Solar Now

Recycling solar panels installed in 2020 could supply up to 21% of the silver needed for new panel production by 2035. Technical advances are making panel recycling more economic. Buyers and asset owners can start modeling recycled supply and retirement value.
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Key takeaways
Panels installed in 2020 could supply up to 21% of the silver needed for solar panel production in 2035, a 15-year lag that suggests recycled supply could be estimated from installation records.
European researchers estimate recycling could cover about 25% of cobalt and 15% of lithium, nickel and manganese supply by 2030.
A recycler's recovery rate means little without its purity: TNO's laser process reported roughly 97% yield with silver at 99.7% purity, the pairing that tells a manufacturer whether the metal is usable.
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Solar panels installed in 2020 could supply up to 21% of the silver the industry needs to build new panels in 2035, according to research from Rystad Energy.
The squeeze behind the argument is familiar. Electric vehicles, solar, battery storage and bigger grids are driving up demand for copper, rare earths, silver and other materials, and the International Energy Agency expects transition-linked mineral demand to keep growing for decades. New mines, refineries and processing plants take years to build.
Redwood Materials and International Energy Agency, via Reuters
Reuters reports that the supply of batteries available for recycling should keep growing, now that the earliest large-scale EV batteries are reaching maturity.
In Europe, the forecasts are closer and more specific. Researchers estimate roughly 15% of lithium, nickel and manganese supply could come from recycled sources by 2030. Cobalt stands out. Researchers estimate around 25% of European cobalt supply could come from recycling by 2030, which suggests recycled material could become a mainstream input for that metal.
Redwood says the materials it recovers are an expanding domestic supply, one that can cut reliance on imports and on new mining. In Reuters' account, recycling is changing from a waste-management problem into a strategic industrial opportunity.
Retired panels have mainly given recyclers glass and aluminum. Separating the valuable parts, the silver and silicon, has often been difficult or not worth the cost. Reuters reports that several recent technical advances are making solar-panel recycling more economic, letting recyclers extract silver and silicon more efficiently.
A laser-assisted process shown by researchers at the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) recovered silicon at purity up to 99.998% and silver at 99.7%, with yields of about 97%. At the University of Newcastle in Australia, researchers recovered close to 100% of the silver from end-of-life solar panels. Their method relies on flotation techniques the mining industry already knows, and it can be scaled commercially.
When a recycler quotes a recovery rate, ask for the purity as well. Yield tells you how much metal comes back, and purity tells you whether a manufacturer can use it. TNO's demonstration reported both.
According to Rystad Energy, recyclable materials from solar panels are worth around $2 billion today, and that total could reach roughly $80 billion by 2050. The estimate is based on how widely solar is being deployed worldwide and on the expected rise in materials prices. The consultancy's 2035 outlook shows that this value is spread unevenly across materials.
That spread matters to buyers. A 21% share suggests recycled silver could become a meaningful input for panel makers by 2035, while a 2% share suggests recycled copper would stay small next to mined supply. A materials planner can't treat "solar recycling" as one number. Each metal has its own forecast, and only some of them are big enough to change a sourcing plan.
The detail most readers will skim past is the vintage. Rystad's 2035 shares come from recycling panels installed in 2020.
Solar manufacturers and the teams that buy their silver paste and polysilicon could start modeling recycled feedstock in long-range sourcing, with volumes linked to known installation records. For operators who own solar fleets or battery assets, retirement value could be worth tracking in decommissioning plans, since Rystad's valuation factors in an expected increase in materials prices.
Wind power is experiencing its own recycling breakthrough, according to Reuters. Most of a turbine can already be recycled, but the blades have long been the hard part.
One development could show whether solar recycling is becoming a dependable source of supply: whether laser-assisted separation or flotation moves from a published result to a contracted plant with stated throughput.
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© 2025 THE COOL DOWN COMPANY. All Rights Reserved. Do not sell or share my personal information. Reach us at hello@thecooldown.com.
“The few recent days with cloud and rain saw [an output] drop by about 50%.”
Photo Credit: iStock
After seeing a nine-panel solar setup cover all of a home’s electricity costs through summer, one U.K. homeowner turned to the internet with a winter solar question.
In a thread posted to Reddit’s r/SolarUK forum, the homeowner asked, “What can I expect as the days get shorter?”
The original poster shared that they recently went solar and “haven’t paid for any electricity since the install.” OP added, “the few recent days with cloud and rain saw [an output] drop by about 50% but the sun has still been out.”
Responses in the thread pointed to a wide but consistently sharp winter slowdown. Several commenters said cold-season output often lands at roughly one-sixth of summer production, and one user reported, “My December 2025 generation was 1/9th of my June 2025 generation.”
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.
Commenters also stressed that local conditions matter. They said winter generation can vary with panel orientation, roof pitch, tree or neighboring-house shade, and cloud cover. To illustrate the extremes, one user recalled a January day when a 32-panel system produced just 1.7 kilowatt-hours, while another wrote that their system made “2,000+ kwh in July, 200kwh or so in December/Jan.”
As this homeowner found out, despite worse winter months, going solar is still one of the best ways to save money on home energy. If you’re considering it, try EnergySage to get free solar installation estimates and compare quotes.
Winter solar in the U.K. can drop off quickly because the days are shorter and the sun sits lower in the sky, even without complete cloud cover. As one commenter put it, “Winter is rubbish for solar.”
EnergySage can be especially useful for shoppers trying to keep upfront costs down. With EnergySage’s help, the average person can save up to $10,000 on solar purchases and installations. Homeowners can also use EnergySage’s solar map, which shows the average cost of a home solar panel system by state, along with details on solar panel incentives for each state. 
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Want to go solar but not sure who to trust? EnergySage has your back with free and transparent quotes from fully vetted providers that can help you save as much as $10k on installation.
To get started, just answer a few questions about your home — no phone number required. Within a day or two, EnergySage will email you the best local options for your needs, and their expert advisers can help you compare quotes and pick a winner.
And like several commenters recommended, adding battery storage to a solar setup is one of the best ways to protect your home during outages, save money on energy, and go off-grid. You can similarly explore EnergySage for information about home battery storage options, including competitive installation estimates.
For a clearer picture of what solar looks like beyond a strong summer, these stories dig into the same real-world questions. 
• An industry insider used real-world data to show solar still works in winter for many homes.
• In Australia, a 20-kilowatt setup made blackouts invisible and even produced a monthly credit.
💡Go deep on the latest news and trends shaping the residential solar landscape
• EnergySage warned that interconnected factors shape solar costs for homeowners.
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Thabang MoashetsiWhat began as a Grade 7 visit to the Eskom Expo for Young Scientists has transformed into an inspiring entrepreneurial journey for Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) Computer Science student Thabang Moashetsi, whose innovative solar technology is now headed for the prestigious National Pitch competition in November 2026.
Moashetsi is the founder of Allketek Energies, a startup developing the Autonomous Solar Asset Management System (ASAMS), an innovative solution designed to improve the cleaning, maintenance and monitoring of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. The technology addresses one of the key challenges facing the renewable energy sector by automating essential maintenance functions that help solar systems operate at peak efficiency.
His passion for innovation was ignited in 2019 when a teacher introduced him to the Eskom Expo for Young Scientists. During the event, he was inspired by the story of a young inventor who had created a medical dispenser to assist elderly, deaf and visually impaired individuals through the use of light and sound alerts.
“That story changed how I viewed innovation,” recalls Moashetsi. “Throughout high school, I continued to develop prototypes and present them to panels of judges at the Expo. Those experiences strengthened my confidence in problem-solving and sparked my interest in using technology to address real-world challenges.”
His innovation journey continued at Vuselela TVET College, where he received training in solar PV mounting and gained hands-on experience installing solar systems. It was there that he identified an opportunity to solve a recurring industry challenge.
“If solar panels require regular cleaning and maintenance to perform effectively, could some of that work be automated?” he asked. That simple yet powerful question became the foundation of ASAMS.
Designed as an integrated solution, ASAMS combines autonomous movement, automated cleaning, intelligent sensors, monitoring capabilities and fault detection technology. The innovation draws on Moashetsi’s practical experience in solar installations and his academic expertise in Computer Science.
He credits TUT with providing the knowledge and environment necessary to transform the concept into a viable technological solution.
“Through my Computer Science studies, I gained knowledge in software development, automation, sensors, data systems and control technologies, enabling me to contribute to the project’s technological and software components,” he says.
Beyond technical skills, TUT also fostered an ecosystem where academic learning, entrepreneurship and innovation intersect, allowing him to develop solutions with real-world impact.
A major milestone came when Moashetsi and his team participated in the NWU × ABSA × YAEI Entrepreneurship and Innovation Event, where they showcased ASAMS to industry experts, entrepreneurs and judges. The experience provided valuable exposure and critical feedback that helped refine both the technology and its commercial proposition.
“Communicating a complex technological innovation within a limited timeframe was challenging, but it reinforced an important lesson,” says Moashetsi. “Having an innovative idea is only part of the innovation journey. The ability to communicate its value effectively is equally important.”
Behind the success of ASAMS is a multidisciplinary team whose expertise spans engineering, business operations, marketing and technical development. The team includes Moashetsi as Project Lead, Researcher, Programmer and PV Mounter; Oupanyana Bojang as Head of Structural Design; Mahomed Khan as Chief Operations Officer; Sienki Bojang as Structural Design Assistant; Oratile Matlhako as PV Mounter and Installer; Raymond Chisinahama as Marketing Strategist; and RS SA, which provides advisory support on component procurement.
Their dedication and hard work paid off when ASAMS was shortlisted for the National Pitch Competition, while also securing R10 000 in prize money. For the team, the achievement represents recognition of years of perseverance, innovation and determination despite resource constraints.
“It was a special moment for the team and me,” reflects Moashetsi. “My immediate thought was that this was not the end of the journey, but another opportunity to build further.”
As they prepare for the National Pitch on 18 November 2026 at the Gallagher Convention Centre, the team remains focused on enhancing the prototype’s autonomous movement, cleaning mechanisms, electronics, control systems and monitoring capabilities. They are also refining their business model and presentation to showcase the full technical and commercial potential of the innovation.
For Moashetsi, the journey from a curious Grade 7 learner to a national-level innovator demonstrates the power of curiosity, education and determination. His story serves as a reminder that transformative ideas often begin with a single spark and that, when nurtured, they can grow into innovations capable of shaping a more sustainable future.
©Higher Education Media Services.

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Layer Order Surprise: Atomic-Deposited Tin Oxide Boosts Perovskite Solar Cells Only When Hidden  Bioengineer.org
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Bloomington offers free solar installations for qualifying homeowners  The Herald-Times
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Oct. 3. 2026
VERNON COUNTY, Wis. – The Vernon County Board of Supervisors has voted to create a special five member committee to study whether a portion of the county owned farm property should be leased for a utility scale solar project.
The decision came during the board’s Sept. 17 meeting following a wide ranging discussion on renewable energy, agricultural land preservation, local economic development, and potential partnerships to assist low income residents with rising utility bills.
The debate was sparked when Supervisor Charles Jacobson brought forward an inquiry from project leaders with the Renewable Energy Siting and Engagement for Tomorrow program, a University of Wisconsin Extension initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Jacobson explained that program coordinators asked if Vernon County would reconsider a past proposal from a Minnesota energy developer to lease 58 to 90 acres of the roughly 200 acre county farm in Viroqua for a ground mounted solar array.
Jacobson noted that utility scale solar leases in the region currently pay landowners between $500 and $1,500 per acre annually, compared to standard agricultural cash rents. Jacobson urged supervisors to decide whether the concept was worth investigating before staff and committee members spent months gathering data.
“I got an email from the lady that ran that RESET group that I was on, and there’s a question if the county would consider putting a solar panel, solar farm on that section of the county farm that was originally proposed by the Minnesota group,” said Jacobson. “And I guess I’m just curious if there’s any interest or whatever, and as an agenda item, then we can discuss it if we want to consider putting a solar farm on the county farm.”
Jacobson stressed that he wanted clear direction from the board before committing time to the initiative.
“I’m willing to put the effort into it, but I don’t want to come back and then do all this and then say, well, you should have never wasted your time because we’re not going to listen to you anyway,” said Jacobson. “That’s where I’m at.”

Supervisor Bruce Kilmer supported exploring the proposal, suggesting that energy specialists and university educators be invited to address the full board.
“Do you suppose it would be possible to have those people you’ve been in contact come and give the full board a presentation,” said Kilmer. “We have solar at our house, and it’s very cost effective.”
The proposal arrives after previous county efforts to explore solar energy hit financial obstacles. In April 2026, Vernon County hired engineering firm Schneider Electric under Resolution 2026 24 to conduct a comprehensive energy audit of county facilities. While engineers initially evaluated installing a solar array near the Vernon County Sheriff’s Office, the firm concluded in May that the project was not financially viable due to electrical meter limitations, high cabling costs, and strict deadlines associated with expiring 30 percent federal Investment Tax Credits.
In July 2026, UW-Extension specialist Jessy Bradish presented the final RESET report to the board, detailing community feedback from seven public listening sessions regarding large scale solar and wind development across Vernon County.
During the Sept. 17 discussion, several supervisors cautioned against evaluating a single solar installation without an overarching county energy strategy.
Supervisor Wayde Lawler favored exploring renewable energy but urged the board to frame the discussion around total county utility management and long term capital goals.
“Generally speaking, I’m in favor of renewable energy development, and certainly if there’s like knock on social good that comes from it,” said Lawler. “But I also think that just talking about a solar farm in isolation from our overall energy use goals and trajectory might be premature.”

Lawler noted that because the proposal touches agriculture, facilities, economic development, and social services, cross committee collaboration would be essential.
“This isn’t a siloed conversation,” said Lawler. “It’s a conversation about economic development and housing and so on.”
Supervisor Alycann Taylor recalled that previous board discussions about the county farm revealed deep divisions over converting productive agricultural land to energy production.
“There was a bit of a fundamental kind of divide on whether we utilize our land to do something like this on a farm and take ag land away,” said Taylor. “Part of that solar project that was brought to us, you know, also came to the realization that this is a potentially good idea, but we also have to do an RFP, and there was more than just one person coming to pitch a program.”
County Board Chair Lorn Goede voiced reservations about replacing farmland with solar panels solely for county revenue, but expressed openness if the project addressed broader community needs.

“Just to put a solar farm on the good ag land, I wouldn’t really be for it,” said Goede. “But if it’s for the purpose of improving housing and for the greater purpose, I would be really open to listening to something like that.”
Supervisor Nathaniel Slack advocated for developing a comprehensive master plan for the entire county farm asset, suggesting that solar energy could coexist alongside young farmer incubator programs, affordable housing initiatives, and public recreational trails.
“The county farm is a large asset, but a finite asset,” said Slack. “I think maybe this should be a part of a much bigger conversation of what we want that whole property to look like.”
Slack also suggested consulting with regional housing and community action agencies such as Couleecap to explore community land trust models.
Supervisor Dave Eggen pointed out the significant revenue differential between traditional farming leases and solar contracts. Vernon County currently receives $318 per acre in agricultural rent for the county farm land.
“We get $318 bucks an acre now, or $312 for rent, and if we could get $1,500 an acre, it’s kind of a no brainer to me,” said Eggen. “Couleecap, they partner with co ops like Vernon Electric and invest in solar farms, and the monies that are generated, they use to help low income folks pay their electric bills.”
Supervisor John Pedretti noted that taking a substantial portion of the farm out of crop production would generate pushback from local agricultural producers.

“For a lot of the farmers here, they’re going to say, well, putting 200 acres into a solar farm sounds ridiculous,” said Pedretti. “Perspective, it was 90 when we first talked about it.”
Supervisor David Strudthoff countered that agriculture and solar development do not have to be mutually exclusive, pointing to agrivoltaic systems where solar panels are elevated eight to nine feet to allow hay harvesting or livestock grazing underneath the arrays.
“I get the impression there’s been a number of cases we got a false choice here between agriculture and solar farms,” said Strudthoff. “Because some of these farms, they’ll put their solar panels up nine feet or eight feet, allowing hay to grow, and then they would harvest the hay.”
Strudthoff, who previously served as a public school superintendent, shared his experience overseeing geothermal and solar installations that reduced district operating costs. Strudthoff then made a formal motion to establish a dedicated committee to study the issue.
“I move that you appoint a committee of five to review the proposal for the solar panel farm and other construction projects to come back at a designated time,” said Strudthoff. “I think just opening this up and allowing us to have the dialogue like we just had is really the most important thing we could start with.”
“Do you create a new one that’s a study committee,” said Pedretti. “Because there’s a lot more than just the farm being studied here.”
Supervisor Taylor seconded Strudthoff’s motion. The Vernon County Board of Supervisors then approved the motion by voice vote, directing Chair Goede to appoint a five supervisor special committee to study the feasibility, land use impacts, and potential community benefits of developing a solar farm on the county property.

