batteries to store vast amounts of electricity. While highly efficient, that concentrated energy can become unstable. According to firefighters, these thermal runaway events can reach temperatures of up to 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit.
Lithium-ion battery failures have been blamed for a growing list of emergencies nationally, including golf cart, garage, car, airplane, and commercial building fires. When these chemical liquids are involved in a blaze, conventional firefighting methods do not work.
“We are not going to apply high amounts of water,” Cesena explained regarding their tactics. “We are going to actually apply large amounts of foam. That is going to help us create a layer over it and remove the oxygen from the equation, therefore putting the fire out.”
The danger of solar-related fires isn’t confined to multi-acre utility plants. It can hit close to home.
In June, a 76-year-old woman was killed in a Glendale, Arizona, house fire. The Glendale Fire Department confirmed the backyard blaze was caused by an electrical malfunction. Cameras at the scene captured the entire property caked in black soot and ash, with solar panels and dozens of wires strewn across the yard.
A source with knowledge of the investigation said the fatal fire was tied to a homeowner assembling a do-it-yourself (DIY) solar panel installation, which included a lithium battery system.
Because of these chemical complexities, fire officials emphasize that preparation is key to saving lives and protecting property.
Cesena noted that handling these specific hazards requires having a comprehensive response plan in place long before a fire ever sparks. He added that extreme desert heat plays a significant role in fueling the flames, making rapid containment even more critical.
Despite the high stakes, local first responders say they are in a much better position to safely respond to emergencies at these clean energy facilities today than they were just a few years ago due to advanced training and specialized equipment.
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Aurora residents could save money on their monthly electric bills under a new community solar power program, according to city officials.
The savings could equate to around $105 per year for residents taking part in the program, said Arnold Schramel, co-founder of Progressive Business Solutions, the city’s energy consultant.
The solar program allows residents to subscribe to local solar farms and receive credits directly on their monthly electric bills without installing rooftop solar panels, purchasing equipment or changing their current utility provider, city officials said.
Subscriptions opened Sept. 1, with limited spots, and residents have already begun to sign up, said Schramel. The solar fields should go online by November, and do not cost the residents or city anything, he said.
“I think that will help people save a little bit on their energy bills at a time when the economy is tough,” Aurora Mayor John Laesch said of the program.
Once residents enroll, the participating solar farm generates clean electricity that feeds into the local power grid, said city officials. Subscribers then receive credits based on their share of the solar farm’s output, reducing their monthly electricity bill through their existing utility provider, officials said.
Residents could receive 90% of their power from the solar panel fields under the program, Schramel said.
Powering the program are two 30-acre, five-megawatt solar fields at the northeast corner of the Aurora Municipal Airport and just south of Route 30. The city is set to receive 40% of the energy production from the fields, and the other 60% is designated to Aurora residents.
That residential-designated energy is enough to power about 1,300 subscribers, a small portion of the total 50,000 eligible accounts, said Schramel.
The solar developers aim to enroll subscribers ahead of the opening of the two city-owned solar fields in November, “so they’ll have a place to put all these electrons that they’re producing,” he added.
The city’s portion of the produced energy is set to save it about $80,000 a year in energy costs for city-owned facilities, Schramel said.
The community solar program comes three years after the city approved the lease of the city-owned sites for solar fields. It contracted with SunCode Energy to develop the solar fields in August 2023, said Schramel.
Community solar programs, first pioneered in the mid-2000s, aim to bring clean energy to the many American households that don’t have access to solar panels, often because residents can’t afford them, don’t own their homes or don’t get enough sun on their roofs, experts told the Chicago Tribune in 2022.
The state’s Future Energy Jobs Act established the state community solar framework in 2016, an effort that was further supported by state funding for community solar projects under the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act in 2021.
Another Aurora solar project is set to come online by November, Schramel said. The city and solar energy company 548 Energy are working to build a solar field at the city’s Church Road pumping station to power the well there, a project that was approved by the city this year.
Solar field developments are also ongoing in nearby Montgomery and North Aurora, Schramel said.
Residents interested in participating in the new Aurora solar power program can learn more and enroll at ampion.net/cityofaurorail, city officials said. Additional program information is available through the city of Aurora at http://www.aurora.il.us/CommunitySolar.
City officials said to contact Ampion directly with any questions at (847) 579-4658 or at signup@ampion.net.
awright@chicagotribune.com

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OMDURMAN (AP):
For almost a year, Randa al-Mansour, a 31-year-old Sudanese housewife, has relied on solar-energy panels installed on the rooftop of her building to survive the recurrent blackouts triggered by the war-torn country’s deteriorating electricity grid.
“We are suffering big time,” said al-Mansour, who lives with her three children in Omdurman, just outside the capital, Khartoum.
“When kids arrive at school in the morning, they find no electricity there. So they are forced to head back home, where there is none either. It is very hard for them to study under such a high temperature.”
The Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have been fighting since April 2023, killing at least 59,000 people, though aid groups say the number could be higher, and displacing some 13 million.
The conflict has also strained an already weak power infrastructure, forcing many Sudanese to seek alternative energy sources, especially during the scorching summer heat. The United Nations Development Programme has estimated the damage inflicted on the electricity grid at US$3 billion.
“We resorted to solar energy as a way of adapting to this situation. However, not everyone in Sudan can afford this solution,” said al-Mansour, who supports her family with remittances from her husband, who works in Saudi Arabia.
In recent months, billboards advertising solar panels, batteries and inverters have proliferated across the capital as more Sudanese consider transitioning to solar energy.
“For a low-income family, installing a solar-panel system is a huge sacrifice but an inevitable choice,” said Mohey Eddin Abu-Bark, owner of a solar-systems business in Khartoum, adding that a typical 10-kilowatt household solar system costs nearly US$5,000.
Manahel Madany, a 43-year-old diabetic civil servant, cannot afford the transition despite needing steady electricity to refrigerate her insulin.
“Every three to four days, I am forced to throw away all my insulin stock after it goes bad due to heat and power outages,” said Madany.
She lives in a two-bedroom house with her mother and sister in Omdurman, and, like many Sudanese, the three are forced to sleep in the courtyard of their house to escape the searing heat indoors.
“Not all pharmacies can afford to install solar panels for medical storage, and that’s why most medications have become unavailable,” Madany said.
The Sudan Doctors’ Network, which tracks violence across the country, warned that the continued electricity cuts could affect patients in hospitals, especially kidney patients who require constant care.
At least 30 per cent of Sudan’s population has no access to electricity, with rural areas bearing the brunt, according to the World Bank. Conditions in grid-connected urban centres have also deteriorated, with power outages reaching up to 16 hours in many parts of the country in recent months, according to two electricity-department officials who spoke to The Associated Press.
Electricity production has dropped from 4,400 megawatts before the war to 1,100 megawatts, as many power plants were hit by drones launched by the RSF, while nearly half of Sudan’s most experienced electricity engineers and technicians have left the country since 2023, the officials said, citing a survey by a local labour union.
The two spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media.
Sudan has vast potential to generate solar energy, given the long hours of sunshine that often exceed 4,000 hours per year, according to the UN. However, the high upfront cost of imported solar-energy systems and a depreciating local currency are hindering the transition to clean energy.
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Gadon leads commissioning of CavSU solar power system  Manila Standard
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Market Report: Growing Off-Grid RV Solar Generator Demand Reflects Rise in Long-Term Boondocking Trends  EIN News
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The SEC Renewable Energy Park – Horsham solar farm has connected to the electricity grid for the first time, bringing the 119MW project a step closer to generating 100% renewable electricity.
The critical development means the project’s solar farm has moved from mechanical completion into commissioning and energisation, which involves safely connecting the solar farm to the electricity grid in preparation for operation next year.
Related article: SEC launches renewables products for Vic businesses
SEC executive general manager assets Lane Crockett said the project would support the state’s planned retirement of key coal assets, including Yallourn, which is scheduled to close in 2028.
“What we are marking today is one of the most important milestones on any renewable energy project as it moves from construction to contributing renewable energy to the grid,” Crockett said.
“Before this stage, a project must complete thousands of installation, construction, and safety activities, which must then pass inspections, testing, and safety checks to ensure they operate correctly and safely.”
The solar farm will now proceed through two preparation stages, known as hot commissioning and hold point testing. This staged process includes gradually switching on and testing different parts of the solar farm, including the substations, transformers, underground cables, inverters, and other electrical equipment.
The project’s next steps include preparing for the arrival and installation of the battery energy storage system later this year.
The project’s solar farm panels and a 100MW, two-hour battery system will have the capacity to power more than 51,000 Victorian homes each year when it begins commercial operation in 2027.
Related article: Victoria to build Australia’s first CO2 battery
The solar farm component of the project has completed all major construction tasks, including the installation of 212,296 solar panels, a tracker system, a 162.5-tonne transformer, switch room substation and high-voltage infrastructure, cables, and earth grid.
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An Australian technology company has purchased a robotic bug that crawls along wind turbine blades to perform inspection and maintenance. #renewables #robotics #windturbine #technology #energytransition

Hybrid renewables project Gawara Baya has reached financial close and is on its way to becoming one of North Queensland’s largest energy projects. #renewables #queensland #windfarm #BESS #BatteryStorage


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Meta finaises deal to buy power from 125-MW solar project in Texas  Renewables Now
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Imagine a battery that never needs to be plugged in. A battery that charges all day from sunlight and continues to recharge at night under nothing more than the glow of an ordinary desk lamp. Researchers from UNIST (Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology) and the University of Cambridge have turned this concept into reality with a new photobattery that achieves a 70% charge in just 10 minutes under standard sunlight and continues to harvest energy from indoor lighting.
The study, published in the August 2026 issue of Energy Storage Materials, represents a significant leap forward in a field that has struggled for years with low efficiency and limited practical applications. The secret? A modular design that separates the solar-harvesting component from the storage unit, allowing each to be independently optimized.
Table of Contents
A photobattery is a device that combines energy harvesting and energy storage into a single unit. Unlike a traditional solar panel system, which requires separate panels, inverters, and battery packs, a photobattery integrates the light-absorbing material directly with the electrochemical storage cell. The result is a compact, self-charging power source that can convert light into stored electrical energy without external wiring or complex electronics.
The concept has existed in research labs for over a decade, but previous designs suffered from a critical flaw: the materials optimized for absorbing light were poor at storing energy, and vice versa. Earlier photobatteries typically achieved efficiencies of only 5% to 10%, making them impractical for real-world use. The UNIST-Cambridge team’s approach of decoupling these two functions has finally broken through that barrier.
The key innovation in the UNIST-Cambridge design is its modular architecture. The photobattery consists of two distinct components: a solar cell module that captures light and converts it into electrical energy and a battery module that stores that energy. The solar cell modules are designed to be swappable, meaning they can be upgraded or replaced as solar cell technology improves without needing to replace the entire battery unit.
The solar cells used in the prototype are perovskite-based, a class of materials that has been revolutionizing the solar energy industry due to their high efficiency, low manufacturing cost, and ability to be tuned to absorb different wavelengths of light. For the photobattery, the perovskite cells are specifically optimized to harvest energy from both outdoor sunlight and the lower-intensity light found indoors.
The battery module remains fixed and is designed to efficiently store the energy harvested by the solar cells. By separating the storage function from the light-harvesting function, the researchers were able to optimize each component independently, resulting in a system that far outperforms earlier integrated designs.
In testing, the photobattery achieved a remarkable 70% state of charge within just 10 minutes of exposure to standard sunlight (approximately 1,000 watts per square meter). But perhaps more impressive is its performance under indoor conditions: at 1,000 lux, which is the typical brightness of a well-lit office, the photobattery continues to charge steadily.
The ability to charge from indoor lighting at 1,000 lux is what sets this photobattery apart from conventional solar-powered devices. Standard solar panels are designed for outdoor sunlight, which is roughly 100 times brighter than typical indoor lighting. They produce negligible power indoors. The UNIST-Cambridge photobattery, by contrast, is engineered to operate efficiently at the light levels people actually live and work in.
This opens up a vast range of applications for devices that operate indoors: Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, wearable health monitors, smart home devices, remote environmental sensors, and medical equipment. These devices typically rely on small batteries that need periodic replacement or recharging, creating maintenance burdens and electronic waste. A photobattery that can continuously recharge from ambient indoor light could make many of these devices effectively self-powered.
Researchers at UNIST have been at the forefront of indoor solar technology. Their work builds on years of research into indoor solar cells that can generate electricity from home lighting, a field that has been gaining momentum as IoT devices proliferate and demand for sustainable, maintenance-free power sources grows.
The photobattery is not the only technology attempting to harvest energy from ambient light indoors. Several approaches have been explored over the years, each with different trade-offs:
The modular photobattery addresses the limitations of all these approaches. It harvests efficiently in both indoor and outdoor conditions, stores energy for later use, and achieves far higher efficiency than previous integrated designs. Earlier work on printed solar cell technology that turns ambient light into energy laid important groundwork, but those systems still required separate battery storage.
The most immediate application for the photobattery is in IoT devices. Billions of sensors are deployed worldwide in homes, offices, factories, and cities, monitoring everything from temperature and humidity to air quality and structural integrity. Most of these sensors run on batteries that need periodic replacement, creating maintenance costs and environmental waste. A photobattery-powered sensor could operate indefinitely, harvesting energy from the ambient light in its environment.
Wearable health monitors, hearing aids, and other small medical devices could benefit enormously from self-charging batteries. Imagine a continuous glucose monitor that never needs its battery replaced because it charges from the light in your home, or a hearing aid that recharges itself under ordinary room lighting.
Smart home devices such as wireless light switches, door sensors, and security cameras often struggle with battery life. The photobattery could eliminate the need for battery replacements in these devices, making smart home systems truly maintenance-free.
The broader trend toward indoor solar energy devices that eliminate the need for batteries has been building for years, and the UNIST-Cambridge photobattery represents a major step forward in making that vision practical.
The research was led by Professor Tae-Hyeok Kwon of UNIST’s Department of Chemistry, in collaboration with Professor Michael De Volder of the University of Cambridge’s Institute for Manufacturing. The team’s work was published in Energy Storage Materials, a leading peer-reviewed journal in the field of energy storage research, in its August 2026 issue. The breakthrough was first reported in the French science magazine Science et Vie and subsequently covered by Korean media outlets.
The study builds on UNIST’s strong track record in energy research. The institution has been a leader in battery technology and solar energy research, and this collaboration with Cambridge brings together expertise in perovskite solar cells, electrochemistry, and advanced manufacturing.
The researchers are now focused on scaling the technology for commercial applications. The modular design is a key advantage here: as perovskite solar cell technology continues to improve, the solar harvesting modules can be upgraded without replacing the battery units. This future-proofing could make photobatteries a compelling long-term investment for device manufacturers.
Several challenges remain before photobatteries reach consumers. Manufacturing costs need to come down, the long-term stability of perovskite cells in real-world conditions needs to be validated, and the technology needs to be integrated into actual products. But the efficiency gains demonstrated by the UNIST-Cambridge team suggest that these challenges are engineering problems rather than fundamental scientific barriers.
The development also fits into a broader shift in energy technology. Just as home hydrogen batteries are redefining how we store energy at scale, photobatteries could redefine how we power the smallest devices. And just as solar batteries have transformed residential energy storage, the integration of harvesting and storage at the device level could transform how we think about portable and IoT power.
A photobattery is an integrated device that combines light-harvesting solar cells with energy storage in a single unit. Unlike traditional solar panel systems that require separate panels and batteries, a photobattery converts light directly into stored electrical energy in one compact device.
The UNIST-Cambridge photobattery uses a modular design with two components: a swappable solar cell module that captures light and converts it to electricity, and a fixed battery module that stores the energy. The solar cells are made from perovskite materials optimized for both outdoor sunlight and indoor lighting conditions.
Photobatteries offer several advantages over traditional power sources: they are self-charging, eliminating the need for external power sources or battery replacements; they work with indoor lighting, not just sunlight; their modular design allows the solar harvesting component to be upgraded independently; and they are compact enough to power small IoT devices and wearables.
Under standard sunlight, the UNIST-Cambridge photobattery reaches a 70% state of charge in just 10 minutes. Under indoor lighting at 1,000 lux (typical office brightness), the battery continues to charge steadily, though at a lower rate.
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ICC Sydney to Host Largest Southern Hemisphere CBD Solar Farm  Mirage News
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Arabic version: مشروع الطاقة الشمسية على أسطح مركز المؤتمرات الدولي في سيدني يستهدف خفض الانبعاثات
According to ABC News, the International Convention Centre Sydney is installing about 4,500 photovoltaic panels across its rooftops in a project described as the largest solar farm in any city centre in the Southern Hemisphere. The panels are expected to generate enough electricity to power up to 400 homes.
The rooftop generation, together with purchased renewable electricity, will allow the government-owned venue to be powered entirely by green energy. The project is forecast to cut carbon emissions by up to 2,000 tonnes each year, an amount the government said is equivalent to the carbon absorbed by about 100,000 mature trees.
Planning and Public Spaces Minister Paul Scully said the upgrade could help attract more events to Sydney, describing the environmental credentials of a convention centre as a selling point. Chris Jones, head of asset management at Capella Capital, said lighter and more efficient panels would enable ICC Sydney to produce about 300 per cent more energy. He said battery storage was not an option because it would require too much space, with the grid instead used as a “synthetic battery”.
ICC Sydney is also seeking to lower its power use through upgrades including fridges and an exercise to replace thousands of lights. The venue’s existing solar panels were dismantled and will be reused by the Kindly Animal Sanctuary near Armidale in the Northern Tablelands. The panels are estimated to have another 10 to 15 years of life. Separately, the NSW government is establishing its first urban renewable energy zone in the Illawarra, while Mr Scully said officials would examine what could be scaled to other urban communities.
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That could help storage systems deliver stronger performance with less wasted energy.
Photo Credit: University of Waterloo
Canadian researchers have developed a 3D-printed battery component that may address a major obstacle to renewable power: safely storing large volumes of electricity for later use.
That may make wind and solar energy a steadier source of power.
According to Waterloo News, a University of Waterloo group headed by Maxime van der Heijden built a 3D-printed electrode for redox flow batteries. The design borrows from patterns found in nature and reshapes the component to let liquid pass through it more easily.
In redox flow batteries, energy is held in liquid electrolytes. When those liquids circulate more effectively, the reactions involved in charging and discharging can occur more efficiently, improving overall battery performance.
The findings were published in the Journal of Energy Storage in a study titled “Enhancing Mass Transport in Redox Flow Batteries with 3D-Printed Triply Periodic Minimal Surface Electrode Structures.”
Breakthroughs such as this could keep renewable electricity available after the sun goes down or the wind lets up.
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Energy storage remains one of the most important pieces of the clean energy puzzle. Wind and solar farms can generate enormous amounts of electricity but not always when households, businesses, and cities need that power most.
Redox flow batteries are especially well suited for large-scale storage. Unlike some other battery systems, they can be scaled up by increasing the size of their storage tanks, making them particularly attractive for grid-level use.
They are also often seen as a safer option for stationary energy storage because they rely on liquid-based systems rather than concentrating the energy in a solid-battery cell. That can make them more appealing to utilities and facilities seeking resilience without taking on as much fire risk.
If such systems become more efficient and easier to produce, they could reduce wasted renewable electricity, ease grid strain, and strengthen backup power options during blackouts or extreme weather events.
The project focuses on refining the inside of long-duration batteries to make them more practical and affordable. 
“With 3D printing, we can design the internal structure of an electrode in ways that are difficult to achieve using conventional manufacturing,” van der Heijden said, per Waterloo News. “That gives us much greater control over how the liquid moves through the battery and reaches the surfaces where the energy-storing reactions take place.”
That could help storage systems deliver stronger performance with less wasted energy.
The work is part of a field focused on making clean energy available whenever it is needed, not just when the weather cooperates.
Across the grid, this kind of electrode may support more reliable renewable electricity storage with a stronger safety profile.
Researchers are tackling the storage problem from several directions, all with the goal of making clean electricity easier to hold onto and use when wind and solar output dips. The advances range from new chemistries to stronger materials and manufacturing upgrades that could improve long-duration battery storage.
• Researchers have unveiled near-perfect battery technology to transform renewable energy storage.
• At Penn State, engineers refined next-generation energy storage manufacturing for futuristic solid-state batteries.
• At NTNU, engineers tested improved lithium-sulfur coatings to extend battery performance.
Energy storage is moving fast, and no single battery design is likely to solve every challenge on its own. Building cleaner, more reliable grids will require a mix of safer, more efficient ways to store renewable power for later use.
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New data from global research and energy intelligence company Rystad Energy shows utility PV generation reached record highs in New South Wales (NSW), Queensland, and Victoria in August 2026, delivering 684 GWh, 665 GWh and 213 GWh of clean energy respectively.
Rystad Senior Analyst David Dixon said Australia’s utility-scale solar and wind assets generated a combined 4.99 TWh of clean energy last month, up 3% from 4.86 TWh in August 2025.
At the same time, curtailment of large-scale solar across the National Electricity Market (NEM) decreased.
Dixon said utility PV curtailed generation was 168 GWh, or about 9% of available generation last month compared with 284 GWh, or approximately 18% of renewable generation in August 2025.
For utility PV the best performing assets in August 2026 were in Queensland with the top three all recording an average AC capacity factor (CF) of 28% for the month.
These include the 100 MW first stage of Pacific Blue Australia’s Haughton Solar Farm and the 204 MW Edenvale Solar Park co-owned by Japanese companies Eneos and Sojitz. Genex Power’s 50 MW Kidston project in the state’s far north also made the top three.
The top-performing wind assets were spread across the country with Potentia Energy’s Flat Rocks wind farm in Western Australia leading the way with an average capacity factor of 51%.
At the state level, Victoria was in top spot for utility solar and wind generation with 1,387 GWh, including 213 GWh from large-scale PV.
August proved a significant month for Australia’s energy transition with more than 1 GW of utility generation and storage assets reaching financial close during the month.
These included Edify Energy’s neighbouring Ganymirra and Majors Creek projects that will deliver a combined 300 MW of solar generation and 300 MW / 1,200 MWh of battery energy storage.
Other projects to reach financial close include BW ESS’s 250 MW / 1,000 MWh Yanco battery energy storage system (BESS) in NSW, and Quinbrook’s 260 MW / 1,216 MWh Supernode stage 3 BESS in Queensland.
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The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now!
Available in print and digital – get your copy today!
Martedì, 22 Settembre 2026
11:00 – 12:00 CEST, Roma
Monday, October 26, 2026
10:30 am – 11:30 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Thursday, September 10, 2026
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Tuesday, September 15, 2026
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Discover the latest insights into the Brazilian solar market – in Portuguese.
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A research group led by scientists from Qatar University has proposed a new design for a semi-transparent photovoltaic (STPV) greenhouse. The researchers optimized the greenhouse geometry to increase electricity generation while maintaining constraints such as total floor area and STPV coverage.
“This study introduces a novel greenhouse design that focuses on maximizing solar energy capture on the south-facing sections and wall surfaces, specifically tailored for the climatic conditions of Qatar,” the researchers said. “The new design is evaluated and compared with common greenhouse configurations, while maintaining constraints such as equal total floor space and STPV area. This ensures that the proposed design effectively optimizes solar energy reception without compromising space requirements.”
The scientists assessed the energy performance of five greenhouse geometries: even-span, uneven-span, vinery, modified-arch, and their proposed design, which assigns a larger share of the STPV surface to south-facing roof sections and vertical walls.
They modeled all five configurations using the same 280 W p-type bifacial, double-glass semi-transparent PV modules. Each greenhouse had a floor area of 24 m² and an effective installed STPV area of 71 m².
The researchers assessed the four conventional greenhouse designs using fixed, non-optimized geometries and compared their performance with that of the proposed configuration. They then optimized the new design using an improved mean-variance mapping optimization (IMVMO) algorithm, a metaheuristic optimization method.
The algorithm varied the greenhouse length, width, maximum height, and roof and wall tilt angles, with the objective of maximizing annual electricity generation.
“This study advances the mean-variance mapping optimization (MVMO) algorithm by developing an improved version (IMVMO),” the researchers explained. “The enhanced algorithm introduces mechanisms to avoid premature convergence and falling into local optima, a common limitation in many metaheuristic methods. This improvement makes IMVMO more robust and efficient in solving complex optimization problems, ensuring superior performance in optimizing greenhouse designs.”
In terms of total energy production, the proposed design consistently outperformed the four conventional greenhouse configurations with the same structural dimensions. Compared with the vinery design, it achieved an energy gain of 56.86%. The gains over the even-span and modified-arch designs were 25.14% and 24.60%, respectively, while the improvement over the uneven-span configuration was 6.03%.
The researchers said the walls played a significant role in electricity generation under the new design, contributing 7,518.3 kWh, compared with 5,493.5 kWh from the roof. The non-optimized configuration measured 6 m long and 4 m wide, with a maximum height of 3 m and a roof tilt angle of 50 degrees. Following optimization, the dimensions changed to 4 m by 6 m, with a maximum height of 2.5 m and a roof tilt angle of 26 degrees. The optimized geometry increased annual energy output by 20.1%.
“This optimization approach emphasizes the importance of strategic parameter selection in achieving energy-efficient greenhouse designs,” the team concluded. “Overall, this study highlights the possibility of design optimization to significantly improve greenhouse energy efficiency, offering practical insights for integrating renewable energy solutions into modern agriculture.”
The researchers presented their findings in “Optimizing semi-transparent PV-integrated greenhouse: A novel design for enhanced solar energy harvesting,” published in Energy Reports. The research team included scientists from Qatar University, BRAC University in Bangladesh, and Shanghai Maritime University in China.