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8/9 The Sheriff’s Office investigated a traffic/driving incident on State Highway 35 near De Soto. Deputies responded to a residence on Coon Prairie Avenue in the City of Westby for a domestic disturbance. A male was…
April 15, 2026 VIROQUA Wis. – Traffic in downtown Viroqua may experience temporary disruptions this week as electrical contractors relocate utility poles and pull new wires across major intersections. The…
VIROQUA, Wis. – Eight Wisconsin companies were named as winners in the 36th Annual Wisconsin Manufacturer of the Year (MOTY) Awards for outstanding achievements in manufacturing. The Vernon Area Rehabilitation…
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Sometimes a political or environmental fight begins not in a courtroom or a government office, but across a fence line. And sometimes the hero didn’t plan to be.
For Alexandra Fasulo, it began when she returned to upstate New York and bought a few acres with a very different dream. She wanted to build a farm, establish a pollinator habitat, work with Amish farmers, and create a small piece of land where agriculture and nature could coexist. She was not, by her own account, an activist campaigning against renewable energy. An idealist? Maybe. She even owned a portable solar panel for her own use. Then she learned that a neighboring farmer had been approached about leasing roughly 100 acres to a solar company. That didn’t fit her vision for the community.
Fasulo began attending town meetings and studying New York’s renewable-energy siting laws. Her initial response was remarkably local: she supported a town Solar Facilities Law intended to establish rules for solar development. The law passed. She thought the issue had been resolved. It wasn’t. Her education accelerated when she attended a hearing concerning the proposed Fort Edward Solar project in Washington County.
The project was a proposed 100-megawatt solar facility. State records show that the project ultimately received its final siting permit from New York’s Office of Renewable Energy Siting and Electric Transmission, or ORES, on May 26, 2026. The state proceeding identifies the project as being in the Town of Fort Edward.
What Fasulo encountered at the hearing convinced her that this was no longer simply a question about solar panels. She became concerned about the larger questions surrounding farmland, wildlife habitat, local government authority, and the state’s renewable-energy permitting system.
The Fort Edward site is particularly controversial because of its ecological characteristics. The area includes grassland habitat associated with the Washington County Grasslands Wildlife Management Area and an Important Bird Area. Critics of the project have raised concerns about impacts to grassland birds and other species. The Grassland Bird Trust has separately challenged aspects of the project’s habitat mitigation but quit when the company agreed to fund the purchase of more habitat for threatened and endangered birds and reduce the acreage from the 750 acres it originally proposed to 530 acres.
Fasulo responded by doing something that few ordinary citizens would have the time, money, or determination to do: she learned the system. She studied ORES proceedings. She examined environmental documents. She filed Freedom of Information Law requests. When she believed publicly available environmental information was excessively redacted, she sought outside expertise.
She eventually commissioned Hudsonia Ltd. to conduct an environmental assessment of the proposed Fort Edward project. The resulting February 2026 report examined biodiversity and potential impacts on the Washington County grasslands.
She went a step further. Fasulo founded the American Land Rescue Fund, a nonprofit devoted to using legal action to defend farmland, wildlife habitat and rural communities. According to the organization, Fort Edward Solar became its first major legal case against New York’s renewable-energy siting system.
By late 2025, Fasulo had become an official participant in the Fort Edward proceeding. In March 2026, she participated in oral argument before ORES concerning the organization’s status in the proceeding. The state’s official notice lists Fasulo as appearing for the American Land Rescue Fund alongside attorneys representing the project, ORES, and other parties. That was quite a transformation for someone who, only about a year earlier, had essentially no opinion about industrial solar. But here is where the story gets more complicated, and more interesting.
Calling Fasulo’s campaign an outright victory over the Fort Edward solar project would be inaccurate. The project received its state siting permit in May 2026. In other words, the central project she opposed was not stopped. Yet there is another way to measure success.
Fasulo went from being a private landowner trying to establish a farm to becoming a participant in a complicated state regulatory proceeding. She created a nonprofit, assembled environmental research, participated in litigation, and helped turn a local dispute into part of a much larger public discussion about renewable-energy development in rural New York.
Her organization says that in its first year, it filed two lawsuits, commissioned environmental research, and helped fund another municipality’s legal challenge. That may ultimately be the most important part of the Fasulo story.
The debate over renewable energy is often presented as a simple choice: clean energy versus fossil fuels. But communities frequently confront a different question: Where should that energy infrastructure go? Solar power can reduce reliance on fossil fuels. At the same time, large-scale installations can create conflicts over agricultural land, wildlife habitat, landscape character, local taxation, infrastructure, and community control. The Fort Edward controversy demonstrates how difficult those competing interests can become.
Alexandra Fasulo did not begin her campaign as an energy activist. She began as a farmer who wanted to protect the place she lived in. Whatever one’s position on the Fort Edward project, one thing is undeniable: a citizen decided that understanding the system was not enough; she had to enter it. She learned the laws. She learned the agencies. She learned the environmental science. She learned how administrative proceedings worked. And when she concluded that ordinary citizens needed stronger representation, she built an organization to provide it.
Recently, the project developer surrendered its permit.
But Alexandra Fasulo’s fight demonstrates that success in a community battle isn’t always measured by whether you stop the bulldozers. Sometimes it is measured by whether you force people to pay attention, put evidence into the record, challenge government decisions, organize your neighbors, and make sure the public conversation cannot simply be ignored.
And that fight, unlike a solar project, is nowhere near finished.
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Luis Reyes
Oct 3, at 6:30am ET
People love to argue; that’s not really up for debate. (Huh? Huh?) And one of the latest dumb arguments I’ve seen is drivers in New South Wales, Australia claiming that solar farms take up so much farmland that there isn’t even room for sheep.
The man who grazes that land had a pretty great comeback. He rounded up 4,200 sheep, out of a flock of 6,000, between the rows and hit record.
The farmer is Tony Inder, a sixth-generation wool grower from Wellington, in the state’s central west. His clips went up on Facebook, then to RE-Alliance, an Australian renewables advocacy group, which ran them in its March 2026 newsletter. By May, the viral videos had been picked up by CleanTechnica as well.
“It’s because you just can’t see under the panels,” Inder said of the doubters. The sheep are in there full-time. You only notice them when most of the flock lands in the same camera frame.
You wouldn’t think something like this would need explanation but…
The farm in the video is Wellington North, and its numbers are frankly a bit silly: more than 755,000 solar panels on single-axis trackers, spread across 847 hectares (2,093 acres), all of it rated at 425 megawatts (the combined rating of the panels themselves). GRS, the Spanish contractor that built the plant for Lightsource bp, handed it over for provisional acceptance in December 2024.
That’s a lot of panels.
Now picture the view from a car. A merino stands somewhere around knee height, and the panels tilt through the day to track the sun, so the rows stack up into what reads like one unbroken sheet of glass and steel from the road.
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Everything below that line is shade. The animals spend their days in one part of the property that a passing driver physically can’t see into (the shade). When driving by at 60 mph, a few thousand sheep simply aren’t part of the picture.
Inder didn’t wander in with a camera one day. He’s the grass control. He doesn’t own the ground under the panels, and per an AFP interview from February, the landowners let him graze it for free. In exchange, the operator mows far less, and that matters twice over in rural Australia: cutting 2,000-plus acres of grass costs real money, and keeping it short is part of complying with bushfire prevention rules.
RenewEconomy reported back in 2025 that once his sheep took over the job, mowing dropped to a single pass a year. The University of Sydney put the solar-grazing flock at 1,700 merinos in early 2024. By the time AFP visited this February, Inder was running 6,000 sheep across two blocks of land covering close to 10,000 acres.
Why does a wool guy bother? Shade, basically, and what that steady shade does to grass. “It’s constant shade and it’s constant green,” Inder told AFP, and consistent feed grows consistent wool. That’s his read as the man selling the fleeces, not a lab result.
Sheep as solar groundskeepers keep turning up on this site, by the way. Volkswagen keeps a flock and a donkey under panels, and a Calgary solar farm runs sheep, pigs and chickens.
Alright, we can’t act like the solar panels are completely magical.
There’s a study, but you gotta really pay attention to the wording. Lightsource bp, which owned the farms at the time, commissioned EMM Consulting, working with Elders Rural Services, to compare two groups of merinos. One group grazed regular pasture, and the other grazed the original Wellington solar farm next door to the big one in the video.
Published in October 2024, the second round of results found that running sheep among panels didn’t hurt wool production. A few parameters even pointed toward improvement. However, the company admitted it needed to do longer-term testing to fully understand the benefits. And that’s coming from the company’s own commissioned study.
So no, I can’t tell you solar panels grow better wool. Neither can the people who ran the numbers, yet. Nothing in the testing says the panels make the wool worse, though, and Inder clearly likes what he’s shearing.
Wellington North didn’t show up alone. It sits next to the original Wellington solar farm, a 200-megawatt project on the same road, and together they operate as a 625-megawatt hub.
Lightsource bp’s own math puts the new farm’s output at the equivalent of 152,500 homes, or 244,000 cars taken off the road. I’ll let you decide how much an “equivalent cars” number is really worth, but on this site it felt rude not to mention it.
Ownership changed hands this year. Aula Energy bought both Wellington farms in February 2026 as part of a package of five operating solar farms totaling 1 gigawatt, with options for up to 800 megawatts of batteries on top, and said the daily routine at the farms wouldn’t change.
For 6,000 sheep, that’s the best outcome an ownership change can deliver.
Agree or laugh out loud?
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The power purchase agreement (PPA) is an important indicator that a proposed renewable energy project is worth financing. Two companies have signed an unusual PPA where the producer and the off-taker represent developing technologies that, if successful, point the way to new paths of solar power development.
Troy, Michigan-based Virtus Solis Technologies and Chicago-based Brae Systems have announced a 20-year PPA wherein the former will supply 100 MW of orbital solar baseload power, delivering 876,000 MWh annually for the latter’s underwater datacenter. The pioneers have yet to deploy the infrastructure necessary to realize the deal, however both see the PPA as an important step toward bringing their respective visions to fruition.
Virtus Solis is developing a constellation of space-based solar generation and transmission stations that will deliver energy to ground receivers in the form of microwaves. There are a growing number of companies working to put solar collection in space to supply energy to users on the ground and in orbit. Proposals range from satellites in low-earth orbit transmitting energy with lasers to kilometer-scale stations in geosynchronous orbit sending power with microwaves.
John Bucknell, co-founder and CEO of Virtus Solis, told pv magazine USA that his company aims to put its solar stations in highly elliptical Molniya orbits that will provide coverage in northern latitudes. With an orbital period of 12 hours, a given station spends 8 of those in view of power receivers on the ground. Three units would provide full-time coverage.
“We picked Molniya because you can get reusable rockets up there and get them all the way back,” Bucknell said. “Why would you take a reusable rocket and fly it to geostationary orbit and then leave it there? Everything that we did, including picking consumer electronics as our technology base, was to get to these very low costs.”
The Virtus Solis business plan is banking heavily on the progress of SpaceX’s Starship Superheavy launch vehicle, which successfully achieved low-Earth orbit for the first time on September 28. The high payload and reusability of the Starship is key to keeping launch costs down.
Bucknell, who prior to forming Virtus Solis was involved in the development of SpaceX’s Raptor rocket engines, says orbital access is just one of the factors that is bringing space-based solar power within practical reach. Space-based solar has been a topic of conversation for decades, but the enabling technologies are only just becoming available.
“We’ve got 240 parameters in our techno-economic model that drove us into this configuration architecture,” Bucknell said.
Some of those parameters address the in-orbit assembly required to construct a solar collector. Bucknell says the company is working with a half-dozen vendors to manufacture an appropriate PV cell, which will probably be a perovskite-based design. Modules will be hexagonal and “snap-fit” into place with the aid of a space tug satellite.
In terms power transmission and reception, Bucknell says the microwave energy reaching the ground is about equal to a mobile phone. Receiving stations are envisioned as having the footprint of utility-scale solar arrays. The receivers are about 80% transparent to sunlight, so the facilities would support agrivoltaics. The receivers have the form factor of a First Solar Series 7 panel, so existing arrays can be repowered for space solar reception.
As for the off-taker in the PPA, Brae Systems is working to deploy modular datacenters in marine environments with the intention of simplifying cooling and easing land restrictions. The first receiving station will be constructed in Illinois, co-located with a pilot datacenter.
“AI workloads require an unprecedented leap in both energy availability and thermal efficiency,” said Vishnu Indukuri, Chief Executive Officer of Brae Systems. “Securing a direct 20-year supply of firm, clean power from Virtus Solis ensures our GPU infrastructure operates with predictable power costs and zero carbon emissions, completely insulated from terrestrial grid curtailment.”
The newly signed contract includes an option for Brae to take up to 250 MW (with Virtus Solis delivering 2.19 million MWh annually) within three years of initial commercial operations, representing a multi-billion-dollar lifetime contract commitment.
Bucknell says Virtus Solis is planning to fly a pilot solar plant in about 24 months. This will be a 100-kW system deployed in low-Earth orbit. While not commercial scale, the pilot will allow federal regulators – and the public – to see and evaluate an operating space-based power plant. More immediately, Virtus Solis is planning a public demonstration of its microwave transmission system in March 2027.
According to Bucknell, space-based solar power has to potential to bring energy to everybody on Earth. Power stations can be launched into Molniya orbits that serve southern latitudes as well.
“I wanted to build a business in an energy vertical that would enable prosperity for all,” he said. “We at Virtus Solis would describe this as what humanity needs.”
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Advancing the adoption of microgrids
Construction on new solar and storage microgrids on two Hawaiian Islands is underway to strengthen energy resiliency at key state Department of Transportation (DOT) facilities.
The state of Hawai’i DOT is working with developer Sustainability Partners and engineering and construction firm Hensel Phelps to build microgrids in O’ahu and Kaua’i. Both microgrids will contain solar canopies, battery energy storage and electric vehicle charging stations.
The systems will include intelligent microgrid controls to integrate the various resources and loads. Schneider Electric is deploying its EcoStruxure microgrid control system to the projects.
Getting to construction on the Oʻahu and Kauaʻi microgrids represents years of planning, engineering, and coordination with HDOT Highways, Hensel Phelps, our utility partners, and many others,” said Arnold Albiar, Managing Partner, Hawaiʻi, Sustainability Partners, in a statement. “These microgrids are about developing resilient and sustainable transportation systems, helping the State of Hawaiʻi move forward to a cleaner, low-carbon future.”
The O’ahu microgrid will service HDOT’s District Main Office at Kakoi Street on that island. It will include a 1-MW battery storage system with solar PV canopies capable of generating 1.5 MWh at capacity. The O’ahu office also will have more than 40 Level 2 EV chargers and 1 200-kW dual-port direct current fast charger.
The Kauaʻi microgrid will power HDOT Highways’ Kauaʻi District Main Office Facility on Haleukana Street and protect operations in the even of an outage. The project includes a 1 MW battery energy storage system and solar PV canopies expected to generate 700 kWh of renewable energy per day. This site will include over 12 Level 2 Chargers and 1 Dual-Port 200 kW DC Fast Charger.
“These projects represent another important step in strengthening the resiliency of Hawaiʻi’s infrastructure,” said Ed Sniffen, Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation Director. “These PV and battery storage systems provide critical energy security for our teams during severe weather and multi-day blackouts.”
Both will be guided by the EcoStruxure microgrid control systems.
 

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A 5.5 GW solar and desertification-control program in Alxa League, Inner Mongolia, has received implementation approval from regional energy and forestry authorities. Subsidiaries of CGN, Huaneng’s Northern United Power, PowerChina and China Huadian will develop the projects, which combine 5.5 GW of solar capacity with the restoration of 220,000 mu (about 14,667 hectares) of desertified land in the Ulan Buh and Tengger deserts. Construction and land restoration are scheduled for completion by the end of 2027. Local authorities held a project coordination meeting on Sept. 30 to advance implementation. The program forms part of China’s broader push to combine utility-scale solar development with ecological restoration in its arid northern and northwestern regions. Under a national PV desertification-control plan for 2025-30, China aims to deploy 253 GW of solar and rehabilitate about 673,670 hectares of desertified land by 2030. The approach typically combines PV arrays with sand-fixing vegetation and other land-restoration measures, with module shading helping to reduce evaporation and create conditions more favorable to vegetation growth. Inner Mongolia has emerged as a major testing ground for the model. In April 2025, Inner Mongolia Energy Group commissioned a 1.6 GW solar plant in the Ulan Buh Desert, where sand-fixing plants are being cultivated beneath the module rows to combat desertification and soil erosion. Similar projects are under development in the Kubuqi Desert, including the planned 100 GW “Great Solar Wall” and a 16 GW energy complex led by China Three Gorges. CECEP Solar has also announced a 500 MW desertification-control PV project in Dalad Banner, Inner Mongolia.
China Datang announced on Sept. 30 the shortlisted bidders for module procurement for the northern and southern sections of its 500 MW Nam Mo solar project in Laos. Longi and Risen Energy were the first-ranked candidates for the northern and southern sections, respectively, both with average bids of CNY 0.786/W ($0.116/W). The project will have 500 MW of rated capacity and 630.37 MW of installed capacity across 158 PV arrays. The northern section will use 287.28 MW of back-contact (BC) modules, while the southern section will deploy 343.09 MW of heterojunction (HJT) or tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) modules.
PowerChina announced on Sept. 26 the shortlisted bidders in its first centralized module procurement round for 2026, covering 4 GW of n-type TOPCon products. Jolywood, Yingli Energy and Astronergy were the first-ranked candidates for the tender’s three lots, respectively. Bids ranged from CNY 804 million to CNY 1.028 billion ($118 million to $151 million), equivalent to CNY 0.670/W to CNY 0.702/W ($0.099/W to $0.103/W). The weighted average bid from the three first-ranked candidates was about CNY 0.679/W ($0.100/W).
Huaneng Lancang River Guxue (Mangkang) Hydropower Co. was established on Sept. 21 in Mangkang county, Chamdo, Tibet, with registered capital of CNY 5.6 billion ($824 million). Huaneng Lancang River Upstream Hydropower Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Huaneng Hydropower, subscribed CNY 4.984 billion for an 89% stake, while CATL subscribed CNY 616 million for the remaining 11%. The joint venture’s business scope includes hydropower generation and technical services for solar, wind and energy storage.
Suzhou YourBest New-type Materials said on Sept. 25 that it had terminated a convertible bond-funded project to build 20,000 metric tons of annual PV ribbon production capacity at its Anhui subsidiary and would redirect the remaining proceeds to working capital. The company had planned to invest CNY 356.73 million ($52.5 million) of raised funds in the project. As of Sept. 15, it had invested CNY 182.85 million, or 51.26% of the planned amount. YourBest attributed the decision to a temporary supply-demand imbalance in the solar supply chain, pressure on PV ribbon profitability and sufficient capacity at its existing facilities to meet market demand.
Universal Energy held a grid-connection ceremony on Sept. 16 for its 100 MW Gobustan solar project in Baku, Azerbaijan. The China-based company said the plant, located in the Garadagh district, comprises about 200,000 solar panels and a 110 kV substation. It is expected to generate about 200 GWh of electricity per year, saving around 45 million cubic meters of natural gas and avoiding approximately 97,000 metric tons of carbon emissions annually.
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Alight, an independent power producer based in the Nordics, has purchased a 40-project utility-scale solar PV portfolio in southern Sweden from Soltech Energy Solutions, a Swedish developer. The planned combined capacity of these projects is roughly 2GW.
The sites span Sweden’s SE3 and SE4 electricity price zones, and most come with options for co-located battery energy storage systems. With this deal, Alight‘s Nordic development pipeline for solar PV and energy storage now exceeds 5GW.
The transaction with Soltech Energy Solutions, which operates as a subsidiary of Soltech Energy Sweden, closed after Sweden’s Inspectorate of Strategic Products granted approval.
Alight will oversee further development of the projects, covering permitting and grid connection tasks, and will move the portfolio toward ready-to-build status. According to the company, the projects will mainly be developed for long-term power purchase agreements. Through this PPA approach, Alight develops, constructs, owns and operates the solar parks, then sells the electricity produced to commercial and industrial buyers at fixed prices over long terms.
Warren Campbell, Alight’s CEO, stated that the acquisition reinforces the company’s position as a leading solar player in the Nordics and provides sufficient scale to continue expanding in Sweden for years ahead. He observed that having a portfolio with secured land, permits underway and space for battery storage enables the company to achieve ready-to-build status more quickly than if it started new projects from the beginning.
Christoffer Caesar, CEO of Soltech Energy Solutions, explained that the portfolio was assembled over multiple years and progressed from early development to its present maturity. He added that the projects are now at a stage where a long-term investor is better positioned to guide them toward an investment decision and construction, and he voiced the company’s desire to maintain its productive partnership with Alight going forward.
This acquisition broadens Alight’s current utility-scale solar development work in the Nordic region. The IPP recently opened the 215MWp Lidso Solar Park in Lolland, Denmark, which it called one of the largest solar parks in the Nordic area. It also recently opened the 101MWp Eurajoki Solar Park in Finland alongside automotive supplier Autoliv.
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ContourGlobal, a global power generation company, and Platte River Power Authority have completed the Black Hollow Sun solar complex near Severance, Colorado. The 324 MWp (257 MWac) facility comprises Phase I at 185 MW (150 MW (AC)) and Phase II at 139 MW (107 MW (AC)). Phase II reached commercial operation in September 2026, four months ahead of schedule, making Black Hollow Sun ContourGlobal’s largest operating solar complex. The approximately 1,700-acre site includes more than 500,000 photovoltaic panels with single-axis tracking technology. It is expected to generate around 608 GWh annually, enough to serve more than 73,000 homes and businesses. ContourGlobal owns and operates both phases, supplying electricity to Platte River under a long-term power purchase agreement. The project supported more than 700 direct jobs at peak construction activity.
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Thin-film cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar manufacturer First Solar has filed a patent lawsuit against Chinese solar PV manufacturer JA and some of its subsidiaries, as well as American Panel Solutions (AMPS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of US-based PV manufacturer Corning.
The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the District of Delaware against JA Solar Technology, JA Solar International, JA Solar Vietnam and JA Solar Industrial, along with AMPS.
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According to First Solar, the companies have allegedly infringed on US Patent No. 9,130,074, which covers methods of manufacturing tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) crystalline silicon (c-Si) PV solar cells.
This is the latest TOPCon patent lawsuit filed by First Solar against a solar PV manufacturer. The company has previously filed lawsuits against Jinko, Canadian Solar, T1 Energy and Trina Solar. First Solar started investigating major rivals back in 2024 regarding alleged IP infringements and has since filed several patent lawsuits and a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC). Last month, First Solar announced plans to voluntarily withdraw the Section 337 complaint with the US ITC, while continuing to pursue its existing TOPCon patent lawsuits in the US District Court.
PV Tech reached out to JA and Corning regarding the alleged patent infringement. Last year, Corning acquired JA’s US 2GW module assembly plant in Arizona, which then became an asset of AMPS.
“We have been clear that we will actively defend our intellectual property rights in the US and internationally,” said Jason Dymbort, executive vice president, general counsel and secretary, First Solar. “This lawsuit is an effort to hold JA Solar and AMPS accountable for their unauthorised use of First Solar’s patented technology and reinforces the need for TOPCon manufacturers operating in the United States to respect the well-defined framework of intellectual property law.”
First Solar acquired the US TOPCon patents and related international counterparts when it acquired TetraSun in 2013. The portfolio includes issued patents in several countries, including the US, Australia, Canada, China and the European Union, among others, with validities extending to 2030 and beyond.

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Oct. 3. 2026
VERNON COUNTY, Wis. – The Vernon County Board of Supervisors has voted to create a special five member committee to study whether a portion of the county owned farm property should be leased for a utility scale solar project.
The decision came during the board’s Sept. 17 meeting following a wide ranging discussion on renewable energy, agricultural land preservation, local economic development, and potential partnerships to assist low income residents with rising utility bills.
The debate was sparked when Supervisor Charles Jacobson brought forward an inquiry from project leaders with the Renewable Energy Siting and Engagement for Tomorrow program, a University of Wisconsin Extension initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. Jacobson explained that program coordinators asked if Vernon County would reconsider a past proposal from a Minnesota energy developer to lease 58 to 90 acres of the roughly 200 acre county farm in Viroqua for a ground mounted solar array.
Jacobson noted that utility scale solar leases in the region currently pay landowners between $500 and $1,500 per acre annually, compared to standard agricultural cash rents. Jacobson urged supervisors to decide whether the concept was worth investigating before staff and committee members spent months gathering data.
“I got an email from the lady that ran that RESET group that I was on, and there’s a question if the county would consider putting a solar panel, solar farm on that section of the county farm that was originally proposed by the Minnesota group,” said Jacobson. “And I guess I’m just curious if there’s any interest or whatever, and as an agenda item, then we can discuss it if we want to consider putting a solar farm on the county farm.”
Jacobson stressed that he wanted clear direction from the board before committing time to the initiative.
“I’m willing to put the effort into it, but I don’t want to come back and then do all this and then say, well, you should have never wasted your time because we’re not going to listen to you anyway,” said Jacobson. “That’s where I’m at.”

Supervisor Bruce Kilmer supported exploring the proposal, suggesting that energy specialists and university educators be invited to address the full board.
“Do you suppose it would be possible to have those people you’ve been in contact come and give the full board a presentation,” said Kilmer. “We have solar at our house, and it’s very cost effective.”
The proposal arrives after previous county efforts to explore solar energy hit financial obstacles. In April 2026, Vernon County hired engineering firm Schneider Electric under Resolution 2026 24 to conduct a comprehensive energy audit of county facilities. While engineers initially evaluated installing a solar array near the Vernon County Sheriff’s Office, the firm concluded in May that the project was not financially viable due to electrical meter limitations, high cabling costs, and strict deadlines associated with expiring 30 percent federal Investment Tax Credits.
In July 2026, UW-Extension specialist Jessy Bradish presented the final RESET report to the board, detailing community feedback from seven public listening sessions regarding large scale solar and wind development across Vernon County.
During the Sept. 17 discussion, several supervisors cautioned against evaluating a single solar installation without an overarching county energy strategy.
Supervisor Wayde Lawler favored exploring renewable energy but urged the board to frame the discussion around total county utility management and long term capital goals.
“Generally speaking, I’m in favor of renewable energy development, and certainly if there’s like knock on social good that comes from it,” said Lawler. “But I also think that just talking about a solar farm in isolation from our overall energy use goals and trajectory might be premature.”

Lawler noted that because the proposal touches agriculture, facilities, economic development, and social services, cross committee collaboration would be essential.
“This isn’t a siloed conversation,” said Lawler. “It’s a conversation about economic development and housing and so on.”
Supervisor Alycann Taylor recalled that previous board discussions about the county farm revealed deep divisions over converting productive agricultural land to energy production.
“There was a bit of a fundamental kind of divide on whether we utilize our land to do something like this on a farm and take ag land away,” said Taylor. “Part of that solar project that was brought to us, you know, also came to the realization that this is a potentially good idea, but we also have to do an RFP, and there was more than just one person coming to pitch a program.”
County Board Chair Lorn Goede voiced reservations about replacing farmland with solar panels solely for county revenue, but expressed openness if the project addressed broader community needs.

“Just to put a solar farm on the good ag land, I wouldn’t really be for it,” said Goede. “But if it’s for the purpose of improving housing and for the greater purpose, I would be really open to listening to something like that.”
Supervisor Nathaniel Slack advocated for developing a comprehensive master plan for the entire county farm asset, suggesting that solar energy could coexist alongside young farmer incubator programs, affordable housing initiatives, and public recreational trails.
“The county farm is a large asset, but a finite asset,” said Slack. “I think maybe this should be a part of a much bigger conversation of what we want that whole property to look like.”
Slack also suggested consulting with regional housing and community action agencies such as Couleecap to explore community land trust models.
Supervisor Dave Eggen pointed out the significant revenue differential between traditional farming leases and solar contracts. Vernon County currently receives $318 per acre in agricultural rent for the county farm land.
“We get $318 bucks an acre now, or $312 for rent, and if we could get $1,500 an acre, it’s kind of a no brainer to me,” said Eggen. “Couleecap, they partner with co ops like Vernon Electric and invest in solar farms, and the monies that are generated, they use to help low income folks pay their electric bills.”
Supervisor John Pedretti noted that taking a substantial portion of the farm out of crop production would generate pushback from local agricultural producers.

“For a lot of the farmers here, they’re going to say, well, putting 200 acres into a solar farm sounds ridiculous,” said Pedretti. “Perspective, it was 90 when we first talked about it.”
Supervisor David Strudthoff countered that agriculture and solar development do not have to be mutually exclusive, pointing to agrivoltaic systems where solar panels are elevated eight to nine feet to allow hay harvesting or livestock grazing underneath the arrays.
“I get the impression there’s been a number of cases we got a false choice here between agriculture and solar farms,” said Strudthoff. “Because some of these farms, they’ll put their solar panels up nine feet or eight feet, allowing hay to grow, and then they would harvest the hay.”
Strudthoff, who previously served as a public school superintendent, shared his experience overseeing geothermal and solar installations that reduced district operating costs. Strudthoff then made a formal motion to establish a dedicated committee to study the issue.
“I move that you appoint a committee of five to review the proposal for the solar panel farm and other construction projects to come back at a designated time,” said Strudthoff. “I think just opening this up and allowing us to have the dialogue like we just had is really the most important thing we could start with.”
“Do you create a new one that’s a study committee,” said Pedretti. “Because there’s a lot more than just the farm being studied here.”
Supervisor Taylor seconded Strudthoff’s motion. The Vernon County Board of Supervisors then approved the motion by voice vote, directing Chair Goede to appoint a five supervisor special committee to study the feasibility, land use impacts, and potential community benefits of developing a solar farm on the county property.

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8/9 The Sheriff’s Office investigated a traffic/driving incident on State Highway 35 near De Soto. Deputies responded to a residence on Coon Prairie Avenue in the City of Westby for a domestic disturbance. A male was…
April 15, 2026 VIROQUA Wis. – Traffic in downtown Viroqua may experience temporary disruptions this week as electrical contractors relocate utility poles and pull new wires across major intersections. The…
VIROQUA, Wis. – Eight Wisconsin companies were named as winners in the 36th Annual Wisconsin Manufacturer of the Year (MOTY) Awards for outstanding achievements in manufacturing. The Vernon Area Rehabilitation…
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Sungrow FPV, a floating photovoltaic system solutions provider headquartered in Hefei, China, has fully grid-connected a 6.5 MW floating solar project in Sri Lanka. The project uses local water surfaces for solar generation without occupying additional land. Sungrow FPV said the floating installation also helps reduce water evaporation while supplying renewable electricity to the local grid. The company provided its floating photovoltaic technology for the development. Sungrow FPV focuses on floating PV system solutions, including floating structures, inverter platforms and anchoring systems. The company said its team worked with contractors and local collaborators to complete the project. The announcement did not disclose the project’s exact location, owner, investment value, module supplier or expected annual electricity generation.
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Germany-based EPC company GOLDBECK SOLAR is building a 5.1 MW Agri-PV park at its headquarters in Hirschberg an der Bergstraße. The project will install 7,982 solar modules across around 10 hectares, alongside a 2-hectare agricultural reference area. Three mounting configurations will be tested under operating conditions, comprising two tracker systems and one vertical fixed-tilt system. Agricultural activities will continue between and beneath the module rows, with tracker rows designed to accommodate tractors and other machinery. Sensors and monitoring systems will collect data on crops, machinery use and PV system performance. GOLDBECK SOLAR is delivering the project as EPC contractor, while future expansion is planned to include battery storage.
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Independent power producer (IPP) Renalfa IPP and Danish renewables developer Eurowind Energy have begun commercial operations at a 242MWp solar-plus-storage hybrid park in Bulgaria.
Located in the Tundzha Municipality, southeastern Bulgaria, the Tenevo hybrid renewable energy complex comprises two co-located 311MW/773MWh battery energy storage systems (BESS).
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The solar PV portion of the project was commissioned in the first quarter of 2026, with the first 65MW/260MWh BESS at the site already in operation.
Jointly owned by Renalfa IPP – which is a joint venture between Austria’s Renalfa Solarpro Group and French investment manager RGreen Invest – and Eurowind, the complex is set to expand further with 250MW of wind power at the site.
“Tenevo complex is the first showcase in Europe of dispatchable renewable asset of that scale,” Renalfa Solarpro Group founder and chief executive Ivo Prokopiev said.
“Eastern Europe at the moment is changing the traditional energy transition playbook for investing and structuring of renewable projects.”
The solar PV component of the complex secured funding from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Austrian bank Raiffeisen Bank International in 2024 with €50 million (US$56 million) and €53 million, respectively. According to Renalfa IPP, a further €60 million financing for the second phase of the BESS is set to be signed shortly.
This article was first published on our sister-site Energy-storage.news.
PV Tech publisher Informa will be organising the sixth edition of SolarPlus Central & Eastern Europe in Warsaw, Poland, on 24-25 November 2026. Central & Eastern Europe has emerged as one of the most dynamic solar and energy storage markets, marking the evolution of the event from Large Scale Solar CEE to SolarPlus CEE, and addressing the hybridisation of the market throughout the two days. For more details regarding the event’s programme and how to register, click the link above.