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The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now!
Available in print and digital – get your copy today!
Martedì, 22 Settembre 2026
11:00 – 12:00 CEST, Roma
Monday, October 26, 2026
10:30 am – 11:30 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Thursday, September 10, 2026
2:00 pm – 3:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
5:00 pm – 6:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Our special edition for Intersolar South America 2026 is here!
Discover the latest insights into the Brazilian solar market – in Portuguese.
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.
pv magazine USA hosts its multi-day virtual event on U.S. solar and energy storage, covering domestic manufacturing, distributed energy and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting AI-driven power demand.

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Alpex Solar to Inaugurate 2.2 GW Solar Cell Manufacturing Facility in Uttar Pradesh  SolarQuarter
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CLEAR
Sydney’s International Convention Centre (ICC) is set to become the home of the largest solar farm in any central business district in the Southern Hemisphere. 
The government-owned, world-class convention centre revealed on Monday 31 August its official plans to expand its Darling Harbour solar network across the roofs of its Convention Centre, Exhibition Centre, and Entertainment Centre.
Once installed, the solar farm will span over 18,400 square metres and be able to generate 2.6 gigawatt hours (GWh) annually, enough to power up to 400 average Australian homes for an entire year. This extra power will enable the centre to run entirely on renewable electricity, obtained through a combination of the rooftop solar network and other renewable energy procurement.
This reduction in ICC emissions is expected to cut approximately 1,800 to 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide pollution each year, equivalent to the annual carbon absorption capacity of around 100,000 mature trees.
“This is a great example of how we can unlock greater renewable energy generation and use in urban areas and power a vibrant city by taking advantage of building rooftops,” said Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, Paul Scully.
“Hosting the largest solar farm of any CBD in the Southern Hemisphere will help the ICC to reduce emissions and energy costs while also strengthening Sydney’s competitiveness in attracting major international conventions and events.
“This is another example of the Minns Labor Government’s commitment to powering a more sustainable future for all of NSW.”
ICC Sydney Chief Executive Officer Adam Mather-Brown reflected on the importance of the new solar farm in cementing the venue’s place as a global pioneer of sustainability.
“This investment represents another important milestone in ICC Sydney’s sustainability journey,” said Mather-Brown, “and reflects our commitment to leading environmental performance across the global convention and exhibition sector.
“The expanded solar network will allow us to generate significant renewable energy on-site while supporting our clients’ sustainability goals and helping reduce the carbon footprint of events hosted at ICC Sydney.
“As international event organisers increasingly prioritise sustainability in venue selection, this project further strengthens ICC Sydney’s position as one of the world’s leading sustainable convention, exhibition and entertainment centres.”
The announcement comes just months after the completion of the Carawatha Solar Farm, which will enable Darling Harbour’s neighbouring suburb of Barangaroo to operate at net zero for decades to come.
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PRESS RELEASE

BloombergNEF’s South Africa Transition Factbook: Power-Market Reform and Private Investments Drive Energy Transition

• Clean Energy

September 7, 2026

PRESS RELEASE

BloombergNEF’s South Africa Transition Factbook: Power-Market Reform and Private Investments Drive Energy Transition

• Clean Energy

PRESS RELEASE
September 7, 2026

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• BloombergNEF’s (BNEF) factbook shows that grid constraints and high industrial electricity costs will determine how much investment and economic growth can be unlocked across the country by the energy transition.
• South Africa is now pursuing a wholesale power market and private grid investment, while an aging coal fleet and rail constraints emerge as new bottlenecks to exports and growth. 

London,  September 7, 2026 – South Africa’s energy system is undergoing a major transition as the nation has moved beyond the worst of its power crisis, according to BloombergNEF’s (BNEF) South Africa Transition Factbook 2026. Persistent load shedding has ended after coal power plants returned to service and private-sector participation increased.

Private clean-power procurement is becoming a defining feature of South Africa’s electricity market. In 2026, corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs) are set to drive more utility-scale renewable additions in the country than government auctions for the first time. BNEF expects corporate buyers to support 73% of the 2.3 gigawatts of anticipated solar and wind additions in 2026. Corporate buyers remain the main driver of renewables through the end of the decade.

Investors, developers and corporate energy buyers are planning further investment in clean power capacity, but transmission grid capacity is emerging as a limiting factor in how quickly these investments can go ahead. Without faster grid expansion, South Africa’s energy transition may deliver less economic growth than expected.

The rise in clean-power investment is helping to cut fossil-fuel demand, but coal is still central to South Africa’s power system, supplying 78% of electricity in 2025, down from 90% in 2015. In BNEF’s Economic Transition Scenario (ETS), which gives an economics-led view of how the power sector evolves, solar, wind and battery storage increasingly shape the country’s future. As power consumption rises by 35% to 319TWh by 2050, solar and wind expand to supply 69% of that demand, while coal falls to 21% as aging plants retire and the coal fleet shrinks.

Nelson Nsitem, Africa Research Lead at BloombergNEF, said: “South Africa’s energy transition has reached a critical inflection point.  To date, private companies have played a central role in bringing new clean power into the system, but the next phase will depend on whether infrastructure can keep pace with investment. Expanding the grid and bringing down electricity costs will be critical not only to deploying more renewables, but to strengthen South Africa’s competitiveness in industries such as critical minerals and manufacturing.”

Sofia Maia, Head of Middle East and Africa Research at BloombergNEF, said: “For many South African businesses, investing in clean energy is no longer primarily a climate decision — it is increasingly about securing reliable power, managing costs and having greater control over their energy supply. That change in motivation is reshaping the country’s power market and creating a much bigger role for private investment.”

According to BNEF, South Africa is becoming increasingly reliant on China for clean-energy equipment. China accounted for 98% of solar and 95% of battery imports in 2025. In the region, China is also gaining shares in wind (80%) and electric vehicles (84%) from the US and Europe by offering lower-cost products to a price sensitive market. As sub-Saharan Africa becomes a larger market for Chinese clean-tech exports, South Africa has an opportunity to build domestic manufacturing and capture more of the region’s growing clean-energy supply chain.

Other key findings from the report include:

• South Africa’s industrial decarbonization is becoming a competitiveness issue, not just an emissions issue, as policies such as the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) increase pressure on emissions-intensive exports. South Africa’s industrial base is concentrated in energy-intensive mining and metals production, making these sectors central to the country’s decarbonization challenge. Coal’s dominant role in final energy demand highlights the potential for fuel switching and electrification to reduce industrial emissions.
• South Africa has a strategic edge in energy-transition supply chains as a major supplier of strategic minerals, such as platinum-group metals, manganese and chrome. Despite the opportunity, the nation captures relatively little value downstream as high power costs and infrastructure constraints weigh on competitiveness. High power prices are hampering the government’s ambition to grow its critical minerals industry, with average industrial electricity prices sitting at R1,652/MWh last year compared to R964/MWh in mainland China.
• South Africa’s EV strategy could revive its auto competitiveness. EV sales more than doubled in 2025, although they still accounted for 1% of the total South African passenger vehicle market. The sector is receiving incentives to produce EVs, for both the local and export markets, through measures including the enhanced Automotive Investment Scheme (AIS) and a 150% first-year tax deduction on investments in zero-emission vehicle manufacturing from March 2026. Shifting existing auto manufacturing capacity toward EVs could support South Africa’s export competitiveness as major overseas markets transition away from internal-combustion engines.
• South Africa remains the largest market in sub-Saharan Africa renewable energy investment at $5.4 billion in 2025. South Africa’s renewable energy investment fell 41% from $8.6 billion in 2024. Fewer utility-scale projects reached financial close in 2025, with utility solar down 57% to $1.4 billion, and onshore wind dropping 30% to $2.1 billion. Small-scale solar broke the trend, growing 35% to $1.8 billion and softening the overall drop.

The South Africa Transition Factbook 2026 examines how the country’s key sectors are affected by the energy transition, where new opportunities and risks are emerging, and how mineral resources, local manufacturing and further policy reforms could shape competitiveness and long-term growth.

The full version of the Factbook can be found at this link.

London,  September 7, 2026 – South Africa’s energy system is undergoing a major transition as the nation has moved beyond the worst of its power crisis, according to BloombergNEF’s (BNEF) South Africa Transition Factbook 2026. Persistent load shedding has ended after coal power plants returned to service and private-sector participation increased.
Private clean-power procurement is becoming a defining feature of South Africa’s electricity market. In 2026, corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs) are set to drive more utility-scale renewable additions in the country than government auctions for the first time. BNEF expects corporate buyers to support 73% of the 2.3 gigawatts of anticipated solar and wind additions in 2026. Corporate buyers remain the main driver of renewables through the end of the decade.
Investors, developers and corporate energy buyers are planning further investment in clean power capacity, but transmission grid capacity is emerging as a limiting factor in how quickly these investments can go ahead. Without faster grid expansion, South Africa’s energy transition may deliver less economic growth than expected.
The rise in clean-power investment is helping to cut fossil-fuel demand, but coal is still central to South Africa’s power system, supplying 78% of electricity in 2025, down from 90% in 2015. In BNEF’s Economic Transition Scenario (ETS), which gives an economics-led view of how the power sector evolves, solar, wind and battery storage increasingly shape the country’s future. As power consumption rises by 35% to 319TWh by 2050, solar and wind expand to supply 69% of that demand, while coal falls to 21% as aging plants retire and the coal fleet shrinks.
Nelson Nsitem, Africa Research Lead at BloombergNEF, said: “South Africa’s energy transition has reached a critical inflection point.  To date, private companies have played a central role in bringing new clean power into the system, but the next phase will depend on whether infrastructure can keep pace with investment. Expanding the grid and bringing down electricity costs will be critical not only to deploying more renewables, but to strengthen South Africa’s competitiveness in industries such as critical minerals and manufacturing.”
Sofia Maia, Head of Middle East and Africa Research at BloombergNEF, said: “For many South African businesses, investing in clean energy is no longer primarily a climate decision — it is increasingly about securing reliable power, managing costs and having greater control over their energy supply. That change in motivation is reshaping the country’s power market and creating a much bigger role for private investment.”
According to BNEF, South Africa is becoming increasingly reliant on China for clean-energy equipment. China accounted for 98% of solar and 95% of battery imports in 2025. In the region, China is also gaining shares in wind (80%) and electric vehicles (84%) from the US and Europe by offering lower-cost products to a price sensitive market. As sub-Saharan Africa becomes a larger market for Chinese clean-tech exports, South Africa has an opportunity to build domestic manufacturing and capture more of the region’s growing clean-energy supply chain.
Other key findings from the report include:
The South Africa Transition Factbook 2026 examines how the country’s key sectors are affected by the energy transition, where new opportunities and risks are emerging, and how mineral resources, local manufacturing and further policy reforms could shape competitiveness and long-term growth.
The full version of the Factbook can be found at this link.

---

Media Contact

Oktavia Catsaros
BloombergNEF
ocatsaros@bloomberg.net

About BloombergNEF

BloombergNEF (BNEF) is a strategic research provider covering global commodity markets and the transformative forces reshaping energy systems and infrastructure. Our experts assess the technological, economic and policy drivers that underpin the transition to a cleaner, more resilient energy economy. We help senior leaders in corporate strategy, finance, policy and commodity trading navigate change and generate opportunities.