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Germany is on course to produce over 600,000 tonnes of solar PV waste material by 2030, potentially worth billions in aluminium and silver.
A new study from the Fraunhofer Centre for Silicon Photovoltaics (CSP) found that the current installed stock of solar modules in Germany contains “considerable” raw material potential, particularly from metal recovery. But that recovery depends on effective module recycling processes.
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Germany had roughly 5.35 tonnes of PV modules installed by 2023, which corresponds to around 660,000 tonnes of aluminium and 3,900 tonnes of silver worth around €4.8 billion (US$5.4 billion) at today’s prices. Those figures have only increased in the years since 2023 and will have to almost double to 2030 if Germany is to hit its solar deployment targets.
 Recovering the waste material from Germany’s solar fleet and realising the economic and environmental benefits is dependent on recycling processes. Fraunhofer CSP said that currently, only two plants in Germany process c-Si modules on an industrial scale, requiring different processes to recover bulk materials like glass and more valuable parts like silver.
The report highlights a disparity between expected recycling volumes and actual material, which it said has made it more difficult to establish recycling capacity. It said the amount of waste collected in 2022-24 actually fell compared with previous years, despite more cumulative solar capacity. This was “presumably due to longer usage times or the export of used modules”, the research said.
Unreliable recycling volumes make it harder to establish reliable capacity, Fraunhofer said, because the input must be aligned with expected returns on materials.
Silver has become a focus for solar recycling, given the value of the material and the amount that solar manufacturing now consumes – the PV industry consumed just under 20% of global silver production in 2023, and some experts have warned that solar manufacturing could eat through global silver reserves within five years, at current rates.
A recent study by the International Energy Agency Photovoltaics Power Systems Programme (IEA PVPS) said that recovering critical materials from existing solar modules was essential to ensuring the sustainable development of the solar industry. It found that growing solar demand would play a major role in global critical material supply, and recycling and new manufacturing methods to reduce silver and other metal usage could help mitigate its impact.

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When researchers at Mälardalen University in Västerås, Sweden, installed magenta solar panels and tried to grow broccoli underneath, the plant unexpectedly absorbed more light energy than plants grown in open sunlight, resulting in lower overall energy use and a similar crop yield.
Although the panels used in the experiments are not commercially available, the research team said similarly designed magenta solar panels that allow the light wavelengths plants require, rather than commercially available opaque panels, could allow farmers to use different wavelengths to generate electricity and sustain or improve crop yields.
Conventional solar panels offer farmers the dual benefit of generating electricity and protecting delicate crops from harsh weather like heavy rainfall or hail, as well as excessive sunlight. However, currently available models are opaque, which can reduce available sunlight to a point that adversely affects yields.
When exploring more translucent alternatives, team leader Silvia Ma Lu of Mälardalen noted that more research is still needed to understand how different crops respond to different solar panel system configurations and climatic conditions. The lead author also noted that the challenge is designing systems that balance agricultural needs with power generation.
“There is no single agrivoltaic design that will work optimally everywhere,” Ma Lu said.
Because broccoli is a highly nutritious crop available worldwide, the researchers considered alternative configurations, including translucent magenta solar panels. They also noted that the cruciferous vegetable is well suited to the local Swedish climate.
To start, Lu and colleagues built a pair of self-contained, 20-meter-by-20-meter systems using semi-transparent, magenta-colored solar panels. Critically, the magenta solar panels had different levels of transparency, allowing the planted broccoli to receive different amounts of sunlight.
To increase yields, the magenta panels boosted the blue and red wavelengths that reach the broccoli. As a control plot, the research team also planted a third patch of broccoli that was exposed to open sunlight.
“The basic concept is quite straightforward,” Ma Lu explained. “The solar panels use part of the incoming sunlight to generate renewable electricity while allowing part of the light to pass through to the crops growing underneath.”
Over the standard 2024 growing season, the team compared the progress of broccoli grown under both types of magenta solar panels and the third open-sunlight control plot. This included monitoring each system’s air temperature, relative humidity, and soil moisture. The research team said they also tracked crop yield, nutrient composition, and “how well the plants performed photosynthesis.”
After comparing results, Ma Lu and colleagues found that broccoli crops grown beneath magenta solar panels “showed a 4.5-fold increase in how efficiently they used sunlight,” regardless of opaqueness.
“One of the most interesting findings was how similarly the broccoli performed under the two solar panel systems despite their different transparency levels,” Ma Lu said.
The plants also grew as large as the traditionally grown outdoor group. However, the researchers noted that the solar panel-covered plants required an additional 25 days to reach maturity.
When discussing potential limitations, the team explained that its systems were prototypes. Ma Lu added that more research is needed “at larger scales and over multiple growing seasons,” to truly confirm their initial results.

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“These findings are specific to our experimental conditions and should be validated across additional growing seasons and system configurations,” she explained.
If successful, the team suggested that systems based on their magenta solar panels design could potentially scale up for commercial use, offering farmers the opportunity to protect crops and generate sellable electricity.
“Electricity generated from crops could, in principle, power farm operations such as irrigation, machinery, or cooling and storage systems, or it could be supplied to the electricity grid,” they explained.
Ma Lu and colleagues said they have already begun evaluating magenta solar panels to see which ones maximize growth and energy generation. The team is also testing red and blue panel designs in controlled lab settings to ensure the broccoli doesn’t receive any light that didn’t pass through the panels.
When discussing potential applications, Ma Lu said designs similar to those tested in the lab may already suit smaller-scale applications, including community gardens. The team leader also said growing systems with magenta solar panels could be placed on greenhouse roofs “rather than immediate deployment over large agricultural areas.”
Beyond commercial applications, Ma Lu said the broader goal of the research is to “investigate whether sunlight can be used more efficiently by allocating different portions of the solar spectrum to crop growth and electricity generation.”
Christopher Plain has spent the last six years as Associate News Editor and Head Science Reporter at The Debrief. Follow and connect with him on X, learn about his novels at plainfiction.com, or email him at christopher@thedebrief.org.
 
 
 
 
 

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ContourGlobal, a global power generation company, and Platte River Power Authority have completed the Black Hollow Sun solar complex near Severance, Colorado. The 324 MWp (257 MWac) facility comprises Phase I at 185 MW (150 MW (AC)) and Phase II at 139 MW (107 MW (AC)). Phase II reached commercial operation in September 2026, four months ahead of schedule, making Black Hollow Sun ContourGlobal’s largest operating solar complex. The approximately 1,700-acre site includes more than 500,000 photovoltaic panels with single-axis tracking technology. It is expected to generate around 608 GWh annually, enough to serve more than 73,000 homes and businesses. ContourGlobal owns and operates both phases, supplying electricity to Platte River under a long-term power purchase agreement. The project supported more than 700 direct jobs at peak construction activity.
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There is money to be made in the gaps of the US solar supply chain. Module and cell production have boomed in recent years, with capacity for the former now sufficient to meet domestic demand and the latter on track to expand over the next few years. ACI Materials, a California-based silver paste producer, and its senior executive fellow, Dana Hankey, are hoping to meet the needs of those new customers.
 ACI Materials is restarting its silver paste business for the solar industry, reworking and reintroducing the technology it developed “years ago”. Hankey himself has 40 years of experience producing silver pastes for the solar industry, he tells us, having worked at US metals firm Ferro Electronic Materials before it sold its solar paste business to German firm Heraeus. He started ACI Materials in 2013.
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Over the years, Heraeus sold the solar paste business it bought from Ferro to China’s Haitian Water Group, and Delaware-based chemical giant DuPont phased out its solar paste production during a sale to Texas-based materials and chemicals firm Celanese. As China came to dominate global solar manufacturing at the start of the last decade and all of these sales and changes took place, the upshot was that the US lost the ability to produce silver pastes for solar.
“A friend of mine, who I’ve been buying precious metal powder from for 40 years, was at PV CellTech last year, and he came back and said ‘Dana, why aren’t you guys doing solar with this big push for reshoring?’,” Hankey recounts. “Quite frankly, you know, I’ve kind of had my eyes closed to it.”
But the company secured investment from the Saudi deep-tech investment fund Capital K, run by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), which came with an offer for Hankey to move from CEO to a senior fellowship position and head up the company’s re-entry into the solar industry.
“At this point, I’m close to retirement, I’m thrilled. We started the solar programme back up!” he says. There is certainly industry pedigree in the company and in Hankey’s contacts, with connections to the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia and Georgia Tech in the US, which, along with decades of experience, he says, means that he and ACI Materials “understand the market [and] understand the Chinese competition”.
Hankey says that ACI’s “secret sauce” is its machinery and equipment—“that gives us a competitive edge,” he insists. The company uses machines that “are about the size of a desk,” which Hankey says can each produce around ten metric tonnes of silver material per year.
That silver paste—or ink—is produced using a process called cavitation, which involves rapidly creating and then collapsing vacuum bubbles on the surface of the material. The chemistry is complex, and the result is something that Hankey claims is the “most conductive material on the market” that uses “30 % less paste” to get the same performance from solar cells. He says the company has five patent “families” with 31 issued patents, “almost all on the platform technology.”
When restarting the company’s solar business, some of the processes had to be refined and updated to meet modern requirements. Now he says the company has a silver paste that is “very competitive” for PERC solar cells and will be launched to the US market in “early Q4”. Products for TOPCon and ultimately perovskite tandem cells will follow suit, he suggests.
Targeting PERC production lines may be a smart commercial move as well as a natural step before moving to more advanced and efficient cell technologies. The raft of legal disputes over TOPCon have made it largely unviable to produce the technology in the US, pushing some new entrants to build PERC production lines at a time when TOPCon has become the dominant technology elsewhere.
Reducing the amount of silver used in solar cell production has become a talking point in the industry. By some estimates, expanded solar production and deployments could use up all of the world’s silver reserves in the next five years (subscription required), and the IEA PVPS has said that responsible management of material supplies and metal recycling processes will be key to sustainably growing the technology.
Hankey seems unfazed by the trend. He says he has contact with scientists working on using copper on the back side of TOPCon cells, and would look to work with them in combining copper and silver in future products. His claims that ACI is using 30% less silver than other production processes also help.
“I think there’s a lot of work to be done on the long-term reliability of copper in the solar cell,” he says. “Copper has the oxidation issue that it’s always going to have an equilibrium layer of oxygen on the copper particles.”
He says that manufacturers are currently approaching him for silver without much concern for copper, and that seems to be where his interest lies. “Right now, we’re going forward with silver, or possibly silver-coated copper … [copper] may be accepted in the long run by the manufacturers, but I think a lot of it really depends on the overall reliability.”
ACI Materials has yet to go to market with US-made silver paste, but Hankey claims that there are already US manufacturers who are “very anxious to get the material.” He suggests that major players in the industry would put their cash behind domestic silver paste, just as other supply components like steel frames, racking and glass have attracted interest.
The US solar industry faces a laundry list of tariffs, restrictions and other trade and policy challenges, all purportedly to wrest control of the solar supply chain from China. On paper, these mean that the more domestic components you can get your hands on as a manufacturer, the better. Silver isn’t subject to as many restrictions as polysilicon products, but the principle still stands.
Manufacturers reportedly told Hankey “We want a supplier that’s coming out of the USA or Europe because we want these materials to be able to be imported into the US and we don’t want to have to pay tariffs.” He also said that the “modular” nature of ACI Materials’ equipment means “we can set up shop right next to the manufacturers.”
Dana Hankey will be speaking at the PV CellTech USA conference in San Francisco later this month. The event will bring together stakeholders from across the US manufacturing industry in high-level presentations, panel debates and dedicated networking breaks.

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The global energy transition continues to move forward, but trade barriers, equipment costs, and land availability are adding significant friction to U.S. solar and battery energy storage system (BESS) expansion, according to McKinsey & Company’s Global Energy Perspective 2026.
In its 11th annual assessment, the consulting firm outlines how shifting geopolitical dynamics and trade restrictions directly impact clean technology cost structures. Under the “Fragmented Energy Order” scenario, where global trade fractures and tariffs escalate, McKinsey projects that battery energy storage faces the largest clean-technology cost premium among all low-carbon assets, increasing capital expenditure by 40% to 50%. This sharp cost increase is driven by cathode material tariffs, critical mineral bottlenecks, and supply chain localization barriers.
Although global solar module prices dropped approximately 70% to reach about $0.08 per watt, further Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) declines are no longer guaranteed by technology learning curves alone. Equipment costs, critical minerals, and geopolitical trade policy now dictate project economics across the board.
Beyond direct technology tariffs, broad trade duties on raw materials like steel and aluminum add indirect capital costs to U.S. balance-of-system (BoS) components. Aluminum frames represent roughly 14% of total solar panel production costs, while steel remains a primary driver for ground-mounted tracking systems and structural racking. 
McKinsey notes that under fragmented trade conditions, rising network and balance-of-system costs threaten to offset falling generation costs. While Europe sees fossil fuel dependence fall from 60% to 30% by 2050, the U.S. market faces a complex balancing act between rising network investments and generation affordability.
At the same time supply chains face friction, electricity demand in the U.S. is accelerating rapidly, driven largely by artificial intelligence and data center expansion. The report notes that gigawatt-scale data center announcements are reshaping power market planning, creating an urgent need for dispatchable clean capacity.
To meet this surging load without compromising reliability, the report points to renewable-energy-plus-battery systems as a core solution for firming intermittent generation. However, scenarios with higher wind and utility-scale solar penetration will require proportionally more land area, escalating siting and interconnection complexity in high-demand U.S. ISO/RTO regions. System reliability demands flexible capacity, where natural gas currently serves as a proxy for reliability across scenarios, but battery storage deployment remains essential for long-term decarbonization goals.
McKinsey emphasizes that energy producers and clean energy original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) must adjust their strategic planning to navigate this high-cost, high-demand environment. The firm recommends that U.S. project developers diversify supply chains by mapping critical mineral and component exposure to insulate project pipelines from sudden tariff shifts. 
Furthermore, developers should target tariff-insensitive markets by focusing capital deployment on regions and off-taker segments where demand, such as data center power procurement, is less sensitive to marginal price increases. Finally, network operators and power producers must align investments closely to coordinate storage deployment with long-term industrial electrification and transmission maintenance.
“The low-carbon system faces the opposite challenge: Infrastructure that does not yet exist must be built swiftly in an environment of supply chain and geopolitical friction,” the report states.
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Romania’s newest wind farm may add solar, storage, as country faces energy crunch  Reuters
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Rows of solar panels cover a solar farm with a warehouse in the background. Photo: Mark Stebnicki / Pexels
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Rows of solar panels cover a solar farm with a warehouse in the background. Photo: Mark Stebnicki / Pexels
(The Center Square) – The price of natural gas at the Henry Hub in Louisiana averaged $2.93 per million British thermal units from June through August, about 6% less than last year, even though the Lower 48 U.S. states recorded the hottest July on record and the demand for electricity soared.
Average temperatures across the Lower 48 reached 77 degrees Fahrenheit, in July, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, with total nationwide electricity sales hitting a record-shattering 415.2 billion kilowatt-hours for the month as air conditioners ran longer and harder.
Historically, intense late-summer heat waves have triggered massive price spikes, as seen when benchmark prices neared $10 per million Btu during the global energy crunch of 2022.
This year, data recently released by the U.S. Department of Energy shows record-high electricity demand in summer 2026 was met primarily with solar power generation, which was up 22% from same three months last year. Texas, the nation’s largest energy producer, has added 19.5 gigawatts of new solar capacity since 2023.
Total U.S. solar generation increased by an estimated 19.4 billion kilowatt-hours in June-August 2026 compared with the same period last year, the data shows.
Wind generation rose 9.3 billion kilowatt-hours in June-August, representing a 9.8% increase over the same period last year, while natural gas power grew only 7.5 billion kilowatt-hours, up 1.8%, the data shows.
“Increased renewable electricity generation, record natural gas production, and ample natural gas inventories helped limit upward pressure on prices,” the Energy Department said in an analysis of the summer electricity market published last week.
Global benchmark Henry Hub prices stayed under $3 per million Btu for most of the summer even as U.S. natural gas exported as liquified natural gas hit new record highs. U.S. LNG exports in July were up 18.7% from the same month last year, Energy Department data shows.
American LNG exports reached 35 different countries this summer, with the Netherlands, France and Italy the biggest buyers while companies in India, Japan and South Korea also purchased multiple cargos.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on X that the United States is “solidifying its position as the world’s largest LNG supplier.”
“Last year, for the first time in history, a country exported more than 100 million tons of LNG—and that country was the United States. And this year, we are on track to surpass 120 million tons,” Wright said.
Sub-$3 Henry Hub natural gas prices are much lower than other commonly referenced global benchmarks such as the Dutch Title Transfer Facility and the Japan-Korea Marker, which in September averaged $25.42 per million British thermal units and $25.39 per million British thermal units, respectively.
In the most recent forecast, the Energy Department estimates domestic natural gas inventories in the Lower 48 states will total 3,985 billion cubic feet at the end of October, about 5% above the five-year average for that time of year.
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Low-Cost Commercial Camera Measures Solar Cell Efficiency | Research & Technology | Oct 2026  photonics.com
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Spain’s first pre-commercial marine solar demonstrator has entered the testing phase at the Port of Valencia. Developed by BlueNewables in collaboration with Naturgy, the 1 MW installation will be used to assess the performance of floating PV technology under real marine conditions, including its operation and maintenance requirements and integration into port infrastructure.
The demonstrator comprises two 500 kW PV-bos platforms built at the San Enrique shipyard in Vigo. The first platform was launched at the shipyard in May, before arriving at the Port of Valencia for testing. The units, named Paiporta and Catarroja after two Valencian municipalities affected by the 2024 DANA storm, are now undergoing testing and monitoring in the waters of the port.
The testing phase will gather data on system performance, operation and maintenance, and the integration of the platforms into the port environment. The companies will also monitor technical incidents, operating costs and maintenance requirements as the project progresses.
Both systems use PV-bos, a floating PV solution designed for deployment in locations where land is scarce or expensive, as well as in ports, island systems and areas with grid capacity constraints. Its modular design allows the system to be adapted to different sites and project scales.
The demonstrator is part of Renmarinas Valenciaport, an initiative funded by Spain’s Institute for Energy Diversification and Saving (IDAE) with European Union NextGenerationEU funds to test and demonstrate marine renewable energy technologies. As part of the initiative, the Port Authority of Valencia has developed a testing area with the infrastructure required to connect and test marine renewable energy demonstrators and feed the electricity they generate into the grid.
The testing infrastructure will also be available for future marine renewable energy projects. The two PV-bos platforms will provide data on the integration of floating PV systems into operational port infrastructure.
BlueNewables and Naturgy will exchange technical, operational, economic and strategic information collected during testing and subsequent monitoring over a two-year period. The analysis will cover system performance, technical incidents, operation and maintenance costs, and lessons learned from operating the demonstrator.
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The TOPCon patent fight of First Solar, a US-based PV solar technology and manufacturing company, has reached a Delaware court against JA Solar and American Panel Solutions (AMPS). Four JA Solar companies are named, among them JA Solar Vietnam, and the claim rests on US Patent No. 9,130,074. That patent covers methods of manufacturing tunnel oxide passivated contact crystalline silicon PV cells. First Solar holds it through its 2013 acquisition of TetraSun, which brought the US TOPCon patents and their international counterparts. Those counterparts reach from China to the European Union and Vietnam, with validities extending to 2030 and beyond. Having announced the portfolio and opened infringement investigations against several cell makers in July 2024, the company is now enforcing it in court. Its general counsel, Jason Dymbort, said that the suit targets the unauthorized use of First Solar’s patented technology by JA Solar and AMPS.
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The mission will evaluate how lightweight perovskite solar technology and on-orbit AI-based image processing perform in extreme environments
Nanyang Technological University
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Front row, from left: NTU Satellite Research Centre Executive Director Mr Lim Wee Seng; School of Materials Science and Engineering Asst Prof Leonard Ng Wei Tat; and School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Assoc Prof Leong Wei Lin, Assoc Prof Wen Bihan, Principal Research Engineer Mr Lim Sir Yang, with other members of the NTU research team and partners from Singfilm Solar.
Credit: NTU Singapore
NTU Singapore launches CRIMSON-1 satellite to test next-gen perovskite solar cells and AI computing in space
The mission will evaluate how lightweight perovskite solar technology and on-orbit AI-based image processing perform in extreme environments
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has successfully launched a satellite carrying pioneering perovskite solar cells developed locally for testing in space, together with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities designed to analyse images directly in orbit.
The CRIMSON-1 satellite will gather real-world performance data on lightweight perovskite solar cells in the harsh environment of space, while also testing technologies that could help future spacecraft analyse raw data before beaming it back to Earth.
CRIMSON-1 is NTU’s 14th satellite launched into space and it is among the first projects supported by the National Space Agency of Singapore (NSAS) under Singapore’s Space Access Programme (SAP) as part of the national Space Technology Development Programme.
The programme gives Singapore researchers and companies opportunities to test technologies such as advanced materials, solar cells and edge computing systems in orbit, build flight heritage and shorten the path from laboratory development to space validation.
The satellite is also supported by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), which secured satellite spectrum and orbital resources from the International Telecommunication Union for its operation.
CRIMSON-1 was launched aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on the Transporter-18 rideshare mission from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, United States, on 1 October.
Scientists from the NTU Satellite Research Centre (SaRC) worked with launch integrator Exolaunch, which provided launch capacity, mission management, satellite integration and deployment services, to deploy the satellite into space using its EXOpod Nova system.
Ms Ngiam Le Na, Chief Executive of the National Space Agency of Singapore, said: “Perovskite solar cells will provide a compelling advantage over conventional solar panels – their thin, lightweight properties make them particularly well-suited for space applications, where every gram matters. Missions like CRIMSON-1 represent a pathway for homegrown innovations to gain flight heritage needed to progress towards commercial application. By giving our researchers and companies the opportunity to test and validate their technologies in orbit, we are helping them build the credibility and track record needed to compete in the global space economy.”
Since 2022, the Singapore government has set aside S$210 million under the Space Technology Development Programme to support research and development in space technologies and build national capabilities.
NTU Deputy President and Provost Professor Christian Wolfrum said: “CRIMSON-1 carries next-generation perovskite solar cells and edge AI computing into orbit. These technologies can only be validated under real space conditions, and this is what NTU's satellite programme has been doing for three decades. CRIMSON-1 is our fourteenth mission.”
“What makes this possible is that NTU brings satellite engineering, artificial intelligence, and advanced materials research together in one place. The satellite was developed with local industry partners, so each mission builds capability not just in the university but across Singapore's space sector.”
Testing pioneering perovskite solar cells in orbit
CRIMSON-1 will test several next-generation perovskite solar cells developed by NTU researchers and Singfilm Solar, a deep-tech spin-off from National University of Singapore (NUS).
Perovskites are a class of next-generation materials that can be used to make lightweight solar cells with high power-generation efficiency using commonly available materials.
NTU has been a pioneer in perovskite solar cell research since a landmark Science paper in 2013[1], when a team showed that electrical charges could travel unusually long distances through perovskite materials, helping to explain their high solar-cell efficiency.
Since then, NTU researchers have scaled up perovskite solar cells towards module sizes[2] suitable for industry applications and developed prototypes aimed at improving their performance and stability.
However, for space applications, new solar technologies must prove that they can survive the physical stresses of a rocket launch and endure the harsh conditions of space while generating consistent power.
CRIMSON-1 will test the cells’ physical durability and efficiency after their journey from the ground into space and measure how much electrical power they generate in Low Earth Orbit.
The mission also marks the first time Singfilm’s technology will be flown in space, providing data that could support further development and validation of its solar technology for space applications.
NUS Assistant Professor Hou Yi, Founder of Singfilm Solar, said: “This mission marks the first spaceflight of a flexible perovskite solar module built on ultrathin glass and the first deployment of a Singapore-made solar module in orbit. It will provide valuable data on how our technology performs in the harsh environment of space, helping us advance lightweight solar power for future satellites and explore its application for space-based AI data centres.”
Building on NTU’s satellite achievements
Leading the mission is the NTU Satellite Research Centre (SaRC), the birthplace of Singapore’s satellite and space programmes. It is one of the few university-based centres globally that has developed end-to-end capabilities spanning spacecraft engineering, launch preparation, mission control and in-orbit operations.
Since the launch of X-SAT, Singapore’s first locally built satellite, in 2011, NTU has designed, built, tested and operated satellites ranging from small CubeSats to larger spacecraft and has launched 14 satellites into space.
Most recently, VELOX-AM, NTU’s 13th satellite launched in July 2023, completed its mission and deorbited in August 2026. Data and learnings from past missions have helped pave the way for CRIMSON-1 and NTU’s ongoing development of future satellite operations.
Complementing SaRC’s satellite engineering capabilities, NTU’s Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS) applies satellite data to real-world challenges, from developing rapid maps of earthquakes, floods and other disasters to monitoring climate change and land sinking.
Developing AI for future satellite operations
Another CRIMSON-1 experiment will test edge AI computing, where data collected by a satellite is analysed directly on board instead of transmitting all the raw images back to Earth, which takes time and bandwidth.
During the mission, the satellite will run AI-based image-processing tasks in orbit while researchers study how well its computing system manages heat and power consumption under heavy workloads.
Analysing images in space could allow future satellites to identify useful information before transmitting data to Earth, reducing the amount of raw data sent through limited satellite communications links.
While CRIMSON-1 is testing AI processing in orbit, SaRC is also exploring how AI could help manage growing numbers of satellites from the ground.
Earlier this year, NTU and Japanese technology company Fusic Co., Ltd. announced a collaboration to explore AI-enabled ground systems that could assist satellite operators with mission scheduling, ground-station allocation, routine operations and earlier detection of technical problems.
Together, the two efforts will examine how AI could support both sides of future satellite operations: processing information autonomously aboard spacecraft and helping human operators manage missions from Earth.
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[1] Xing, G., Mathews, N., Sun, S., Lim, S. S., Lam, Y. M., Grätzel, M., Mhaisalkar, S., & Sum, T. C. (2013). Long-range balanced electron- and hole-transport lengths in organic-inorganic CH₃NH₃PbI₃. Science, 342(6156), 344–347. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1243167
[2] Scaled-up perovskite solar cells developed by NTU Singapore scientists achieve highest recorded power conversion (14 July 2020). https://www.ntu.edu.sg/news/detail/scaled-up-perovskite-solar-cells-developed-by-ntu-singapore-scientists-achieve-highest-recorded-power-conversion
 
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
Media Contact
Lester Kok
Nanyang Technological University
lesterkok@ntu.edu.sg
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Nanyang Technological University


Copyright © 2026 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Copyright © 2026 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

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From ESS News
Revolta AG has secured funding from the German state of Hesse under the ERDF for its “Highly Efficient AC Salt Battery” project, through which it is developing a sodium-ion alternating current (AC) battery for residential use.
It said the system is designed to connect directly to the grid, charging when power prices and grid fees are low and feeding electricity back when prices are higher. It is aimed at smaller rental apartments without their own PV systems, which have had limited options for battery storage, and uses sodium-ion cells that require no lithium or cobalt.
Hesse’s register of ERDF beneficiaries lists the project with eligible costs of €660,545 ($743,530) and a 40% EU co-financing rate, equivalent to about €264,200, running from Aug. 1, 2026, to Dec. 31, 2029. The company did not disclose the capacity, power rating, price, or launch date of the AC battery.
Frankfurt-based Revolta launched a high-voltage sodium-ion home battery for households with PV in July. The company also holds a grant of €124,940 from Germany’s Federal Environmental Foundation for an AC battery project running from September 2025 to September 2027.
The business case for grid-charging home batteries in Germany shifted on Oct. 1, when the country’s grid regulator adopted rules that let storage systems draw power from the grid and feed it back later, with lower levies and grid fees on the power they return. The rules also apply to storage without its own generation.
The ERDF is also backing sodium-ion manufacturing in Germany. Moll Batterien secured €22.17 million in public funding for a planned 1 GWh sodium-ion battery plant in Lichtenfels, Bavaria, including €2.52 million from the ERDF.

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Thursday, October 8, 2026
11:30 am – 12:30 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Monday, October 12, 2026
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Startup has pivoted away from underwater data centers to harness the power of the sun
A San Francisco startup says it has become the first company to run customer AI workloads from a floating data center powered by solar panels.
NetworkOcean says it has operated a single Nvidia H100 GPU powered by a 20kW solar array as part of a trial in San Francisco Bay. The customer using the GPU has not been disclosed.
Footage posted by the company shows a set of 12 floating panels linked to a container on a ship with the GPU server inside.
Founded in 2024 by Sam Mendel and Eric Kim, NetworkOcean was originally pursuing underwater data centers, but has now pivoted to a floating system utilizing solar energy.
Writing on LinkedIn, CEO Mendel said: “Our future is bottlenecked by the speed at which we can deploy power.
“We’re building floating solar arrays powering data centers at sea. This will soon be the fastest way to deploy new compute, skipping years of land, grid connections, and traditional infrastructure delays.”
He said the company went from “design to deployed in the water” in 53 days, and added: “This will soon become the quickest way to deploy new power, powering the most efficient and sustainable data centers on the planet.”
A spin-out from the Y Combinator incubator, NetworkOcean’s original plan for underwater data centers ran into difficulties when it was claimed the firm did not have the correct permits for a trial deployment in the Bay Area.
On its website, the firm outlines a roadmap that could see a 1MW array deployed at sea next year. It is targeting up to 1GW of power for compute by 2030.
DCD published an in-depth look at the burgeoning compute-at-sea sector in the latest edition of our magazine. Read it free of charge here.
Data Centre Dynamics Ltd (DCD), 32-38 Saffron Hill, London, EC1N 8FH
Email. [email protected]
DCD is a subsidiary of InfraXmedia
More from InfraXmedia: SDxCentral – Data Center Nation – The AI Cities Summit

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Investment is ring-fenced for Orb Energy’s Africa business and will support project delivery, local team expansion and financing partnerships
Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], October 1: KawiSafi Ventures has invested $2 million in Orb Energy to support the expansion of the company’s commercial and industrial solar business across East Africa. The capital is ring-fenced for Orb Energy’s Africa business and will support its growing project pipeline in Kenya and the wider region.

Founded in Bengaluru in 2006, Orb Energy is a vertically integrated solar company with operations in India and Kenya and in-house solar panel manufacturing in Bengaluru. Its Africa operations are headquartered in Nairobi. The investment adds growth capital to an India-headquartered solar company as it scales project development and delivery in East Africa.

Orb Energy provides solar systems and financing solutions to commercial and industrial customers in sectors including manufacturing, agro-processing, healthcare, and hospitality. Customers can purchase systems outright or use financing structures that reduce the upfront capital required to adopt solar.
The company has installed close to 15 MW of rooftop solar for more than 60 commercial and industrial customers in East Africa. The new capital will support projects as they move from development and contracting into construction and commissioning.

“Orb has built a strong C&I solar business in Kenya at a time when businesses across the region are looking for more reliable and affordable power. We see an opportunity to support the company as it expands its project pipeline and mobilises additional capital for deployment. The model connects a clear commercial need with the transition to cleaner energy,” said Amar Inamdar, Managing Director, KawiSafi Ventures.
“We at Orb Energy are extremely proud that KawiSafi has decided to invest in our Kenya business for further expansion in East Africa. We have so far installed close to 15 MW of rooftop solar in East Africa across more than 60 C&I customers. But the potential in East Africa, and Africa as a whole, is enormous. We are just scratching the surface. With this new equity from KawiSafi, we intend to grow our regional footprint, build our local team and strengthen our partnerships with financiers to solarise more commercial and industrial establishments in Africa,” said Damian Miller, Co-founder and CEO of Orb Energy.
Supporting C&I Solar Growth in East Africa
Commercial and industrial businesses across East Africa continue to face high energy costs and unreliable power. Distributed solar can give businesses greater control over energy expenses while reducing dependence on more carbon-intensive sources of electricity. Access to capital remains important because projects require funding through development, procurement, construction and commissioning.
Orb Energy combines solar deployment with financing solutions for customers. KawiSafi’s investment will provide additional capital for Orb Energy’s project pipeline, regional team and financing partnerships as the company expands across East Africa.
Investment Through KawiSafi Fund II
The investment was made through KawiSafi Ventures’ second fund. The fund builds on the experience of its predecessor, a $67 million clean energy fund launched in 2016, and expands KawiSafi’s investment strategy across Africa’s climate economy. Its focus includes energy transition, clean transportation and green productivity.
KawiSafi Ventures was created by Acumen and manages its for-profit climate investment strategy in Africa. The second KawiSafi fund, which announced $90 million in approved capital in late 2025, extends Acumen’s approach to backing growth-stage businesses that can build markets and scale solutions addressing climate and economic challenges in underserved markets. Anchor investors include the Green Climate Fund and Schmidt Family Foundation, with funding from Quadrature Climate Foundation.
About Orb Energy
Orb Energy is a leading provider of solar energy solutions in India and Africa. The company was founded in 2006 and is vertically integrated, with its own solar panel manufacturing facility in Bengaluru, India. Orb Energy provides rooftop and ground-mounted solar systems, solar plus battery storage and financing solutions for commercial and industrial customers. The company has installed more than 400 MW of solar capacity and aims to reach 1 GW before 2030.
About KawiSafi Ventures
KawiSafi is Acumen’s for-profit investment platform focused on accelerating Africa’s energy transition. It designs and manages climate finance strategies that mobilize catalytic capital to support inclusive, low-carbon growth. Fund II builds on nearly a decade of experience investing in companies that expand access to clean energy and drive economic resilience.
About Acumen
Acumen is a global force of entrepreneurs, investors, philanthropists, and social innovators working together to build a world based on dignity. We were founded by Jacqueline Novogratz on the radical idea that business, when cultivated with moral imagination, can break the cycle of poverty. We invest in transformational companies, build sustainable markets, and prepare leaders with the tools they need to create a more just and inclusive future. Since 2001, we have scaled companies and shaped markets in some of the hardest-to-reach communities on the planet, impacting over half a billion lives.
Media Contact
Shalini D. S
Senior Manager – Digital Marketing, Orb Energy
Mobile: +91 7892920971
(Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with PNN and PTI takes no editorial responsibility for the same.). PTI PWR PWR
(This content is sourced from a syndicated feed and is published as received. The Tribune assumes no responsibility or liability for its accuracy, completeness, or content.)
THE TRIBUNE, India’s oldest, daily English-language newspaper, was first published on February 2, 1881, in Lahore (now in Pakistan), and save for 40 days in the immediate aftermath of Partition, has come out every day over the last 145 years. THE TRIBUNE was started by Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia, a public-spirited philanthropist of the time. The newspaper is run by a five-member Trust, which is chaired by Shri N N Vohra, former Governor of J&K State (2008-2018); as well as Justice S S Sodhi, former Chief Justice of the Allahabad High Court; Shri Gurbachan Jagat, former Governor of Manipur; Lt Gen. Shamsher Singh Mehta, former Western Army Commander; Shri Paramjit Singh Patwalia, Senior Advocate in the Supreme Court.