About Bloomberg

Bloomberg is a global leader in business and financial information, delivering trusted data, news, and insights that bring transparency, efficiency, and fairness to markets. The company helps connect influential communities across the global financial ecosystem via reliable technology solutions that enable our customers to make more informed decisions and foster better collaboration. For more information, visit Bloomberg.com/company or request a demo.

---

Media Contact

Oktavia Catsaros
BloombergNEF
ocatsaros@bloomberg.net

About BloombergNEF

BloombergNEF (BNEF) is a strategic research provider covering global commodity markets and the transformative forces reshaping energy systems and infrastructure. Our experts assess the technological, economic and policy drivers that underpin the transition to a cleaner, more resilient energy economy. We help senior leaders in corporate strategy, finance, policy and commodity trading navigate change and generate opportunities.

About Bloomberg

Bloomberg is a global leader in business and financial information, delivering trusted data, news, and insights that bring transparency, efficiency, and fairness to markets. The company helps connect influential communities across the global financial ecosystem via reliable technology solutions that enable our customers to make more informed decisions and foster better collaboration. For more information, visit Bloomberg.com/company or request a demo.

Oktavia Catsaros
BloombergNEF
ocatsaros@bloomberg.net
BloombergNEF (BNEF) is a strategic research provider covering global commodity markets and the transformative forces reshaping energy systems and infrastructure. Our experts assess the technological, economic and policy drivers that underpin the transition to a cleaner, more resilient energy economy. We help senior leaders in corporate strategy, finance, policy and commodity trading navigate change and generate opportunities.
Bloomberg is a global leader in business and financial information, delivering trusted data, news, and insights that bring transparency, efficiency, and fairness to markets. The company helps connect influential communities across the global financial ecosystem via reliable technology solutions that enable our customers to make more informed decisions and foster better collaboration. For more information, visit Bloomberg.com/company or request a demo.

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Egypt’s Ministry of Electricity plans to increase power generation by 3,500 megawatts with the launch of a project as part of its five-year (2012-17) energy plan.

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President of the Union of the Comoros, H.E. Azali Assoumani, has inaugurated three solar power plants financed by the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) as the island nation seeks to strengthen energy security and reduce its heavy dependence on imported diesel.
The project, financed at approximately AED84.4 million, has been implemented by Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company PJSC, Masdar, and managed by Global South Utilities (GSU).
The three solar photovoltaic plants have a combined installed capacity of approximately 20 MW, comprising 12.86 MW on Grande Comore, 4.05 MW on Anjouan and 3.1 MW on Mohéli.
The project also includes battery energy storage systems with a combined capacity of 16 MWh and a power output of 8 MW across Grande Comore and Anjouan. Approximately 30 km of 20 kV medium voltage overhead transmission lines have also been installed as part of the project.
Technical studies estimate that the three plants will generate approximately 33.75 GWh of clean electricity each year. This is equivalent to the electricity requirements of around 17,500 households and is expected to avoid approximately 20,900 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
The new solar capacity comes as Comoros faces significant constraints across its electricity sector. Imported diesel accounted for 91% of the country’s energy mix in 2024, highlighting the vulnerability of the power system to international fuel prices and supply disruptions.
Electricity demand reached 254 GWh in 2024, while actual generation stood at only 150 GWh. The country recorded approximately 3,000 power outages during the year, underlining the gap between electricity demand and available generation capacity.
The solar plants are expected to produce electricity equivalent to approximately 13.3% of total electricity demand in 2024 and 22.5% of actual generation.
The project is therefore expected to contribute to greater diversification of the country’s electricity supply while reducing the amount of diesel required for power generation. The addition of battery storage should also support system flexibility and help the electricity network manage variable renewable generation.
The UAE backed project forms part of wider efforts to deploy renewable energy infrastructure in developing markets, with the investment intended to support Comoros’ economic development while improving the reliability and sustainability of its electricity system.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal






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ICC Sydney to become Southern Hemisphere’s largest CBD solar farm  ausleisure.com.au
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A countryside home with solar panels is on the market for £650,000.
Cooley Lodge is situated just over a mile west of Ross-on-Wye, near the village of Bridstow.
The house is said to have a "wonderful rural outlook" over the adjacent farmland by agents John Goodwin.
Living room (Image: Zoopla/ John Goodwin)
The property is also within a 20-minute drive of Monmouth, Ledbury, and Hereford, with Cheltenham, Birmingham, Newport, Cardiff, and Bristol all easily accessible via the M50 motorway/A40 dual carriageway network.
The detached country home is described as being "filled with immense character" and is made of stone construction with rendered elevations under a primarily slate roof.
Dining room and kitchen (Image: Zoopla/ John Goodwin)
There are also period features throughout the house.
The home has a 31-foot garden room and study, which has French doors opening directly into the gardens.
The lodge comes with 12 PV panels and a 9.6kWh battery, giving the potential buyer the benefits of a modern dwelling.
The gardens primarily lie to the west, north, and east of the house and include lawns, borders, an orchard, and a pond.
Garden (Image: Zoopla/ John Goodwin)
A greenhouse and a productive vegetable garden are also part of the outdoor space.
The expansive gravel driveway leads to a 19-foot garage and storeroom.
A stone, former piggery, is also part of the property and is ideal as a potting shed or den.
Read more
Four Herefordshire homes on the market for £220,000 or less
Farmhouse and stunning barn go up for sale with £1.3million price tag
Broadchurch star selling £1.8m 'magical' Cotswolds mill house after 60 years
The entrance hall has a window to the front elevation and a Velux window, with a door leading through to a utility room fitted with a range of cream Shaker-style floor-mounted units with a worktop and inset Belfast sink.
The farmhouse-style kitchen is fitted with a range of oak units with an inset Belfast sink and granite worktop.
The drawing room features a part flagstone floor, ceiling and wall timbers, and a stone fireplace with an inset wood-burning stove.
Cat’s name likely hints at villa owner’s link to North Africa
For the next eight weeks, The Telegraph will be travelling across the US as part of a dispatch series examining the issues that could shape Donald Trump’s fortunes in the midterm elections.
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Chancellor expected to face pressure over tax after Andy Burnham failed to rule out possible rises in October’s Budget
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The International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney) is to install 4,500 photovoltaic panels on its rooftop.
Once completed, the ICC Sydney will be home to what is being described as the largest solar farm in any city centre in the Southern Hemisphere.
The solar farm will cut carbon emissions by up to 2,000 tonnes a year.
A solar farm heralded as the largest in any central business district (CBD) in the Southern Hemisphere is being built in the heart of Sydney.
About 4,500 photovoltaic panels will cover the rooftops of the International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney) and produce enough electricity to power up to 400 homes.
The rooftop generation, combined with purchased renewable electricity, will mean the government-owned site is powered entirely by green energy.
The solar farm will be built in the heart of Sydney.  (ABC News: Alexander Lewis)
Paul Scully, the minister for planning and public spaces, told the ABC that the upgrade would attract more events to Sydney.
"Coming to one of the most environmentally friendly convention centres in the world is a big selling point," Mr Scully said.
"This is showing how, as an urban community, we can do our part in the rebuild of our energy system, where we're using large roof spaces."
The panels will be installed on the rooftop of the ICC Sydney. (ABC News: Alexander Lewis)
The solar farm will cut carbon emissions by up to 2,000 tonnes a year, which the government has said is equivalent to the amount absorbed by a forest of about 100,000 mature trees.
The ICC Sydney already had some solar panels installed, but the older technology was too heavy to be placed on certain sections of the rooftops.
With lighter panels now available, the centre can increase the size of its solar footprint.
Paul Scully and Chris Jones are lauding the project.  (ABC News: Alexander Lewis)
Chris Jones is the head of asset management at Capella Capital, which leads the consortium that maintains the facility.
Mr Jones said the newer, more efficient panels would allow the ICC Sydney to produce about 300 per cent more energy.
"This facility running at full capacity is a big drawer of electricity," Mr Jones said.
Battery storage was not an option as it would take up too much space.
"The only logical way to do it is to use the grid as a synthetic battery, if you will," Mr Jones said.
The solar farm will cut carbon emissions by up to 2,000 tonnes a year. (ABC News: Alexander Lewis)
With power bills reaching $1.8 million a year, the centre was also trying to reduce consumption by upgrading appliances such as fridges.
ICC Sydney chief executive officer Adam Mather-Brown said the facility sought to use less power each year.
"We've just finished an entire re-bulbing exercise on the building, because being 10 years old, new technology has come in," Mr Mather-Brown said.
"For thousands of lights that we have, we've reduced that already."
The existing panels were dismantled this week and will be given to the Kindly Animal Sanctuary near Armidale in the Northern Tablelands for reuse.
It is estimated they will last another 10 to 15 years.
"They can reduce their energy bill and keep those rescue animals warm at the same time," Mr Scully said.
The rooftop of the ICC in Sydney's CBD. (Supplied: Solar Fit Solutions)
In June, NSW Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane pledged to create a renewable energy zone (REZ) in the cities of Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong.
The state's first urban REZ is being set up in the Illawarra, drawing from solar generated on the roofs of homes and businesses, and using home and community batteries.
Mr Scully would not say whether the government was looking to establish a REZ in Sydney but hinted other areas of urban generation would follow the Illawarra.
"We're looking to use that as the test bed to see what we might be able to take from that and scale up to other urban communities," he said.
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Zambia Begins Construction Of 10 MW Mwandi Solar Power Project  SolarQuarter
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⦁ Perovskite-silicon tandem cells stack two light-absorbing layers to produce more electricity per unit of area and weight. Qcells reported 28.6% certified efficiency on a full-area M10 tandem cell. In 2026, it became the first company to receive certification from TÜV Rheinland, confirming that its tandem modules meet both IEC and UL standards.
⦁ As part of the STEFF-1 mission, led by the GTRI in collaboration with the NASA, Qcells’ tandem solar cells will be mounted on a lunar lander. They will be exposed to vacuum, radiation, and extreme temperature swings, generating data that will feed back into research programs in Germany and Korea.
⦁ Hanwha Solutions and Hanwha Systems are jointly advancing high-efficiency tandem solar technology for satellites, with planned in-orbit demonstrations and a pathway toward commercialization in VLEO, followed by potential future expansion to LEO and MEO satellite platforms.
Hanwha Qcells’ next-generation solar technology is about to be tested in one of the most demanding environments imaginable: the Moon. 
 
As part of the Space Science and Technology Evaluation Facility-1 (SSTEF-1) mission, led by the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) in collaboration with NASA, the company’s perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells will be installed on the exterior of a lunar lander and exposed to the extreme conditions of space. The data collected will help accelerate the development of next-generation solar technology by showing how these cells perform in an environment that simply cannot be recreated on Earth. 
 
The mission comes at a defining moment for the solar industry. Global investment in solar is approaching $1 billion a day, with spending expected to reach about $365 billion in 2026 — more than for any other power generation technology, according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Investment 2026 report. Growth is being fueled by rising demand from AI data centers, increased electrification, and a stronger focus on energy security. 
 
Silicon has driven the industry’s rapid growth, but it’s nearing its practical limits. Conventional silicon solar cells have a theoretical efficiency ceiling of 29.4%, while the best laboratory cells have already reached 27.9%, leaving little room for further gains. To generate more power from the same surface area and reduce weight, the industry needs a new approach. While high-performance solar cells already power existing space infrastructure, they remain roughly 100 times more expensive than terrestrial modules due to complex manufacturing processes. Bridging this gap requires a technology that combines extreme efficiency with the low-cost scalability of Earth-based solar. 
What comes after conventional silicon? 
 
Perovskite-silicon tandem cells have emerged as one of the most promising solutions, with research and development advancing across Europe, Asia, and North America. By combining two light-absorbing materials instead of one, tandem cells can capture more of the solar spectrum and generate more electricity from the same surface area. A perovskite layer absorbs higher-energy light, while the silicon layer beneath captures the remaining wavelengths, allowing the cell to generate more electricity without increasing its footprint. 
 
Qcells reported 28.6% certified efficiency for a full-area M10 tandem cell verified by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE). Because these results were reached using commercial manufacturing processes, they represent a critical bridge between laboratory success and industrial mass production. Durability is the harder problem for any new cell chemistry. The company’s tandem modules passed IEC and UL stress sequences verified by TÜV Rheinland, including rigorous thermal cycling and damp heat tests, demonstrating their reliability. 
Why test a solar cell on the lunar surface? 
 