THE TRIBUNE is free, objective, and independent. Restraint and moderation, rather than agitational language, are the hallmarks of the paper.

The Tribune has two sister publications, Punjabi Tribune (in Punjabi) and Dainik Tribune (in Hindi).
Remembering Sardar Dyal Singh Majithia

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More than one-third of new residential solar installations in the United States included battery storage in 2025, as batteries increasingly shift from an optional addition to a standard component of rooftop solar projects.
Battery storage was paired with 37% of new residential photovoltaic systems in 2025, up from 25% in 2024, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s latest U.S. Distributed Solar and Storage Data update.
The annual dataset includes roughly 5.3 million distributed solar and solar-plus-storage systems installed through the end of 2025. That includes about 450,000 systems installed during 2025, representing an estimated 93% of the U.S. distributed solar market for the year.
California remains a major driver of the trend
About 74% of new residential solar installations in California included storage in 2025, up from 58% in 2024. But battery adoption also accelerated outside the state. Across all other states in Berkeley Lab’s comparison, the residential storage attachment rate climbed from 7% to 17% in one year.
Berkeley Lab highlighted particularly large increases in Arizona and Texas. Hawaii and California continued to post the highest residential storage attachment rates in the country.
California’s rise in solar-plus-storage installations follows the state’s transition to its Net Billing Tariff, commonly called NEM 3.0, in April 2023. The policy reduced the value of electricity exported by new rooftop solar customers during many hours, increasing the value of storing excess daytime generation for later use.
That change quickly altered the composition of California’s rooftop solar market. More than half of California solar customers were pairing batteries with their systems, up from about 20% in October 2023.
Growth is no longer limited to California
Battery attachment rates outside California more than doubled from 2024 to 2025. Berkeley Lab did not attribute that increase to any single factor, but installers in other markets are increasingly confronting changes to net-metering structures and time-of-use electricity rates that can increase the value of consuming stored solar power rather than exporting it.
Storage adoption also increased in the non-residential market, although it remains far below residential levels. Batteries were attached to 11% of U.S. non-residential solar installations in 2025, up from 7% in 2024. California’s non-residential attachment rate increased from 12% to 18%, while the rate across all other states doubled from 4% to 8%.
The typical amount of energy stored in residential batteries did not change significantly. Median residential storage capacity remained 13.5 kWh in both 2024 and 2025.
However, the power those systems can deliver increased sharply. Median discharge capacity increased from 6 kW in 2024 to 11.4 kW in 2025. Berkeley Lab attributed much of that increase to growing deployment of the Tesla Powerwall 3, which has higher discharge capacity than previous versions.
The report cautions that its attachment rates do not capture the entire distributed storage market. They exclude batteries added later to existing solar installations as well as standalone battery systems.
That means the data measure how often installers pair batteries with new solar projects, rather than the full rate of residential battery deployment. Even under that narrower definition, the year-over-year increase suggests solar-plus-storage is rapidly becoming a larger part of the U.S. residential market.
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Thursday, October 8, 2026
11:30 am – 12:30 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Monday, October 12, 2026
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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.
pv magazine Session returns to NetZero Milan as Knowledge Partner, organizing and moderating a two-hour conference on the evolving global solar supply chain.
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The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by First National Bank.
BAR HARBOR—The sun has been streaming through the stained-glass windows of St. Saviour’s for generations.
It has colored the saints, the angels, the flowers, fish, and the bits of Heaven imagined in glass, casting them across the old church in Bar Harbor. Now, on the roof above those windows, the church is beginning to catch some of that same sunlight for a more practical purpose.
Seventy solar panels have been installed on the roof of St. Saviour’s, enough, church representatives say, to produce about 138 percent of its annual electricity needs for the church and rectory.
On Sunday, Oct. 4, the congregation will gather on the lawn to bless those panels and the community is invited to join them.
It is an unusual sort of church ceremony, perhaps: partially a blessing of machinery, of photovoltaic cells and electrons and the promise of lower electric bills. But at St. Saviour’s, the panels are being understood as something older and larger than technology. They are an expression of a charge the congregation says it hears every Sunday—to care for what it calls “this fragile earth, our island home.”
“Our board, like many non-profit boards, has been struggling with ideas to help make our property more sustainable. At the same time, we felt a moral imperative to lean in to greener energy, to be the best possible stewards of God’s creation,” The Rev. Canon Cricket Cooper explained.
In a letter to all of the parishes in the Diocese of Maine in November 2025, their bishop, the Rt. Rev. Thomas Brown, wrote that Christians have a responsibility to care for the earth, and urged parishes to consider renewable energy as a response to a warming planet.
St. Saviour’s Vestry voted to begin researching solar companies around the same time.
Bishop Brown’s charge to promote and maintain the parish in any environmentally conscious way that the congregation could had been tried previously, but the cost for solar panels had been too prohibitive.
When Versant’s electric rates increased by more than 25% in 28 months and with rising fuel costs, one parishioner said, the plan passed.
“Our array was put on our roof by the wonderful people of ReVision Energy. Interestingly, when the town of Bar Harbor came to do our inspection, Mike Gurtler said that he wasn’t worried at all about how our project went because it was being done by the top solar panel provider in the state of Maine, which is ReVision Energy,” she said.
There were two hiccups in the process. The first was town approval, which was given. The second was making sure that the National Registry of Historic Buildings and Places approved. It did and the historic preservation coordinator for Maine said that it didn’t hit a threshold for regulatory review.
While she was in seminary in New York City, Canon Cooper was impressed by a performance of the Missa Gaia (Earth Mass) by the Paul Winter consort.
“The music incorporates animal sounds- whales and wolves- into the music as a celebration of all of creation,” Canon Cooper explained. “It was performed for several years at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine as part of their blessing of the animals services honoring St Francis. Animals from the Bronx Zoo were famously paraded down the center aisle of this event!”
The timing of the blessing is fitting. The panels will be blessed on the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th-century friar whose love of the natural world has made him a patron saint of animals and, more broadly, of the environmental movement.
Francis did not have solar panels in mind when he wrote his “Canticle of the Sun” in 1225. But he looked at the natural world and saw something worthy of praise: Brother Sun, Sister Moon, wind and air, water, fire, and the earth that feeds us.
At St. Saviour’s, that old idea is being given a distinctly modern form.
The church is not simply blessing what sits on its roof. It is blessing, in its own way, the sunlight that makes the panels work, the earth the members hope to help protect, and the shared responsibility that brought them there.
“St Francis is known for his love of all creation, and on his feast day, October 4, many churches celebrate with a Blessing of the Animals. Francis was a strong believer in God’s goodness as seen through all of creation, and so in addition to honoring animals, he also is known as the author of the Canticle to the Sun,” Canon Cooper said.
Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially through my lord Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and you give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor!
Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.
Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars;
in the heavens you have made them bright, precious and beautiful.
Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
and clouds and storms, and all the weather,
through which you give your creatures sustenance.
Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water;
she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.
Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you brighten the night.
He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong.
Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth,
who feeds us and rules us,
and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.
— an excerpt from St Francis’ Canticle of the Sun:
The canticle and the Blessing of the Animals is not all St. Francis known for.
“Francis is also known for his emphasis on compassion and forgiveness, as seen in his prayer which is found in our Episcopal prayer books,” Canon Cooper explained.
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is
hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where
there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to
be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is
in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen.
There is a person who helped move the project forward, but she has asked not to be named.
She has spent many hours helping bring the project to completion, but she doesn’t want the extra credit. For her, the accomplishment belongs to the congregation.
“As far as I’m concerned, I get my reward in Heaven and not here on Earth. Please do not use my name as the person responsible for this effort. The entire church supported it and made it happen….that is what counts!” she said.
That sense of shared responsibility runs through the congregation’s thinking about the solar project. It is not one person’s accomplishment, or even simply a church improvement project, but an effort by a community to put its beliefs into practice.
“We are excited about the event because we are—all of us—in this together. We can, as individuals and as organizations, all make a difference in caring for our earth. It is not a celebration just of ‘church solar panels’ but a reminder of the goodness of this life and this earth, a celebration of the sun that shines equally on us all, and that makes our life possible,” Canon Cooper said.
That idea—that sunlight belongs to everyone—may be the simplest bridge between the old saint and the new panels. Francis saw the sun as a gift to be praised. St. Saviour’s is trying to treat it as a gift to be stewarded, too.
“To say we are excited about this event would be trivializing it,” Canon Cooper said. “It’s not so much the event as it is the fact that the project we’ve been working on for over a year is finally complete.”
There is, however, one small piece left.
The church is waiting for the “go” from Versant before it can flip the switch.
The blessing comes first. The sunlight has been waiting all along.
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Rick Osann Art.
St. Saviour’s website.
ReVision Maine
A Climate To Thrive (for more about sustainable and energy initiatives and work in our area).
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-beastly-blessing-st-francis-day-at-manhattan-s-cathedral-church-of-st-john-the-divine
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/ZYW3tgB10Wg?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
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California will allow up to 1,200W installations, but panels must be certified by an outside safety organization.
California has joined nine other US states in approving plug-in solar installations, more commonly known as balcony solar. The Plug and Play Solar Act was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and signed into law by governor Gavin Newsom on September 30th. “These small, easy-to-use solar panels will give everyone, including renters, the relief they desperately need on our outrageous energy bills,” said the bill’s author, state senator Scott Wiener. The law goes into force on January 1, 2027. 
Balcony solar kits consist of at least one solar panel and a microinverter to convert DC to 120V AC power, along with a battery backup for those who want power in the evening. They are relatively inexpensive compared to regular rooftop installations as they can be self-installed and (usually) plugged into a standard AC socket. 
You won’t need to register a plug-in solar system with utilities as is required for rooftop installations. The new process will be relatively simple and free, with immediate approvals. But don’t rush out to buy any kit ahead of the law change, as there’s a few caveats you need to be aware of. 
California has several rules that may limit the tech for now, however. Installations are limited to 1,200W (enough to run a refrigerator and a few small appliances), which is much less than a rooftop installation (6,000+ watts). That number is in line with most other states but less than the 1,920 W maximum allowed in Colorado. California’s law also requires UL or equivalent certification, and there is just one of those (UL3700) for plug-in solar so far. 
UL3700 requires components to prevent against things like accidental touching of hazardous electrical parts, protection against overloads and prevention of current from flowing in the wrong direction. The defining feature of UL3700, however, is the requirement for a “uniquely configured, non-NEMA plug and receptacle system,” PluginSolarUS explains. This would require the intervention of a certified electrician for many installations and make it impractical for renters, despite Senator Wiener’s statement. 
New balcony solar product innovations may make these systems truly plug-and-play in the future, though. There are currently just a handful of products certified under UL3700 from the likes of Hoymiles, APsystems and Mango. A nonprofit called Environmental Working Group that sponsored the bill expects approval for two more companies by the end of the year, with “products on shelves not long after that in 2027,” senior VP Bernadette del Chiaro told The LA Times. 
Large state utilities like PG&E and SDG&E opposed the bill, citing safety concerns. Those companies also effectively said the tech may force them to jack up prices, which would pass the extra costs onto users without a solar power option. 

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Many homeowners want to use less grid power in normal conditions while still having electricity available when outages happen.
Photo Credit: iStock
For homeowners interested in energy independence, one question comes up again and again. They want to know if a home can use the electric grid only as a backup charger for a whole-house battery, rather than having the grid feed the house directly.
The answer matters because that kind of setup could offer more control over energy bills, stronger outage protection, and a simpler way to rely on stored solar power first.
That exact question surfaced in a Reddit thread on the r/solar subreddit. 
The original poster asked: “Is it possible to have your only connection to the grid as a backup that charges a whole house battery if it gets too low? In other words, no direct connection to the main panel for your house other than through the battery?” 
Across the replies, the general answer was that this kind of arrangement is possible, although the exact hardware and system layout matter.
One commenter told the original poster, “Not a weird question at all. We do this all the time and a lot of inverters are set up to do this kind of thing.”
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A lot of the discussion focused on the inverter, since in some systems it handles both conversion and power routing.
“On my system the grid, batteries, house, and panels all connect to the inverter,” a commenter shared. “It not only converts DC to AC but it’s also the controller for the entire system, sending power where it needs to go depending on how I program it.”
Many homeowners want to use less grid power in normal conditions while still having electricity available when outages happen. One commenter described using their system that way, while also explaining why they do not currently prioritize it.
“I can set it to prioritize using the power my panels generate and only draw from the grid when the batteries get low,” they added. “But we have 1:1 net metering here so there’s no point to that. I keep the batteries charged for power outages.” 
Hybrid inverter equipment came up repeatedly as well. 
One commenter wrote: “Yes. With a hybrid inverter like Sol-Ark. And while on grid, it can just pass the AC right through.” 
At the same time, commenters noted that this is not necessarily identical to a typical hybrid solar setup. One reply said that “what the OP is asking about is basically off-grid with grid backup,” while another warned that “most hybrid inverters cannot do this exactly, or at least it’s not the way they are designed.”
What works best depends on the objective, whether that means smoother backup power, lower day-to-day grid use, or something closer to an off-grid system with the grid kept in reserve.
One commenter described a more manual mobile-home setup.
“I have the inverters set to start charging them at 20% SOC and stop at 30%,” they wrote. “Just enough to make it until the sun comes up. If it is cloudy they will just do it again.”
The same commenter said those settings can be changed ahead of severe weather. 
“Just before Helene hit two years ago I set the charge at 80% to 90% so the batteries would be as fully charged as possible,” they said. “Power to my area was out for a week but I was fine.”
Solar-and-battery setups can keep power flowing and cut day-to-day reliance on the grid.
• In Australia, a homeowner said a 20kW solar setup made blackouts invisible and earned credits.
• Across the U.S., only 20 states still keep the net metering rule boosting battery payback.
• For many households, panels and batteries now buy energy security as savings become less certain.
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An international research team has investigated the potential of installing PV systems between railway tracks in South Korea as a way to expand solar generation without competing for scarce land. The researchers found that suitable sections of five surface railway corridors could host more than 8.5 MW of PV capacity, highlighting the potential of existing transport infrastructure to support solar deployment in densely populated areas.
“Dense metropolitan regions need renewable energy strategies that do not compete for land. Railway corridors offer one such option because they already occupy linear public space and connect closely to traction and distribution infrastructure,” the researchers said.
“Our study examines whether the transport system can use PV electricity generated within railway corridors, how much electricity must be exported or curtailed, what storage capacity is needed, and how financial uncertainty affects the probability of payback,” they added.
The researchers assessed five surface railway corridors: the Gaya and Donghae lines in Busan, above-ground sections of Seoul Subway Line 1 and Daegu Metro Line 1, and selected open sections of the Gyeongbu Line, which connects Seoul and Busan.
Using OpenStreetMap railway geometry and a Korean digital surface model in QGIS, the researchers excluded tunnels, viaducts and track sections with annual shading losses exceeding 15%.
They simulated the installation of 1.05-meter-wide flexible monocrystalline silicon laminates, with a minimum clearance of 150 mm from the railhead on each side. The laminates had a nominal efficiency of 21.4% and a power density of 214 W/m².
The simulations assumed soiling losses of 3.5%, including an additional percentage point to account for railway dust, as well as combined mismatch and DC wiring losses of 2%. The researchers also assumed inverter efficiency of 97.5% and an albedo of 0.18 for ballast and concrete sleepers. They validated the generation model against 17 months of measured rooftop PV production in Busan.
The group then simulated railway PV output and matched it against hourly traction-demand profiles to calculate self-consumption, grid exports and curtailment. It also compared centralized and distributed electrical connection configurations and assessed lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery capacities of up to 2 kWh per kilowatt of installed PV capacity.
The researchers evaluated the system’s financial performance over 20 years, assuming annual PV module degradation of 0.45%. They conducted sensitivity analysis and a 10,000-run Monte Carlo simulation to account for financial uncertainty.
“The screening identified 28.4 km of suitable surface railway corridor and 39,760 m² of installable area. This corresponds to 8.51 MW of photovoltaic capacity, based on the corrected module density of 4.67 m²/kW for a 1,435 mm standard-gauge corridor,” the researchers said.
They estimated annual generation at 9.95 GWh, with a capacity-weighted capacity factor of 13.4%. Without storage, 62.3% of PV generation coincided with traction demand. Of the remaining 37.7%, 19.8% could be exported to the grid and 17.8% would be curtailed.
The researchers found that a 0.5 kWh/kW battery could reduce the unabsorbed surplus from about 38% to 8.5% of generation. Adding the battery would increase the levelized cost of electricity by about 10% when round-trip storage losses are charged against delivered energy. Before accounting for those losses, the increase would be 9.0%.
“The probabilistic analysis yields a median levelised cost of energy (LCOE) of 170 USD/MWh on a delivered-energy basis and a 68% probability of payback within 12 years with a 40% capital subsidy, compared with roughly one-third without a subsidy,” the researchers concluded.
The findings are presented in the study “Climate-resilient urban energy infrastructure through rail-integrated photovoltaics in land-constrained South Korea,” published in Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal.
The research team included scientists from Dong-A University and Kyungsung University in South Korea, the Sumatra Institute of Technology in Indonesia, and the Higher Colleges of Technology in the United Arab Emirates.

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T-R PHOTO BY MIKE DONAHEY Shown Thursday is the billboard adjoining the Marshalltown YMCA-YWCA/Alliant Energy Solar Panel Field near the intersection of East Main St. and North 18th Ave. Behind the billboard is 1,100 panels.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Shown Thursday is the Marshalltown YMCA-YWCA /Alliant Energy Solar Panel Field with 1,100 panels near the intersection of East Main St. and North 18th Ave. The land is owned by the Marshalltown YMCA-YWCA and rented by Alliant. 
T-R PHOTO BY MIKE DONAHEY Tyler Kelley, Marshall County Zoning Director, is shown responding to a question at a recent Planning and Zoning Commission meeting inside the Marshall County Courthouse.
T-R PHOTO BY MIKE DONAHEY Shown Thursday is the billboard adjoining the Marshalltown YMCA-YWCA/Alliant Energy Solar Panel Field near the intersection of East Main St. and North 18th Ave. Behind the billboard is 1,100 panels.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Shown Thursday is the Marshalltown YMCA-YWCA /Alliant Energy Solar Panel Field with 1,100 panels near the intersection of East Main St. and North 18th Ave. The land is owned by the Marshalltown YMCA-YWCA and rented by Alliant. 
T-R PHOTO BY MIKE DONAHEY Tyler Kelley, Marshall County Zoning Director, is shown responding to a question at a recent Planning and Zoning Commission meeting inside the Marshall County Courthouse.
The Marshall County Zoning Commission continues to work on updating its Renewable Energy Ordinance. Installation of battery storage facilities, solar panels and wind turbines would be affected.
Consequently, the P&Z commission met Tuesday in a work session at the Marshall County Courthouse and heard comments from county department heads and residents.
“I was impressed with the turnout by the public and their questions and comments about the P&Z Commission’s work in updating the existing ordinance,” said Supervisor Christian Goodman of Haverhill, who attended the meeting. “It was a good discussion overall.”
Also in attendance were representatives from Invenergy LLC, of Chicago, Ill., and Scout Energy Management LLC of Dallas, Texas. They are two companies with business interest in renewable energy developments, according to their websites.
They submitted written comments to Tyler Kelley, the county’s planning and zoning director.
Pat VonAhnen, a zoning commissioner and rural Marshall County resident, said she had “a lot to learn” at the meeting.
“We heard many comments at the meeting … and we (the commission) have a lot of work to do,” she said.
VonAhnen and her colleagues will submit an updated renewable energy ordinance to the board of supervisors when their work is finished.
Joining VonAhnen on the commission are Bill Hobson and Will Wears. Commissioners serve as non-professionals and without compensation, according to the county’s website.
Their purpose is to advise the board of supervisors on managing the growth of the county among other duties.
Supervisor Carol Hibbs of Marshalltown said she attended a portion of the meeting.
“We are trying to be open and transparent about the process,” she said. “I think the commission is doing a good job of seeking public input.”
Kelley, who is working with the commission, said he expects a draft ordinance will be available for the Board of Supervisors to review in early 2027.
Kelley told the T-R and attendees at a work session in July that a revised ordinance in the county’s unincorporated areas was necessary to replace one drafted years earlier.
He said the county currently has a “bare bones” renewable energy ordinance in place.
“We want to be prepared and have an ordinance in place which allows a project to generate or store electricity,” Kelley said.
The increased number of wind farms located in rural Iowa to meet a growing demand for electricity also played a role, Kelley said. There are two wind farms in Marshall County now — one is near Laurel and the second in Vienna township.
Part of the Vienna project has turbines in neighboring Tama County. Both are owned by Mid-America Energy of Des Moines, according to the company’s website.
The company worked with county governments first and next negotiated individual leases with property owners and installed the turbines in 2013.
Wind turbine and other electricity-generating projects have proven to be a long-term boon for local government tax bases as well as to property owners who lease their land. Many leases are for 50 years. They also provide high-paying construction jobs and in a number of projects have made for improved highway access.
Like many new business development projects, wind farms have also met strong resistance. Opponents have cited damage to the environment, injuries and fatalities to birds and the removal of cropland from production as key reasons.
“At least one-third of Iowa counties have restrictive wind turbine ordinances,” according to ISU Extension officials who have previously reported to the P&Z Commission on the issue.
Regardless, Iowa has proved to be prime location for wind turbines specifically, ranking second nationally with more than 6,300 individual turbines,
Texas is first with more than 18,000 individual turbines. Oklahoma is third with more than 5,500 turbines.
Additionally, there is at least one large-scale solar panel field in Marshalltown. It is the Marshalltown YMCA-YWCA Solar Project — a 500-kilowatt solar installation with more than 1,000 panels near the corner of North 18th Avenue and East Main Street in Marshalltown, according to the Alliant Energy website.
When fully operational, it can generate enough electricity to power more than 200 homes. The facility has been online since 2020.
The next commission work session on the revised renewable energy ordinance is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Nov. 17 at the Marshall County Courthouse. It is open to the public.
Kelley may be contacted at 641-844-2707 or visit tkelley@marshallcounty.ia.gov
For more information about wind turbines in Iowa and the United States, visit http://www.usgs.gov. For additional information about renewable energy visit the Center for Rural Affairs website at http://www.cfra.org and ISU Extension at http://www.extension.iastate.edu.

135 West Main Street, Marshalltown, IA 50158 – Copyright © Times Republican

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In the $100,000-and-up household bracket, 76% said they felt confident about their future financial security.
Photo Credit: iStock
For many Americans 55 and older, the prospect of a more financially secure retirement is colliding with a tougher reality: everyday costs keep rising, and many homeowners don’t expect much relief, HousingWire reported.
Only 28% of homeowners ages 55 and older said they expect their finances to improve, according to Longbridge Financial’s inaugural 2026 Home Equity Confidence Index.
Morning Consult conducted the survey from Mar. 26 to Apr. 5 and collected responses from 2,021 U.S. homeowners ages 55 and older. 
Forty-four percent said their situation would probably remain about the same, 23% expected it to be worse, and 5% were unsure.
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Major financial stress was widespread, with nine in 10 respondents reporting at least one major concern. Inflation was the most commonly cited issue at 67%, followed by healthcare at 43%. 
Property taxes and home maintenance were each named by 38% of respondents, while 26% pointed to homeowners insurance.
“The topline inflation number is important, but I think the more revealing story is what sits underneath it,” said Chris Mayer, CEO of Longbridge Financial. 
One household cost some owners can lower is energy — going solar is one of the best ways to save money on home energy, and homeowners can visit EnergySage to get free solar installation estimates and compare quotes.
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Financial confidence varied sharply by income. 
In the $100,000-and-up household bracket, 76% said they felt confident about their future financial security. That share fell to 58% for those earning between $50,000 and $100,000 and 39% for those making under $50,000.
A similar divide appeared in confidence about covering daily costs. 
Eighty-six percent of respondents in the top income tier said they were confident they could handle everyday expenses, compared with 57% of those below $50,000. 
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The gap was wider for retirement extras such as leisure and travel: 79% of the highest-income homeowners said they could afford them, versus 36% of the lowest-income group.
Women reported more financial stress than men in several areas. 
Home maintenance produced the biggest split, with 45% of women labeling it a major concern versus 31% of men. 
Women were also more likely to cite homeowners insurance and inflation as major worries.
For homeowners looking for one expense they can control, solar reduces monthly utility costs and makes energy bills more predictable. 
With EnergySage’s help, the average person can save up to $10,000 on solar purchases and installations. Comparing several quotes in one place makes it easier to decide whether a project fits your roof, budget, and long-term plans.
Homeowners can also use EnergySage’s solar map, which shows the average cost of a home solar panel system by state, along with details on solar panel incentives for each state. 
Together, these resources can help homeowners get the best price for rooftop solar panels and access all available incentives.
Adding battery storage to a solar setup is one of the best ways to protect your home during outages. It can also help save money on energy and make it easier to go off-grid. 
Homeowners can visit EnergySage for information about home battery storage options, including competitive installation estimates.
“When you dig into the data, you see that confidence looks very different depending on household income, and women are reporting greater concern than men across several financial pressures,” Mayer observed. 
“That matters because the averages only tell us so much. If we want to understand how older homeowners are really feeling about their financial security and retirement, we have to understand who is feeling confident and who is facing more uncertainty right now.”
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The era of plug-in solar panels is well and truly underway.

Micro PV systems have become a common features on balconies and in gardens across Europe in recent years but, with the UK and US now cottoning onto the technology, it feels as though serious momentum is building.
On 30 September, Gavin Newsom made California the tenth US state to allow the sale of the systems when he signed what is known as the ‘Plug and Play Solar Act’, or SB 868.

Californians will have to wait until next year before they can purchase the products, but demand is expected to be high, especially given the rising energy prices in the state of late.
State Senator Scott Wiener, who authored the bill, said in a statement: "Electricity costs have reached ridiculous levels here in California, and now that the Plug and Play Solar Act is law, Californians have a much-needed tool to provide relief."
"These small, easy-to-use solar panels will give everyone, including renters, the relief they desperately need on our outrageous energy bills."
There are a few stipulations to the kinds of plug-in solar systems Californians can buy. Firstly, the law caps each household at systems of 1,200W.
The devices have to plug into standard outlets too, and they must also offset a customer’s onsite electricity use and meet state and national electrical codes. Safety is part of the reason for this early standardisation.

Importantly, it looks as though the systems that meet these requirements will be exempt from the interconnection agreements that utilities usually require for solar. These are essentially legal contracts between solar panel owners and local utility companies.
The state government decided to waive these agreements after advocates argued they would make the whole plug-and-play endeavour cost ineffective. That said, utilities can still ask customers to notify them before using a device.

Though California is now the largest US state to allow the sale of plug-in solar panels, other states opened their doors to the technology long before.
Utah became the first in March 2025 and several others, including Colorado, Connecticut and Maine, followed shortly after.
According to Bloomberg, nearly two dozen other states are now weighing up measures of their own.
From the outside, such legislation seems a no-brainer. The systems are helping to democratise solar generation by giving access to people without roof space, or those that rent rather than own their properties.

For these people, the good thing is that a plug-in solar kit can be packed up and moved to a new property at any time, meaning they do not sink money into a home they might not live in for a long time.
Bright Saver, a non-profit organisation that campaigns for plug-in solar systems, has welcomed the signing.
Cora Stryker, the firm's Co-Founder and Co-CEO, says: "There's a reason people say, 'As California goes, so goes the nation.' This is a significant milestone, not just for plug-in solar, but for the broader movement to make clean energy accessible to everyone." 
"When we founded Bright Saver, we set out to remove the barriers that have kept everyday Americans from participating in the clean energy transition," she adds. "Plug-in solar is one important step toward that vision."
The UK reached the same point only weeks ago when plug-in solar panels first went on sale in August.
Argos, the British high street retailer, was the first company to start selling the systems. Graham Biggart, the firm’s Managing Director, said that the move will help to empower people on their energy journeys.
“By making this technology more accessible, we’re putting more power in the hands of our customers and helping them explore practical ways to manage energy use at home,” he explained.

For California’s 39 million residents, the new bill could be transformative. For the US as a whole, the Golden State’s decision could open the floodgates.
“California’s move sends a powerful signal to the rest of the country about what’s possible when we make clean energy easier to adopt,” says Cora. “This is a major victory for our movement, but we’re just getting started.”
Should the rollout go to plan, it could have huge benefits across the economy. Firstly, it could save residents a lot of money on energy bills. Then, it would help utilities balance grids far better, while it would also, obviously, be a major boon for solar panel manufacturers. That, of course, is to say nothing about the environmental benefits of the initiative.
For everyday people, the savings will likely be the strongest pull.
As Scott says: “It’s time to put money back in the pockets of Californians.”