The next question is not only how efficiently these cells perform in the laboratory, but also how they withstand the harshest operating environments. That is why Qcells’ next-generation tandem solar technology is heading to the Moon. 
 
As part of the SSTEF-1 mission, Qcells’ perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells will be exposed to vacuum, intense ultraviolet and cosmic radiation, lunar dust, and dramatic temperature swings. The cells will experience conditions that no terrestrial testing facility can reproduce simultaneously. The requirements of the destination are well suited to the technology. Lunar and long-duration missions need power that is light, efficient, and durable because every kilogram carries a launch cost, and the hardware has to keep working for years without servicing. 
 
While laboratories can isolate individual stresses such as radiation, thermal cycling, or vacuum, the lunar surface exposes solar cells to all of these factors at once over extended periods. The mission offers a rare opportunity to understand how tandem cells respond to the combined effects of the space environment, providing data that can improve future cell design, material selection, and long-term reliability. Those insights will support not only future space applications but also the continued development of high-efficiency solar technology for use on Earth.
 
Rendered image of a lunar payload delivery service lander, which will carry the SSTEF-1
Image credit: NASA
What makes work at the frontier possible? 
 
As one of the world’s leading solar energy solutions providers, Qcells has made long-term investments in tandem technology, with its contribution to SSTEF-1 building on the capabilities it is already deploying at scale. 
 
Holding nearly 40% of the U.S. residential market share, Qcells operates a vertically integrated domestic supply chain in Georgia with 8.6 GW of annual capacity. Utility-scale projects include the Reclamation Solar Project in Indiana, built by Zelestra under a power purchase agreement with Meta. This manufacturing expertise, which includes the capacity to produce everything from ingots to modules in a single facility, provides the industrial foundation necessary for Qcells to successfully transition next-generation tandem solar from the lab to large-scale deployment. 
 
In addition, Hanwha Solutions, the parent organization of Qcells, and Hanwha Systems are jointly developing high-efficiency solar cell and panel technologies for satellites.
 
Through 2028, Hanwha Solutions will lead R&D focused on improving high-efficiency cell design and performance and verifying reliability in space. The company will develop power solutions optimized for very low Earth orbit (VLEO), where power efficiency, lightweight structures and resilience across demanding space environments are critical. The companies also plan to conduct in-orbit demonstrations to validate the technology and evaluate its performance under real space conditions. 
 
Through joint R&D, Hanwha aims to move toward commercialization by integrating tandem cells into Hanwha Systems’ very low Earth orbit ultra-high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (VLEO UHR SAR) satellites, while further developing the technology for use across other orbital environments.  
How is the space solar effort being organized? 
 
A space solar development team was formed within the company’s technology division in June 2026, with recruitment focused on space materials, satellite design, and space-environment reliability, alongside plans for a research center in the United States. 
 
The mission will return data, not products. Qcells was selected for SSTEF-1 because of its leadership in next-generation solar technology and its expertise in high-efficiency photovoltaics. As solar energy takes on a larger share of the global electricity supply, the technologies that support it will be developed in laboratories, proven in factories, and, increasingly, tested in places where nothing else has been. 
 
The data collected on the Moon will provide valuable insights into how advanced solar materials perform in the extreme lunar environment. Those findings could help accelerate the development of tandem solar technology, leading to more efficient and reliable solar solutions for both Earth and future space missions, while supporting the next generation of clean energy innovation. 
Hanwha Solutions Qcells Division
A complete clean energy solutions provider leading the energy transition with a diverse business portfolio throughout the world.
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IEEFA, an energy finance research institute, puts India’s solar module nameplate capacity at 233 GW in June 2026 and asks whether the market has built too much. The imbalance sits upstream, where cell capacity is nearly 7 times smaller and ingot-wafer capacity trails by 116 times. That mismatch leaves module plants running at an estimated 35-40% utilisation, below the 50-65% the industry considers sustainable. Neither of the report’s two pathways to 2030 clears the module surplus, and polysilicon is the hardest gap to close. Data centres, green hydrogen and exports offer the credible upside, together worth 17-22 GW of demand a year by 2030. Europe offers the most structured medium-term export opportunity as buyers diversify supply chains away from China. The timing favours India, as five major Chinese producers expect combined 2025 losses of $4.1-4.7 billion while Indian manufacturers stay profitable. Converting that edge still means closing the cost and technology gap with China.
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Its base forecast shows winter peak demand rising by more than 10 gigawatts.
Photo Credit: iStock
Duke Energy, the utility serving customers across North Carolina and South Carolina, has unveiled a sweeping new long-range power plan that could significantly reshape how electricity is generated across the region through 2041.
The utility, which serves customers across North Carolina and South Carolina, said if regulators approve it, the proposal could affect electricity costs, grid reliability, and energy-sector jobs across two of the country’s fastest-growing states.
To serve rising electricity demand across its two-state territory, Duke said it wants to add 18.5 gigawatts of solar power, 14 gigawatts of gas-fired generation, 13 gigawatts of storage, and about 4.5 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity through 2041.
The utility laid out that mix in its 2026 Carolinas Resource Plan, which it filed with South Carolina regulators, as Utility Dive reported.
Its base forecast shows winter peak demand rising by more than 10 gigawatts, or roughly 30% overall. Duke said its service area “continues to experience significant growth, with both South Carolina and North Carolina ranking among the fastest-growing states in the nation.”
The South Carolina Public Service Commission is expected to take up the filing in April, with a decision due out by June. Within the proposed gas buildout, 8.2 gigawatts would come from combined-cycle units and 5.8 gigawatts from combustion turbines.
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One example of that strategy is a 1.4-gigawatt combined-cycle plant in Anderson County, South Carolina, which Duke said it has approval for. It also described gas as a “major near-term reliability resource.”
The utility said two of its six nuclear sites, accounting for four of its 11 nuclear units, have already received subsequent renewed operating licenses. It’s also seeking licenses that could keep its existing nuclear fleet running for as long as 80 years.
The filing also includes cleaner technologies and grid-management tools. Those include utility-scale solar, standalone batteries, and programs designed to reduce strain on the grid during periods of high demand.
The plan keeps the annual energy-efficiency savings target at a minimum of 1% of its load forecast. Duke said its “grid edge” efforts are a “core execution tool to reduce, shift, and shape demand through energy efficiency, demand-side management, load curtailment, customer programs, and storage demand response.”
Energy efficiency and demand response can help households and businesses lower their bills while reducing the need for some costly new generation.
“Solar procurement and construction remain active, including completed facilities, projects under construction, and RFPs for solar and solar paired with storage,” Duke said.
“The company is scaling battery storage execution, with storage projects in service, equipment secured, interconnection activity underway, and an RFP for 400 MW of standalone storage in South Carolina.”
Duke’s proposal comes as utilities face larger questions about how to keep up with growth, maintain reliability, and cut emissions.
• Globally, major utilities are investing more than $100 billion annually in clean energy infrastructure.
• Across developing countries, investors see a solid business case for replacing coal plants with solar.
• Energy markets have been sending a very clear signal that fossil fuel investments remain attractive.
That wider backdrop helps explain why Duke’s plan for the Carolinas leans on both cleaner resources and conventional generation. Utility planning is increasingly influenced by broader investment trends alongside local demand forecasts.
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CEA Proposes Mandatory Energy Storage for New Solar and Wind Projects From 2027 Photograph: (AI)
The Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has proposed a significant change to the technical standards governing renewable energy projects, including mandatory co-located energy storage systems (ESS) for new ground-mounted solar and onshore wind projects commissioned from July 2027.
Under the draft Central Electricity Authority (Technical Standards for Construction of Electric Plants and Electric Lines) 2nd Amendment Regulations, 2026, renewable energy power plants commissioned after July 1, 2027 would also be required to have at least 15% of their inverters equipped with grid-forming control. In addition, all power conversion systems (PCS) used in battery energy storage systems would need to have grid-forming capability. 
The more significant requirement is aimed at ground-mounted solar and onshore wind projects. Projects commissioned after July 1, 2027 would have to be equipped with a co-located ESS with a minimum two-hour storage duration and capacity equivalent to at least 10% of the plant’s installed capacity.  For example, under the proposed framework, a 100 MW solar or wind project would need at least **10 MW of storage for two hours**.
The draft proposes a further increase in storage duration for projects commissioned after July 1, 2029, and up to June 30, 2031. Such ground-mounted solar and onshore wind projects would be required to install co-located ESS with a minimum four-hour storage duration, while retaining the requirement that storage capacity should equal at least 10% of the plant’s installed capacity. 
Thus, a 100 MW project commissioned during this period would need at least 10 MW/40 MWh of storage, compared with 10 MW/20 MWh for projects commissioned from July 2027 under the first phase.
The proposal also signals a greater emphasis on grid-forming technology as India’s power system absorbs increasing volumes of renewable generation. The draft requires at least 15% of inverters in renewable energy plants commissioned after July 1, 2027 to have grid-forming control, while all PCS of battery energy storage systems would need to incorporate grid-forming control to meet the technical requirements under the CEA’s grid connectivity regulations. 
The CEA has also retained flexibility to change the required percentage of grid-forming capability or ESS capacity in the future, with the draft stating that such changes may be notified by the Authority from time to time. 
The CEA issued the draft notification on September 3, 2026, under Section 177 of the Electricity Act, 2003. The authority said the draft regulations will be considered after the expiry of 30 days from the date the notification is made available to the public.  Stakeholders and members of the public have been invited to submit comments by October 4, 2026. If notified in the proposed form, the amendment would mark a major shift in India’s technical requirements for new utility-scale solar and wind capacity, linking future renewable generation more closely with battery storage and grid-forming capabilities.
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WeWork India Plans 10 MWp Solar Plant in Karnataka to Raise Renewable Power Share  SolarQuarter
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⦁ Perovskite-silicon tandem cells stack two light-absorbing layers to produce more electricity per unit of area and weight. Qcells reported 28.6% certified efficiency on a full-area M10 tandem cell. In 2026, it became the first company to receive certification from TÜV Rheinland, confirming that its tandem modules meet both IEC and UL standards.
⦁ As part of the STEFF-1 mission, led by the GTRI in collaboration with the NASA, Qcells’ tandem solar cells will be mounted on a lunar lander. They will be exposed to vacuum, radiation, and extreme temperature swings, generating data that will feed back into research programs in Germany and Korea.
⦁ Hanwha Solutions and Hanwha Systems are jointly advancing high-efficiency tandem solar technology for satellites, with planned in-orbit demonstrations and a pathway toward commercialization in VLEO, followed by potential future expansion to LEO and MEO satellite platforms.
Hanwha Qcells’ next-generation solar technology is about to be tested in one of the most demanding environments imaginable: the Moon. 
 
As part of the Space Science and Technology Evaluation Facility-1 (SSTEF-1) mission, led by the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) in collaboration with NASA, the company’s perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells will be installed on the exterior of a lunar lander and exposed to the extreme conditions of space. The data collected will help accelerate the development of next-generation solar technology by showing how these cells perform in an environment that simply cannot be recreated on Earth. 
 
The mission comes at a defining moment for the solar industry. Global investment in solar is approaching $1 billion a day, with spending expected to reach about $365 billion in 2026 — more than for any other power generation technology, according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Investment 2026 report. Growth is being fueled by rising demand from AI data centers, increased electrification, and a stronger focus on energy security. 
 
Silicon has driven the industry’s rapid growth, but it’s nearing its practical limits. Conventional silicon solar cells have a theoretical efficiency ceiling of 29.4%, while the best laboratory cells have already reached 27.9%, leaving little room for further gains. To generate more power from the same surface area and reduce weight, the industry needs a new approach. While high-performance solar cells already power existing space infrastructure, they remain roughly 100 times more expensive than terrestrial modules due to complex manufacturing processes. Bridging this gap requires a technology that combines extreme efficiency with the low-cost scalability of Earth-based solar. 
What comes after conventional silicon? 
 
Perovskite-silicon tandem cells have emerged as one of the most promising solutions, with research and development advancing across Europe, Asia, and North America. By combining two light-absorbing materials instead of one, tandem cells can capture more of the solar spectrum and generate more electricity from the same surface area. A perovskite layer absorbs higher-energy light, while the silicon layer beneath captures the remaining wavelengths, allowing the cell to generate more electricity without increasing its footprint. 
 