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First Solar, a manufacturer of thin-film cadmium telluride solar products, has filed a patent lawsuit against Chinese solar PV producer JA and several of its subsidiaries, together with American Panel Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the US-based PV manufacturer Corning, according to PV Tech.
The case was lodged in the US District Court for the District of Delaware and names JA Solar Technology, JA Solar International, JA Solar Vietnam and JA Solar Industrial alongside American Panel Solutions as defendants.
First Solar contends that the companies infringed US Patent No. 9,130,074, which covers methods for manufacturing tunnel oxide passivated contact crystalline silicon PV solar cells.
The action is the most recent TOPCon patent lawsuit the company has brought against a solar PV manufacturer. First Solar has previously filed suits against Jinko, Canadian Solar, T1 Energy and Trina Solar.
First Solar began investigating major rivals in 2024 over alleged intellectual property infringements and has since filed multiple patent lawsuits as well as a complaint with the US International Trade Commission. Last month, the company announced plans to voluntarily withdraw its Section 337 complaint with the commission while continuing to pursue its existing TOPCon patent lawsuits in the US District Court.
PV Tech contacted JA and Corning about the alleged patent infringement. Corning acquired JA’s US 2GW module assembly plant in Arizona last year, and the facility subsequently became an asset of American Panel Solutions.
Jason Dymbort, executive vice president, general counsel and secretary at First Solar, indicated that the company has been clear it will actively defend its intellectual property rights in the US and internationally. He said the lawsuit seeks to hold JA Solar and American Panel Solutions accountable for what he described as unauthorised use of First Solar’s patented technology, and he added that the case reinforces the need for TOPCon manufacturers operating in the United States to respect the established framework of intellectual property law.
First Solar obtained the US TOPCon patents and related international counterparts through its acquisition of TetraSun in 2013. The portfolio includes issued patents in several jurisdictions, among them the US, Australia, Canada, China and the European Union, with validities extending to 2030 and beyond.
Interactive table based on the Store Companies dataset for this report.
This report is an independent strategic market study that provides a structured, commercially grounded analysis of the market for Thin Film Solar Cells in the United States. It is designed for battery and storage manufacturers, power-electronics suppliers, system integrators, EPC partners, developers, utilities, investors, and strategic entrants that need a clear view of deployment demand, technology positioning, manufacturing exposure, safety and qualification burden, project economics, and competitive structure.
The analytical framework is designed to work both for a single specialized storage or conversion component and for a broader solar photovoltaic technology category, where market structure is shaped by chemistry, duration, project economics, system integration, safety requirements, route-to-market, and grid-interface logic rather than by one narrow customs heading alone. It defines Thin Film Solar Cells as Thin Film Solar Cells are photovoltaic devices where the active semiconductor material is deposited as one or more thin layers (typically a few micrometers thick) onto a substrate, using technologies like Cadmium Telluride (CdTe), Copper Indium Gallium Selenide (CIGS), or amorphous silicon (a-Si) and examines the market through deployment use cases, buyer environments, upstream input dependencies, conversion and integration stages, qualification and safety requirements, pricing architecture, commercial channels, and country capability differences. Historical analysis typically covers 2012 to 2025, with forward-looking scenarios through 2035.
This report is designed to answer the questions that matter most to decision-makers evaluating an energy-storage, battery, renewable-integration, or power-conversion market.
At its core, this report explains how the market for Thin Film Solar Cells actually functions. It identifies where demand originates, how supply is organized, which technological and regulatory barriers influence adoption, and how value is distributed across the value chain. Rather than describing the market only in broad terms, the study breaks it into analytically meaningful layers: product scope, segmentation, end uses, customer types, production economics, outsourcing structure, country roles, and company archetypes.
The report is particularly useful in markets where buyers are highly specialized, suppliers differ significantly in technical depth and regulatory readiness, and the commercial landscape cannot be understood only through top-line market size figures. In this context, the study is designed not only to estimate the size of the market, but to explain why the market has that size, what drives its growth, which subsegments are the most attractive, and what it takes to compete successfully within it.
The report is based on an independent analytical methodology that combines deep secondary research, structured evidence review, market reconstruction, and multi-level triangulation. The methodology is designed to support products for which there is no single clean official dataset capturing the full market in a directly usable form.
The study typically uses the following evidence hierarchy:
The analytical framework is built around several linked layers.
First, a scope model defines what is included in the market and what is excluded, ensuring that adjacent products, downstream finished goods, unrelated instruments, or broader chemical categories do not distort the market boundary.
Second, a demand model reconstructs the market from the perspective of consuming sectors, workflow stages, and applications. Depending on the product, this may include Large-scale solar farms, Low-light and high-temperature performance sites, Building facades and roofs requiring lightweight/flexible formats, and Off-grid and mobile power solutions across Utility Power Generation, Commercial & Industrial Real Estate, Construction & Building Materials, Consumer Electronics & Portable Gear, and Transportation & Aerospace and Material sourcing and target production, Deposition and cell fabrication, Module encapsulation and lamination, System design and integration engineering, and Performance validation and bankability assurance. Demand is then allocated across end users, development stages, and geographic markets.
Third, a supply model evaluates how the market is served. This includes Cadmium & Tellurium, Indium, Gallium, Selenium, Transparent conductive oxides (TCO) like ITO, Specialty glass and flexible substrate materials, and High-purity process gases, manufacturing technologies such as Vacuum deposition (sputtering, evaporation), Close-space sublimation (CSS) for CdTe, Solution-based and non-vacuum deposition processes, Monolithic integration and laser scribing, and Flexible substrate handling (polymer, metal foil), quality control requirements, outsourcing, contract manufacturing, integration, and project-delivery participation, distribution structure, and supply-chain concentration risks.
Fourth, a country capability model maps where the market is consumed, where production is materially feasible, where manufacturing capability is limited or emerging, and which countries function primarily as innovation hubs, supply nodes, demand centers, or import-reliant markets.
Fifth, a pricing and economics layer evaluates price corridors, cost drivers, complexity premiums, outsourcing logic, margin structure, and switching barriers. This is especially relevant in markets where product grade, purity, customization, regulatory burden, or service model materially influence economics.
Finally, a competitive intelligence layer profiles the leading company types active in the market and explains how strategic roles differ across upstream material suppliers, component and controls providers, OEMs, storage-system integrators, EPC partners, project developers, and distribution or service channels.
This report covers the market for Thin Film Solar Cells in its commercially relevant and technologically meaningful form. The scope typically includes the product itself, its major product configurations or variants, the critical technologies used to produce or deliver it, the core input categories required for manufacturing, and the services directly associated with its commercial supply, quality control, or integration into end-user workflows.
Included within scope are the product forms, use cases, inputs, and services that are necessary to understand the actual addressable market around Thin Film Solar Cells. This usually includes:
Excluded from scope are categories that may be technologically adjacent but do not belong to the core economic market being measured. These usually include:
The exact inclusion and exclusion logic is always a critical part of the study, because the quality of the market estimate depends directly on disciplined scope boundaries.
The report provides focused coverage of the United States market and positions United States within the wider global energy-storage and renewable-integration industry structure.
The geographic analysis explains local deployment demand, domestic capability, import dependence, project-development relevance, safety and approval burden, and the country’s strategic role in the wider market.
This study is designed for strategic, commercial, operations, project-delivery, and investment users, including:
In many energy-transition, storage, power-conversion, and project-driven markets, official trade and production statistics are not sufficient on their own to describe the true market. Product boundaries may cut across multiple tariff codes, several product categories may be bundled into the same official classification, and a meaningful share of activity may take place through customized services, captive supply, platform relationships, or technically specialized channels that are not directly visible in standard statistical datasets.
For this reason, the report is designed as a modeled strategic market study. It uses official and public evidence wherever it is reliable and scope-compatible, but it does not force the market into a purely statistical framework when doing so would reduce analytical quality. Instead, it reconstructs the market through the logic of demand, supply, technology, country roles, and company behavior.
This makes the report particularly well suited to products that are innovation-intensive, technically differentiated, capacity-constrained, platform-dependent, or commercially structured around specialized buyer-supplier relationships rather than standardized commodity trade.
The report typically includes:
The result is a structured, publication-grade market intelligence document that combines quantitative modeling with commercial, technical, and strategic interpretation.
Energy-Storage Market Structure and Company Archetypes
Leading US-based thin film solar producer with gigawatt-scale production.
Specializes in flexible CIGS panels for building-integrated and portable applications.
US subsidiary of Solar Frontier, focusing on utility-scale CIS projects.
Develops high-efficiency CIGS panels for residential and commercial use.
Produces lightweight, flexible CIGS panels for off-grid and portable power.
Focuses on lightweight, flexible CIGS for aerospace and consumer electronics.
Develops advanced CIGS deposition equipment for high-throughput production.
Developed proprietary thin film silicon technology; now integrated into First Solar.
Pioneered printed CIGS technology; ceased operations in 2013.
Developed CIGS on flexible substrates; closed in 2012.
Pioneered flexible amorphous silicon; filed for bankruptcy in 2012.
Produced flexible amorphous silicon panels; ceased operations.
Specializes in rollable, lightweight amorphous silicon for military and portable use.
Produces ultra-high-efficiency GaAs thin film cells for drones and IoT.
Develops lightweight, high-efficiency GaAs cells for aerospace.
Focuses on flexible CIGS for building-integrated photovoltaics.
Produces high-efficiency interdigitated back contact (IBC) cells, some thin film variants.
US arm of Hanwha, with some thin film R&D from former Hanergy assets.
Produces CdTe panels for residential and commercial markets.
Develops kerfless silicon wafers for thin film-like solar cells.
Develops advanced thin film solar using quantum dot technology.
Produces shingled-cell modules with thin film-like aesthetics.
Focuses on lightweight, peel-and-stick CIGS panels.
Produces flexible dye-sensitized solar cells for low-light applications.
Specializes in building-integrated thin film glass panels.
Integrates thin film cells into textiles for portable and architectural use.
Produces transparent thin film panels for skylights and facades.
Develops printable perovskite thin film technology.
Develops high-efficiency perovskite tandem thin film cells.
Develops tandem thin film cells for high efficiency.
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El nino has already brough severe weather from across the nation. From tropical storms and hurricanes to powerful nor’easters and a projected brutal winter, homeowners everywhere are worried about losing power (and at the worst time).
A power outage can leave you without lights, internet and refrigeration for hours. That’s why backup power solutions continue to surge in popularity, and one of Jackery’s newest systems is seeing a noteworthy Prime Deal Days discount.
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More: The best early Prime Day home deals already live
With severe weather capable of knocking out power with little warning, many homeowners are looking for ways to stay prepared before the next outage. Backup power stations like this Jackery model can help keep essential devices running when storms disrupt the grid.
Because this system comes with the backup battery and solar panels to keep it powered, this system is a good deal to buy before Prime Day commences. It’s already $350 off, unlike other models within the same line. And looking at the last few months of price trends (up to $2,149 most of the time), this model is as cheap as it gets.
Bottom line? It’s a good deal.
Buy Jackery HomePower 3000 now

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Partly cloudy skies this morning will give way to occasional showers during the afternoon. High 68F. Winds SSW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 50%. Higher wind gusts possible..
Some clouds this evening will give way to mainly clear skies overnight. Low 47F. Winds WNW at 5 to 10 mph.
Updated: October 3, 2026 @ 8:27 am

The Free Press
MANKATO — Residents are invited to the South Central Minnesota Clean Energy Council’s second annual Mankato Area Solar and Energy Efficiency Tour on Saturday.
In a news release, the organization shared that the goal of the tour is “to have community members share their home solar, energy efficiency and sustainability stories with neighbors, community members and businesses to promote the adoption of sustainable practices.”
The tour will stop at two households and one business to highlight solar, electric vehicles, air source heat pumps and electric bikes, the release said.
Attendees are asked to arrive by 1 p.m. at the Blue Earth County Library parking lot.
The tour will then travel through the community in a caravan. The tour will run from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Those interested should RSVP on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/share/19QVcdVBFf/

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“I’d be concerned that it would crack open or even explode from uneven heat expansion.”
Photo Credit: Reddit
A DIY solar concept on Reddit is drawing attention for one simple reason: It aims to store daytime solar energy as heat for less than $200.
However, while the low-cost pitch appealed to plenty of readers, commenters quickly argued that the proposed concrete core could create more problems than it solves.
Instead of storing solar power in conventional equipment, the plan would convert that energy directly into heat. The setup centers on a homemade “thermal battery” using solar panels, a heating element embedded in concrete, and a terracotta pot meant to give off warmth gradually.
“Inverters, batteries, and heat pumps are not needed,” the original poster wrote. “[…] The total cost is expected to be less than $200.”
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.
“I’d be concerned that it would crack open or even explode from uneven heat expansion,” one commenter wrote.
For anyone interested in saving on energy bills, going solar is one of the best ways to do it. You can try EnergySage to get free solar installation estimates and compare quotes.
Rather than save electricity for later use, the concept would use solar-generated power to run a resistance heater and hold that heat in a material that cools slowly. In theory, that approach could provide a cheaper way to store warmth for someone who does not want a full battery system.
Much of the criticism centered on the storage medium. Commenters said sand would be easier to repair or service, while others argued that water would hold far more heat at a much lower cost than concrete.
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“Water has way higher heat capacity than concrete (and is cheaper),” one commenter wrote.
Some replies focused less on concrete versus sand and more on how the heater would work with the panels.
“The big thing this is missing is a way to alter the resistance or power level of the heater,” another commenter noted, adding that fixed-resistance heating may not draw power from solar panels efficiently.
In an update, the OP said they were willing to adjust the design, adding that they may try concrete with metal rods or mesh first before switching approaches if needed.
💡Go deep on the latest news and trends shaping the residential solar landscape
“If it doesn’t work then probably go with sand,” they wrote.
Heat storage can be inexpensive, but material choice, repair access, and electrical matching all matter if the goal is safe, useful performance.
For homeowners who decide rooftop solar is the better long-term move, EnergySage can be a valuable resource. With EnergySage’s help, the average person can save up to $10,000 on solar purchases and installations. 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 homeowners 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. Homeowners interested in that route can explore EnergySage for information about home battery storage options, including competitive installation estimates.
If this Reddit concept caught your attention, these stories also look at thermal storage and solar heating beyond conventional batteries.
• Heatcube began as aid for African farmers and became a low-cost, long-duration energy storage system.
• Researchers developed a game-changing method for storing solar energy using extremely cheap sulfur.
• A startup unveiled its revolutionary method of energy storage with enough heat for 200 homes.
• At MIT, engineers are working to transform concrete into batteries that can power homes.
• At the University of Nottingham, a simple design change could dramatically improve solar heating.
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Published October 3, 2026
PAKISTAN – FrieslandCampina Engro has announced the deployment of a 450 kW Solar Photovoltaic (PV) system integrated with a 255 kWh Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) at its Nara Dairy Farm facility.
Awarded to DSG Energy, the project represents a strategic investment in clean energy infrastructure that will strengthen the plant’s energy resilience, improve operational efficiency, and accelerate the company’s transition toward a lower-carbon future.
By combining on-site solar generation with advanced battery energy storage, the project is designed to optimize renewable energy consumption, reduce reliance on conventional fuel-based power generation, lower energy costs, and ensure a more reliable and resilient power supply for critical farm operations.
Kashan Hasan, CEO and Managing Director of the company, said, “This installation represents the futuristic, energy-conscious mindset that guides us at FCEPL. We are eager to expand our solar footprint further, which now includes our production facilities as well as our dairy farm.
“Our efforts to bring clean energy into our operations truly reflects our purpose of Nourishing Pakistan through-out the Grass to Glass journey, ensuring that we continue to care for our environment and communities whilst providing safe, healthy and nutritious products to the millions of families who consume our products everyday.”
The partnership reflects a growing shift in Pakistan’s industrial and agricultural landscape, where businesses are increasingly looking beyond conventional solar installations toward integrated energy systems combining renewable generation, storage and intelligent energy management.
This initiative also reinforces FrieslandCampina Engro Pakistan’s commitment to environmental stewardship, operational excellence, and the adoption of innovative technologies that support long-term sustainable growth.
The Nara Dairy Farm Solar PV and BESS project reflects FrieslandCampina Engro Pakistan’s broader vision of integrating renewable energy solutions across its operations while contributing to Pakistan’s clean energy transition and advancing its corporate sustainability objectives.
Recently, FrieslandCampina Engro Pakistan Limited (FCEPL) partnered with Citi Pakistan through the Citi® Supplier Finance digital platform for its suppliers, reinforcing a shared commitment to strengthening supplier relationships and enhancing supply chain resilience.
The program aims to strengthen FCEPL’s supplier relationships by enabling them to receive early payments while allowing the company to maintain its agreed payment terms.
This supports bilateral working capital strategy without impacting cash flow throughout the transition period.
The initiative taken by the FCEPL team truly ensures that their Grass to Glass journey creates a robust environment for every stakeholder operating within their eco-system.
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VCU basketball Black & Gold Game; Where Richmond Eats; Top Five events this weekend
City officials are immediately suspending negotiations with a solar power company in response to questions from the Times-Dispatch regarding an individual who worked for both City Hall and the company during those negotiations.
Samuel B. Parker (804) 649-6462
sparker@timesdispatch.com

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“2k seems excessive… I can understand a few hundy… but dang…”
Photo Credit: iStock
A homeowner with a 10-year-old, 36-panel solar system said in a Reddit thread that the array was “not working right” even though both inverters still showed green lights and no error codes. 
The installer wanted $2,000 just to inspect the panels, and with the monitoring system discontinued, the owner had little visibility into what was causing the problem.
Because of the discontinued monitoring, the owner said it is much harder to tell whether the issue is coming from the panels, the wiring, or the inverters.
The LG panels may still be under warranty, but labor is not, so diagnosing and repairing the problem could still mean out-of-pocket costs.
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.
Several replies said the lack of detailed production data is what makes older string systems so difficult to troubleshoot.
“If you have access to the wiring, getting an ac/dc amp clamp to take measurements is probably your cheapest way forward,” one commenter wrote.
The suggestion was to determine what amperage and voltage each string should produce, compare those targets with real measurements, and then check the inverter output to see whether the shortfall is happening on the panel side or after conversion.
“2k seems excessive… I can understand a few hundy… but dang…” another commenter wrote.
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Want to go solar but not sure who to trust? EnergySage has your back with free and transparent quotes from fully vetted providers that can help you save as much as $10k on installation.
To get started, just answer a few questions about your home — no phone number required. Within a day or two, EnergySage will email you the best local options for your needs, and their expert advisers can help you compare quotes and pick a winner.
Using EnergySage to get free solar installation estimates and compare quotes can help you avoid overpaying from the start.
A system can still be generating power while underperforming, and if the software or hardware used to track production is no longer supported, owners may have little visibility into how much energy they are actually losing.
Even a modest drop in output can chip away at the savings that made solar worthwhile in the first place. Older arrays may also rely on equipment that is harder to replace with exact matches, which can complicate warranty claims even when the panels are technically covered.
Some commenters said the older equipment might still be reachable, whether through the SMA360 app, a web box, or a local connection. But another person stressed that finding a fault on a string system is serious business: “Those strings are hundreds of volts dc with no protection most likely.”
💡Go deep on the latest news and trends shaping the residential solar landscape
The do-it-yourself route may save money, but only for people with the right tools and electrical experience.
For owners of aging systems, the first step is often to confirm whether monitoring can be restored before paying for a full inspection.
Before agreeing to an expensive service call, Reddit users recommended trying to access the older hardware through SMA360, a web box, or a direct laptop connection. If none of those options work, getting a second opinion from another solar technician or electrician could help avoid an inflated diagnostic bill.
If you’re shopping for a new system or planning major upgrades, comparison shopping can make a big financial difference. 
With EnergySage’s help, the average person can save up to $10,000 on solar purchases and installations. EnergySage’s solar map shows the average cost of a home solar panel system on a state-by-state level, as well as details on solar panel incentives for each state. Together, those resources can help homeowners get the best price for rooftop solar panels and access available incentives.
Adding battery storage to a solar setup is one of the best ways to protect your home during outages, save money on energy, and go off grid. Homeowners can explore EnergySage for information about home battery storage options, including competitive installation estimates.
Solar savings can get a lot harder to track when monitoring fails, utility billing gets messy, or the original sales pitch doesn’t match reality.
• A North Carolina homesteader had no clue the solar meter had failed until a repair crew uncovered the problem.
• In South Carolina, a $150 bill said 900 kWh came from the grid despite app exports.
• One solar owner was left furious after receiving ‘ridiculous’ charges from a utility despite having panels.
• In Ohio, a homeowner signed for solar and learned net metering may leave half the bill untouched.
Get TCD’s free newsletters for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here.
© 2025 THE COOL DOWN COMPANY. All Rights Reserved. Do not sell or share my personal information. Reach us at hello@thecooldown.com.

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