Qcells reported 28.6% certified efficiency for a full-area M10 tandem cell verified by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE). Because these results were reached using commercial manufacturing processes, they represent a critical bridge between laboratory success and industrial mass production. Durability is the harder problem for any new cell chemistry. The company’s tandem modules passed IEC and UL stress sequences verified by TÜV Rheinland, including rigorous thermal cycling and damp heat tests, demonstrating their reliability. 
Why test a solar cell on the lunar surface? 
 
The next question is not only how efficiently these cells perform in the laboratory, but also how they withstand the harshest operating environments. That is why Qcells’ next-generation tandem solar technology is heading to the Moon. 
 
As part of the SSTEF-1 mission, Qcells’ perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells will be exposed to vacuum, intense ultraviolet and cosmic radiation, lunar dust, and dramatic temperature swings. The cells will experience conditions that no terrestrial testing facility can reproduce simultaneously. The requirements of the destination are well suited to the technology. Lunar and long-duration missions need power that is light, efficient, and durable because every kilogram carries a launch cost, and the hardware has to keep working for years without servicing. 
 
While laboratories can isolate individual stresses such as radiation, thermal cycling, or vacuum, the lunar surface exposes solar cells to all of these factors at once over extended periods. The mission offers a rare opportunity to understand how tandem cells respond to the combined effects of the space environment, providing data that can improve future cell design, material selection, and long-term reliability. Those insights will support not only future space applications but also the continued development of high-efficiency solar technology for use on Earth.
 
Rendered image of a lunar payload delivery service lander, which will carry the SSTEF-1
Image credit: NASA
What makes work at the frontier possible? 
 
As one of the world’s leading solar energy solutions providers, Qcells has made long-term investments in tandem technology, with its contribution to SSTEF-1 building on the capabilities it is already deploying at scale. 
 
Holding nearly 40% of the U.S. residential market share, Qcells operates a vertically integrated domestic supply chain in Georgia with 8.6 GW of annual capacity. Utility-scale projects include the Reclamation Solar Project in Indiana, built by Zelestra under a power purchase agreement with Meta. This manufacturing expertise, which includes the capacity to produce everything from ingots to modules in a single facility, provides the industrial foundation necessary for Qcells to successfully transition next-generation tandem solar from the lab to large-scale deployment. 
 
In addition, Hanwha Solutions, the parent organization of Qcells, and Hanwha Systems are jointly developing high-efficiency solar cell and panel technologies for satellites.
 
Through 2028, Hanwha Solutions will lead R&D focused on improving high-efficiency cell design and performance and verifying reliability in space. The company will develop power solutions optimized for very low Earth orbit (VLEO), where power efficiency, lightweight structures and resilience across demanding space environments are critical. The companies also plan to conduct in-orbit demonstrations to validate the technology and evaluate its performance under real space conditions. 
 
Through joint R&D, Hanwha aims to move toward commercialization by integrating tandem cells into Hanwha Systems’ very low Earth orbit ultra-high-resolution synthetic aperture radar (VLEO UHR SAR) satellites, while further developing the technology for use across other orbital environments.  
How is the space solar effort being organized? 
 
A space solar development team was formed within the company’s technology division in June 2026, with recruitment focused on space materials, satellite design, and space-environment reliability, alongside plans for a research center in the United States. 
 
The mission will return data, not products. Qcells was selected for SSTEF-1 because of its leadership in next-generation solar technology and its expertise in high-efficiency photovoltaics. As solar energy takes on a larger share of the global electricity supply, the technologies that support it will be developed in laboratories, proven in factories, and, increasingly, tested in places where nothing else has been. 
 
The data collected on the Moon will provide valuable insights into how advanced solar materials perform in the extreme lunar environment. Those findings could help accelerate the development of tandem solar technology, leading to more efficient and reliable solar solutions for both Earth and future space missions, while supporting the next generation of clean energy innovation. 
Hanwha Solutions Qcells Division
A complete clean energy solutions provider leading the energy transition with a diverse business portfolio throughout the world.
Hanwha Solutions
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Aresearch group in China has fabricated a perovskite solar cell using a new molecular design approach aimed at reducing defects in the perovskite film and increasing device efficiency and stability.
“Rapid film crystallization can generate subtle defects that become concentrated at surfaces, grain boundaries, and buried interfaces,” the research’s lead author, Cong Chen, told pv magazine. “Although molecular additives can effectively mitigate these imperfections, their design requires a careful balance: strong interactions favor defect passivation, but excessive molecular packing or the formation of insulating interfacial layers can hinder charge transport.”
“Additive engineering offers a practical strategy to address these challenges by regulating crystallization while simultaneously passivating electronic defects,” he went on to say. “However, effective additives must balance strong defect binding with unhindered charge transport while ideally providing additional protection against environmental stress.”
The proposed molecular design approach is described as a steric-gated dual-site chelation (SGDC) strategy. It consists of a rigid three-dimensional adamantane scaffold bearing two carboxymethyl coordination arms that enable strong chelation of undercoordinated lead ions (Pb²⁺), while sterically regulating local molecular packing.
The scientists used an adamantane-based molecular additive known as ADA-DA, which was designed to passivate defects in perovskite films. Its two carboxymethyl groups can simultaneously coordinate with undercoordinated Pb²⁺, while its rigid three-dimensional adamantane core controls molecular packing and prevents excessive interfacial crowding.
“This combination enables steric-gated dual-site chelation, providing strong defect passivation without hindering charge transport,” Chen said. “Experimental measurements confirmed strong interactions of ADA-DA with both lead and iodide ions.”
The perovskite film resulting from the molecular strategy exhibited larger grains, fewer grain boundaries, and a more compact and smoother morphology, according to the research team. ADA-DA was distributed throughout the perovskite but preferentially accumulated near surfaces and grain boundaries, where defect passivation is most needed. Electrical measurements further confirmed a substantial reduction in both electron and hole trap densities.
The proposed perovskite solar cell was based on an inverted positive-intrinsic-negative (p-i-n) architecture consisting of an indium tin oxide (ITO) substrate, a hole transport layer (HTL) made of nickel oxide (NiOₓ) and a self-assembled monolayer, the perovskite film, a buckminsterfullerene (C60) electron transport layer (ETL), a bathocuproine (BCP) buffer layer, and a silver (Ag) metal contact. The perovskite layer incorporating ADA-DA was deposited using a vacuum-flash crystallization process.
Under standard illumination conditions, the device achieved a power conversion efficiency of 27.39%, compared with 26.24% for a reference cell built without the proposed molecular strategy. The result was verified by an undisclosed independent third-party certification body, the researchers said.
In a further step, the academics scaled up the ADA-DA-modified device from small-area cells to bifacial mini-modules using either transparent ITO or indium zinc oxide (IZO) electrodes on both sides. Under glass/ITO-side illumination, a 13-cell module with an area of 163.93 cm² reached a peak power conversion efficiency of 22.21%, while under IZO-side illumination, a 12-cell module with an area of 151.32 cm² achieved an efficiency of up to 22.33%.
“The bifacial architecture combines high efficiency with transparency and illumination from either side, making it attractive for building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV),” Chen said. “More importantly, the 151.32 cm² ADA-DA module maintained nearly constant power output for over 5,000 h under continuous white light-emitting diode (LED) illumination. Its output decreased only from 1,028.5 to 1,024.1 mW, corresponding to 99.6% retention, demonstrating exceptional long-term operational stability.”
Both the cells and modules were described in “Steric-gated dual-site chelation enables 27.3% efficient perovskite solar cells and ultra-stable 22% bifacial modules”, published in Joule. The research team included scientists from Hebei University of Technology, Jiaxing Nanhu University, and Tianjin University.
From pv magazine Global
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Germany's renters have found the loophole to energy independence: a solar panel that plugs into the wall like a toaster, dodging landlords, permits, and the 55 percent of households locked out of rooftop solar.
By Brendan Brown
Published September 7, 2026 · How we edit
The most successful solar program in Europe right now involves no roofs, no installers, no permits and no ladders.
It is sold in German supermarkets for around 500 euros, comes in a box, and installs like a bookshelf: bolt one or two panels to the balcony railing, clip on a microwave-sized inverter, and plug the cable into an ordinary wall socket. From that moment, sunlight flows backward through the outlet, quietly running whatever the apartment happens to have switched on.
Germans call it a Balkonkraftwerk — a balcony power plant — and by mid-2025 the country’s official registry had passed one million of them, with community estimates counting millions more sold, half a nation’s railings slowly turning photovoltaic.
The boom makes no sense until you look at who lives in Germany, and how.
Roughly 55 percent of German households rent — the highest share in the EU — and a renter is locked out of the standard solar story. The roof belongs to the landlord. The renter can’t drill it, finance it, or take it along when the lease ends.
What a tenant does control is the balcony. And German law, rewritten in stages to encourage exactly this, turned that sliver of controlled territory into a legal power station: plug-in solar is treated not as an electrical installation but as something closer to an appliance. No electrician required, no grid-operator paperwork — since the 2024 Solarpaket reforms, a single free online registration taking under half an hour. Landlords and homeowner associations, once the great veto, are now legally restricted in their ability to refuse tenants the panels. When you move, the power plant unbolts and moves with you.
Add Europe’s most painful electricity prices — around 32 to 35 cents per kilowatt-hour — plus zero VAT on the hardware and city subsidies up to 500 euros in Berlin and Munich, and the arithmetic closes in a few years. After that, the railing pays rent.
The number in the law is the system’s signature. Each balcony plant may feed at most 800 watts into the apartment — deliberately modest, sized to what old apartment wiring can safely absorb through a socket, and to keep the whole category simple enough to need no inspections.
Eight hundred watts is not a household’s power. It is, as the coverage likes to put it, a fridge and a laptop — the background hum of domestic life. A typical system yields 600 to 900 kilowatt-hours a year, trimming perhaps 10 to 25 percent off a small household’s bill and saving on the order of 300 kilograms of CO2 annually.
Trivial, per balcony. Then multiply by a million-plus and rising: hundreds of megawatts of capacity added in single half-years, small battery packs now joining a quarter of new kits so the midday sun can run the evening, and a solar constituency that now includes people who will never own a roof. The panels’ most measurable output may not even be the electricity — it is normalization, the energy transition made visible at eye level on ordinary streets, one railing convincing the next.
The regime has real edges. The 800-watt cap applies to the inverter’s output; panel capacity can legally run higher — up to 2,000 watts-peak — though a newer German safety standard caps what a standard household socket connection may carry, and battery-equipped systems fall outside the simplified rules entirely. Purists note that a socket-fed panel mostly offsets daytime use and exports its surplus to the grid for free, which is why the little batteries are spreading. And a north-facing balcony in Hamburg is, was, and remains a bad power station.
But the design’s genius is exactly its refusal to be ambitious per unit. Every other solar policy asks: how much power can we get from a building? Germany’s balcony law asked a different question: what is the largest solar system that requires permission from absolutely no one? The answer turned out to be 800 watts, hanging off the one architectural surface a tenant rules — and a million households took the deal. The energy transition’s grandest structures are the gigawatt farms. Its most democratic one plugs into the wall, next to the toaster.
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New Jersey has cleared the way for households to use plug-in solar systems 
The law intends to expand access to solar for people who cannot install traditional rooftop systems 
The measure includes provisions covering system size, installation, and property restrictions 
New Jersey has become the ninth US state to enact legislation allowing plug-in solar systems after Governor Mikie Sherrill signed the Garden State Balcony Solar Act (S2368/A4836) on September 1, 2026. 
Under the law, plug-in solar devices can connect to a home’s existing electrical system through a standard 120-volt outlet. The New Jersey governor’s office said most systems include a microinverter and adapter and can help offset household electricity use. 
The law allows customers to use portable solar devices with a combined output of up to 1,200 W without an interconnection agreement. Systems of 400 W or less are also exempt from requirements that would require changes to a building’s wiring or electrical panel, but must still meet applicable safety standards. 
It also prohibits landlords, homeowner associations, and municipalities from banning these systems or requiring permits for their use. 
Available as a kit comprising solar panels, a microinverter, an adapter, mounting hardware, and a cable that enables direct plugging into a standard power outlet, plug-solar is seen as providing renters and apartment dwellers access to solar. 
“Balcony solar is a practical, easy-to-use tool that can help families save money while allowing more people to participate in our clean energy future. This bill cuts unnecessary red tape, expands access to affordable solar power, and proves that affordability and sustainability can go hand in hand,” stated Sherrill while signing the act. 
The move brings New Jersey into a group of nine US states that have enacted explicit plug-in solar frameworks, according to PlugInSolarUS. The list includes Utah, Maine, Virginia, Colorado, Maryland, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New Jersey, as of September 1, 2026. The New Jersey act will take effect on March 1, 2027, it adds. 
New Jersey may be followed by New York, where the SUNNY Act was passed by the Assembly as well as the Senate, but awaits Governor Kathy Hochul’s signature to be enacted (see North America Solar PV News Snippets). 
California’s Plug and Play Solar Act, introduced by Senator Scott Weiner, is also awaiting Governor Gavin Newsom’s signature. 
Meanwhile, legislation in several other states continues to move through different stages. Overall, 34 states are taking some action to make plug-in solar legal.   
TaiyangNews 2024

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Interest in rooftop solar has surged in recent months, as Europeans scramble to protect themselves from the spiralling costs of fossil fuels.
According to an EU-wide analysis published in the Nature Energy journal, rooftop solar photovoltaics (solar PV) could supply around 40 per cent of Europe's electricity by 2050. However, only around 10 per cent of Europe's building rooftops are currently equipped with PV.
Governments across the continent are trying to bolster uptake by offering generous subsidies or financial perks. For example, in Ireland homeowners can receive grants of up to €1,800 through the country's sustainable energy scheme – while public grants in Hungary can cover up to two-thirds of solar panel costs for homeowners providing they meet specific requirements.
Many other countries such as Germany and the Netherlands have implemented benefits such as 0 per cent VAT on solar panel sales and installation to make the switch more affordable. However, heavy upfront installation costs remain a huge barrier – particularly among low-income households.
But, could 'solar bonds' be the magic solution?
The cost of installing solar panels can vary significantly, as there are many factors that can affect the pricing.
According to solar firm LOGI, a single family home in Europe typically needs between 6 and 15 kWp of solar power, depending on household size, heat pump use and electric car charging, which costs anything from €7,000 to €30,000. In the UK, a typical 4.5 kWp system is about £7,600 (€8,831).
Related
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While solar panels can save homeowners hundreds of euros on their energy bills every year, it can take time before you will see a return on your investment. Again, this can vary depending on multiple factors – including how much you have electrified your home, whether you work from home, and what type of tariff you are on.
Many experts, including the UK's Energy Savings Trust, say it could take a typical home at least 10 years to recoup the costs of installing panels. It also requires hefty capital for installation, which in itself can cost up to £10,000 (€11,621). For many homeowners, this means taking out a loan subject to interest.
This is why Dr Donal Brown, a senior researcher in energy policy and political economy at the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) is calling for government-backed finance to make rooftop solar more affordable.
Published by the Common Wealth thinktank, the report, titled A Right to the Sun, proposes a universal Solar Bond scheme under which all households with a suitable roof would be eligible to access solar panels without credit checks or other eligibility requirements that are usually associated with conventional loans.
This cost would be repaid over a 25-year period through household energy bills, with the finance attached to the property rather than the homeowner. This means if you move out, the loan and finance stays with the property, so the panels and their remaining repayments would be passed onto the next occupier.
The report found that such a scheme could save households at least £83 (€96) a year (or almost double with a battery) even when the cost of finance repayments are taken into account.
"Delivering this programme would also provide an opportunity to create jobs and improve livelihoods in communities across the UK," the report says.
"A healthy market for rooftop solar installations already exists, with the Solar Trade Association estimating more than 42,000 new jobs could be created by an expanded rollout by 2030."
A desperate search is continuing after a man vanished while out with his wife during a visit to a popular tourist spot on Sunday afternoon.
A killer remains at large after a man was shot dead outside a suburban home, with detectives now appealing for dashcam footage.
A murder victim’s sister instantly had a “gut feeling” about the killer she would spend more than 20 years trying to put behind bars.
A push to allow internet users to opt out of algorithms will be revealed in coming days, but some have already criticised it as overreach.
The three men attended the hospital at different times after being stabbed in a fight at a fast-food restaurant.
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The minister charged with making the social media ban for teens a success has made a plea to “dawdling” parliamentarians.
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Police are searching for a man who allegedly attacked his brother with an axe or tomahawk before turning on his elderly parents.
After six years and 35,000km travelling Australia in a $100,000 bus, an Aussie couple have settled down to build their tiny home.

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Energies Media
Solar panels and crops can share land — a new model shows both come out ahead
Solar farms are expanding fast — and so is the pressure on agricultural land. The two needs have long seemed to be in direct competition.
Agrivoltaics, the practice of growing crops beneath or alongside solar panels, has been proposed as a way to ease that tension. But most research has examined only one piece of the puzzle at a time. Now, a new computational model simulates how panels, plants, soil, air, and even farmworkers interact as a single system — and the findings suggest the trade-offs may be smaller than assumed.
Photovoltaic energy is projected to become a dominant global energy source by 2050, and solar farm construction is accelerating to match that ambition. That growth comes at a cost: solar installations frequently occupy land that could otherwise produce food. With a growing global population and rising energy demand, the competition between these two land uses is getting harder to ignore.
Agrivoltaics offers a straightforward answer — grow crops around or beneath solar panels on the same plot of land. Early research was encouraging. Panels shaded certain crops, retained soil moisture, and supported agricultural output alongside clean energy production. But those studies tended to isolate individual variables, looking at light availability or crop yield without accounting for how all the moving parts interact at once.
The new simulation changes that. Developed by Hosseini and colleagues, it tracks how energy, momentum, mass, and carbon dioxide move through an agrivoltaic system simultaneously — capturing the interplay between solar panels, crops, soil, air, water movement, and CO₂ uptake in a single framework.
That integration is what sets it apart from earlier approaches, which treated each variable in isolation. This model treats the agrivoltaic system as what it actually is: a set of interdependent processes that continuously influence one another.
The researchers validated it against real-world measurements — leaf temperature data collected in Davis, California, and soil temperature readings from Chicago City, Minnesota. The model also incorporates something largely absent from prior research: an estimate of heat stress experienced by farmworkers during working hours.
To test the model in a realistic scenario, the researchers applied it to a hypothetical tomato farm using weather data from a hot, humid day in Princeton, New Jersey. The mid-Atlantic location was chosen deliberately — it represents a densely populated region where both food production and energy generation face significant pressure.
The results were notable. Tomato leaves growing beneath solar panels were 1.84°C cooler on average during the day compared to those in an open field. During peak afternoon heat, that difference reached 7.56°C — a meaningful buffer against the temperature spikes that damage crops.
The shade came with an expected downside: crops under the panels received 47% less sunlight. Carbon uptake, though, fell by only 31% — not the 47% you might predict. That gap suggests reduced heat stress allowed plants to photosynthesize more efficiently than they otherwise would have. Water loss through evapotranspiration also dropped by 22.4%, a real gain in water-use efficiency for a sector that accounts for the majority of global freshwater consumption.
The benefits didn’t flow only to the crops. Solar panels positioned above the tomato plants ran 5.6°C cooler during the day than panels installed over bare soil — and that matters, because heat is one of the primary factors that degrades solar panel performance. The cooler operating temperatures allowed the panels to recover approximately 15% of the efficiency typically lost to heat. A gain in energy output that comes essentially for free.
The model also flagged an occupational health dimension that rarely appears in agrivoltaic research. Average perceived temperatures for farmworkers dropped by 4.46°C during working hours. Heat-related illness is a serious and underreported risk in agricultural labor, so that finding points to a benefit extending well beyond crop yields and kilowatt-hours.
The researchers designed the model to be adaptable across different climates, crop varieties, and panel configurations — making it a practical planning tool before any physical installation takes place. That flexibility matters. The benefits of agrivoltaics are highly context-dependent; what works well for tomatoes in New Jersey may not translate to wheat in Kansas or lettuce in California.
Future versions could go further, incorporating economic variables, regional water availability, and a broader range of crops and geographic settings. As agrivoltaic installations grow in number and scale, simulation tools like this one may become essential for optimizing designs that work for both the farm and the grid.
You can check the complete study in this source: Hosseini, E., Katul, G. G., Najm, M. A., Daccache, A., Ravi, S., Heroux, K. M., et al. (2026). Food, energy, and health implications of agrivoltaic farms. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 18, e2025MS005588. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025MS005588
Daniel García is an Editor-in-Chief with strong expertise in structural work and engineering principles. He combines this technical foundation with deep knowledge of energy, spatial design, and emerging technologies, bringing a forward-thinking and analytical approach to editorial leadership.
Daniel García is an Editor-in-Chief with strong expertise in structural work and engineering principles. He combines this technical foundation with deep knowledge of energy, spatial design, and emerging technologies, bringing a forward-thinking and analytical approach to editorial leadership.
Daniel García is an Editor-in-Chief with strong expertise in structural work and engineering principles. He combines this technical foundation with deep knowledge of energy, spatial design, and emerging technologies, bringing a forward-thinking and analytical approach to editorial leadership.

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Plug-in solar shone at IFA 2026 — here are the 5 best products we saw, from Anker to DJI and EcoFlow  TechRadar
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While the vast majority of solar panels are fixed in place on rooftops and solar farms, a niche but growing application is solar-powered vehicles. A good example is a team of enterprising students from the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU Eindhoven) in the Netherlands, which has created what’s purported to be the world’s first ambulance powered by solar energy. Developed by Solar Team Eindhoven and called Stella Juva (“helping star” in Latin), the solar-powered ambulance is designed to bring healthcare directly to people in need of assistance in remote areas instead of taking them immediately to the hospital, which is likely to be a considerable distance away. 
Rather than converting an actual ambulance to solar power or transforming an existing solar vehicle into an ambulance, the team built the vehicle from scratch, working on everything from the chassis to the suspension and the electrical system. The solar power comes from 542 solar cells placed across the roof and trunk, as well as two flaps that fold out when the ambulance is stationary. Energy gathered from the sun is stored in an onboard 50-kilowatt-hour battery, which powers the vehicle’s electric drivetrain as well as the all-important medical equipment. 
The system is designed to allow Stella Juva to drive 444 miles (715 km) in favorable conditions, with solar energy helping to reduce its reliance on external charging facilities, while the vehicle is able to provide a range of essential diagnostic, screening, and maternal healthcare services using its onboard equipment. The broader goal of the ambitious project is to demonstrate how sustainable technology can improve people’s lives, particularly by making healthcare more accessible.
Members of Solar Team Eindhoven tested Stella Juva in Kenya in August 2026, giving them a chance to assess its performance in real-world conditions, in places where effective medical care is hard to come by. The team drove Stella Juva about 500 miles (800 km) across Kenya to a remote health clinic in Mosiro in the southwest of the country. The journey was designed to test not only whether the solar-powered vehicle could handle challenging terrain, but also whether its solar-based setup could provide enough energy to operate its medical equipment once it reached communities far from conventional infrastructure. 
The trial produced encouraging results, according to a report by CNN, with Stella Juva dealing with the rough roads better than expected. In another win, the team discovered that the vehicle is capable of sustaining its own energy requirements while parked, producing surplus energy even while using its onboard equipment, thereby eliminating the need for external power sources.
Although the trial didn’t involve actual patients, the team calculated that the vehicle could have helped around 200 people across a period of two days. For areas where clinics lack reliable electricity, Stella Juva’s combination of mobility and self-generated power looks incredibly valuable. Indeed, the successful test has proved to be an important demonstration of how the concept performs out in the field, though funding is seen as a hurdle if Stella Juva and other vehicles like it are to stay on the road full-time.
Engineers have been experimenting with solar-powered vehicles for decades, with General Motors making headlines in 1955 with the demonstration of Sunmobile, a miniature solar-powered machine. The first drivable solar car was unveiled in the 1960s, while a breakthrough came in 1982 when Hans Tholstrup drove Quiet Achiever across Australia in a trip of around 2,538 miles (4,084 km). While it’s true that solar-powered vehicles have been held back by engineering challenges such as solar-panel weight and bulky batteries, advances are being made that have paved the way for some interesting uses.
Long-endurance solar drones, for example, can stay airborne for weeks by harvesting sunlight and storing excess energy in onboard batteries. They’re currently being tested and developed for things like environmental monitoring, wildfire detection, mapping, surveillance, and communications. Their ability to stay aloft for long periods could make them well suited for missions requiring continuous monitoring over large or remote areas, and there’s even research into a design that means they’d never have to land.
Back on land, solar-assisted delivery trikes and micro-vans are another emerging use, with onboard solar panels serving to extend the range of the last-mile delivery vehicles. Bako Motors, for example, has developed a solar-powered delivery vehicle (pictured) for use in Africa, where limited charging infrastructure can make onboard solar particularly useful, just as in the case of solar-powered ambulances. As Solar Team Eindhoven and other groups around the world continue their work, it seems likely we’re on the verge of even more breakthroughs in the use of solar energy to help solve real-world problems.

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By Sethuraman N R and Colleen Howe
Indian makers of solar panels are being forced to shut factories as they face waits stretching up to eight months for domestic components to replace Chinese imports as the government pushes to beef up domestic manufacturing, industry sources say.
The disruptions, triggered by rules that took effect on June 1, threaten thousands of jobs and investment of nearly $4 billion, manufacturers and analysts said, while imperiling India’s 2030 target to boost solar energy capacity.
“We have suffered a lot due to the domestic cell unavailability for the past three months,” said Shailendra Shukla, chairman of Icon Solar, a module maker, who expects production to shrink sharply to about 1 GW from 3.2 GW.
Nearly a third of India’s 140 small- and medium-sized solar panel makers, which make up 60% of manufacturing capacity, have halted output and the rest cut cycles to three to four days, the All India Solar Module Manufacturers Association told Reuters.
Manufacturers lacking facilities to make their own cells said they face waiting periods of up to six to eight months for domestic cells, which boost the cost of domestically made solar panels to almost double those that use Chinese cells.
India’s clean energy ministry said it had not received formal reports about production halts by standalone makers of solar modules but was keeping watch on prices, while expecting adequate cell manufacturing capacity within six months.
But India is struggling to boost supply because building technology-intensive solar cell factories takes time and China has curbed exports of solar manufacturing technology, equipment, and technical support, the industry sources said.
The shortages stand to delay solar projects and boost costs, possibly slowing India’s push to establish 500 gigawatts of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030, the industry sources and analysts said, from 288 GW now.
Growing electricity demand means a slowdown in solar deployment will have to be offset by greater use of fossil fuel-based generation, primarily coal, delaying the switch to cleaner energy.
Solar accounts for about 29% of India’s non-fossil fuel power capacity and is expected to expand to more than 292 GW by 2030 from the current 162 GW, the Central Electricity Authority says.
While Indian firms have built up solar panel manufacturing capacity of about 200 GW, they can produce only 27 GW of solar cells, the government estimates.
The gap yawns wider in practice, with effective operating cell manufacturing capacity of only around 16 GW to 18 GW, said Germany-based EUPD Research and the industry sources.
The government’s figures reflect installed, or nameplate, capacity, much of which is not yet operational or is running well below rated levels, they said.
“India faces a steep cell supply deficit and closing that gap will likely take three to five years,” said Rajan Kalsotra, senior consultant at EUPD Research.
That time would be needed to build new cell facilities, which require significant capital, technology partnerships, and lengthy commissioning periods, he added.
“With China controlling much of the global solar manufacturing equipment and technology ecosystem, rapidly scaling local cell production will remain challenging.”
India relies on China for about 95% of solar cell imports, industry estimates show. Such imports rose 37% in the last fiscal year to about $1.86 billion year over year.
But China monitors technology exports to India and curbs equipment sales, said the industry sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity as the matter is a sensitive one.
China’s export curbs would delay setting up cell manufacturing plants, six manufacturers told Reuters, also seeking anonymity, for fear of Chinese government reprisal.
“Over the long term, China is likely to seek to preserve its dominance of the solar industry, where it already has a strong grip on most manufacturing segments,” said Cosimo Ries, analyst at policy consultancy Trivium China.
China’s commerce ministry did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
At least three solar module makers Reuters spoke to have temporarily halted production for lack of domestically made cells, while four more have cut capacity to about a third.
Bringing new cell manufacturing capacity online takes far longer than the government expects, the manufacturers said.
“It is impossible to start producing cells with 18 months’ notice due to complicated technology, manufacturing needs like land and sourcing raw materials,” said Chetan Shah, chairman of solar panel producer Solex Energy.
He was referring to the government’s June 2026 deadline for the use of domestically made solar cells, set in December 2024.
India has extended the date to December 2026 for some projects, citing industry concerns over shortages and the need to protect manufacturers’ investments.
The makers’ association said the waiver would bring limited relief, however, unless extended to the entire industry.
Standalone module makers without cell manufacturing capability employ about 75,000 people, including 45,000 alone in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s western home state of Gujarat, according to a state industry group.
Power producers could face a short-term increase of about 35% in capital expenditure costs until domestic cell-making capacity scales up, said Pinaki Bhattacharyya, chief executive of power producer AMPIN Energy Transition.
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By Alexander Lewis
Topic:Solar Energy
The International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney) is to install 4,500 photovoltaic panels on its rooftop.
Once completed, the ICC Sydney will be home to what is being described as the largest solar farm in any city centre in the Southern Hemisphere.
The solar farm will cut carbon emissions by up to 2,000 tonnes a year.
A solar farm heralded as the largest in any central business district (CBD) in the Southern Hemisphere is being built in the heart of Sydney.
About 4,500 photovoltaic panels will cover the rooftops of the International Convention Centre Sydney (ICC Sydney) and produce enough electricity to power up to 400 homes.
The rooftop generation combined with purchased renewable electricity will mean the government-owned site is powered entirely by green energy.
The solar farm will be built in the heart of Sydney.  (ABC News: Alexander Lewis)
Paul Scully, the Minister for Planning and Public Spaces, told the ABC that the upgrade would attract more events to Sydney.
"Coming to one of the most environmentally friendly convention centres in the world is a big selling point," Mr Scully said.
"This is showing how, as an urban community, we can do our part in the rebuild of our energy system, where we're using large roof spaces."
The panels will be installed on the rooftop of the ICC Sydney. (ABC News: Alexander Lewis)
The solar farm will cut carbon emissions by up to 2,000 tonnes a year, which the government said is equivalent to the amount absorbed by a forest of about 100,000 mature trees.
The ICC Sydney already had some solar panels installed, but the older technology was too heavy to be placed on certain sections of the rooftops.
With lighter panels now available, the centre can increase the size of its solar footprint.
Paul Scully and Chris Jones are lauding the project.  (ABC News: Alexander Lewis)
Chris Jones is the head of asset management at Capella Capital, which leads the consortium that maintains the facility.
Mr Jones said the newer, more efficient panels would allow the ICC Sydney to produce about 300 per cent more energy.
"This facility running at full capacity is a big drawer of electricity," Mr Jones said.
Battery storage was not an option as it would take up too much space.
"The only logical way to do it is to use the grid as a synthetic battery if you will," Mr Jones said.
The solar farm will cut carbon emissions by up to 2,000 tonnes a year. (ABC News: Alexander Lewis)
With power bills reaching $1.8 million a year, the centre was also trying to reduce consumption by upgrading appliances such as fridges.
ICC Sydney chief executive officer Adam Mather-Brown said the facility sought to use less power each year.
"We've just finished an entire re-bulbing exercise on the building, because being 10 years old, new technology has come in," Mr Mather-Brown said.
"For thousands of lights that we have, we've reduced that already."
The existing panels were dismantled this week and will be given to the Kindly Animal Sanctuary near Armidale in the Northern Tablelands for reuse.
It is estimated they will last another 10 to 15 years.
"They can reduce their energy bill and keep those rescue animals warm at the same time," Mr Scully said.
The rooftop of the ICC in Sydney's CBD. (Supplied: Solar Fit Solutions)
In June, NSW Opposition Leader Kellie Sloane pledged to create a renewable energy zone (REZ) in the cities of Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong.
The state's first urban REZ is being set up in the Illawarra, drawing from solar generated on the roofs of homes and businesses, and using home and community batteries.
Mr Scully would not say whether the government was looking to establish a REZ in Sydney but hinted other areas of urban generation would follow the Illawarra.
"We're looking to use that as the test bed to see what we might be able to take from that and scale up to other urban communities," he said.
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Luis Reyes
Sep 6, at 1:30pm ET
Every outdoor pool runs short of the same thing in August, and it is not water. You show up at eleven, the lawn is already full, and the few trees along the fence have towels under them. A town utility northwest of Frankfurt spent the spring building more shade at its pool. Then it wired the shade into the building.
Stadtwerke Oberursel runs the TaunaBad, the public pool in Oberursel, a town of about 47,000 at the foot of the Taunus hills. Before the outdoor season opened it put up three pergolas on the lawn beside the children’s pool, each one 34 by 38 feet (10.4 by 11.5 meters). The roofs are made of 180 solar panels. Stadtwerke Oberursel forecasts about 69,500 kilowatt-hours a year out of them.
A pergola is a freestanding frame with a roof on it, the thing you put over a patio when there is no wall to hang an awning from. The TaunaBad version swaps the slats for photovoltaic modules, so the panels are the roof instead of sitting on top of one. Three of them cover about 3,862 square feet of grass next to the kids’ area.
That distinction matters more at a pool than it sounds. The buildings on a pool site are small and the open ground is enormous, so the roof area everybody wants to fill barely exists. Anybody who has priced a patio cover also knows the frame costs more than whatever you lay across the top of it, which is the honest argument against doing this anywhere you have a roof sitting empty. The argument for it here is that shade over the lawn was the thing families actually wanted.
The second half of the job is stranger, and I think it is the better idea. A fence already ran between the pool grounds and the parking lot. The utility bolted 64 bifacial modules onto it and forecasts about 38,000 kilowatt-hours a year off that line.
So why put solar panels on a fence at all?
Bifacial modules collect light through the back of the cell as well as the front, which makes standing one upright less wasteful than it looks. One face takes the direct sun and the other takes whatever bounces off the parking lot behind it. Stadtwerke Oberursel says the fence modules work on direct and reflected light together. A vertical panel does give up the middle of the day that a tilted array is designed around, and picks up more of the early morning and the late afternoon in exchange. We went through the same physics on a Queens rooftop where about a hundred kilowatts of solar panels stand on edge above a garden.
So I did the division myself. Running the utility’s two forecasts against its own module counts, each fence module works out at about 594 kilowatt-hours a year, against about 386 for each pergola module. Stadtwerke Oberursel has not published the wattage of either type, so I cannot tell you how much of that gap is bigger panels and how much is the bifacial gain.
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Both installations together come to more than 107 kilowatts peak and a forecast 107,000 kilowatt-hours a year. That lands at roughly 1,000 kilowatt-hours per kilowatt installed, the ordinary rule of thumb for German sunshine rather than an optimistic one. It is still a forecast. No full year has gone through the meter yet.
Almost all of it stays on site. Stadtwerke Oberursel says the electricity feeds the TaunaBad’s own technical equipment rather than the grid, and it planned the pergolas alongside a replacement of the pool’s pumps. Hessen’s state funding program for municipal climate protection and adaptation projects paid into the pergola half.
Pool pumps suit solar well. Circulation and filtration run through the whole operating day, all season, at a fairly flat load, and the panels make their power in the same window. You do not need a battery to line those two up.
Set that against Disneyland Paris, where 82,000 solar panels cover 11,200 parking spaces. The Swiss builder that developed it sells the entire output, and the park self-consumes none of it. Both are real projects. Only one of the two runs its own equipment on what it makes.
Stadtwerke Oberursel puts the pergolas at the annual consumption of about 28 households and the fence at about 15, so 43 between them. Run the same output past an American meter and it shrinks fast. The Energy Information Administration had US residential customers averaging 865 kilowatt-hours a month in 2024, about 10,400 a year, which turns 43 German households into roughly ten American ones.
American houses are bigger and most of them run air conditioning, which the EIA’s own survey work keeps finding to be the largest single use of electricity in US homes. German homes also do much of their heating and hot water on gas rather than electricity, which keeps the electric half of the bill smaller before anybody turns anything on.
None of this is exotic hardware, which is the appealing part of it. The modules are ordinary and the pergola is a patio structure with a stiffer roof, and the whole idea rests on putting them where the ground was already committed to something else. The airport at Frankfurt, on the other side of the same metro area, ran solar panels down the side of a runway on the same logic.
Stadtwerke Oberursel announced on August 28 that the outdoor season ends on Sunday, September 13, and that the indoor pool reopens the next morning at 6:30 after a summer of retiling. About 95,000 people came through the outdoor pool this season, roughly 3,000 more than last year, when the indoor pool was open too. The busiest day was June 27, with 3,645 swimmers, and the utility says the new pergolas in front of the children’s pool were among the most popular spots on the lawn.
Image credit: CSC
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