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With an investment of EUR 15 million, the plant has created 200 jobs and features an initial annual capacity of 1 GW, with plans to scale to 3 GW in the coming years, according to Deputy Minister of Economy, Investments and Industry Krasimir Yakimov.
The project aligns with broader European ambitions to develop domestic manufacturing for strategic, high-tech products vital to the continent’s future, he added.
Yakimov pointed out that the facility transforms Bulgaria from a tech importer into an active producer of green technologies.
Borislavova: The first fully automated plant for PV panels in the EU
The Kardzhali plant will supply both European markets and third countries, according to BTA.
This is the first fully automated photovoltaic module plant of 1 GW in annual capacity in the European Union, investor from VESS Modules Tsvetelina Borislavova stressed.
She revealed that the company has already attracted strong interest from Turkish firms, top-level clients from African nations, and buyers from the United States.
Lyubomir Gradev, Chairman of the Board of Directors of VESS Modules, said that the facility was designed after examining best practices from top global manufacturers. He added that the plant achieved a production cycle of under 18 seconds per solar panel, allowing high competitiveness against leading Chinese producers.
At the opening ceremony, Akser Shakir, CEO of VESS Modules EAD, received a TÜV SÜD quality certificate from Xinmei Zhao, Director of TÜV SÜD for the China region.
In addition to manufacturing, the Kardzhali plant will serve as an educational hub offering practical training in electronics and robotics for young professionals, according to the Ministry of Economy, Investments and Industry.
Of note, Bulgaria’s total installed solar power capacity is 4.7 GW. By May 2026, installed battery energy storage systems (BESS) capacity in the country reached 8.6 GWh.
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Operator for Renewable Energy Sources and Efficient Cogeneration – Operator za OIEiEK has issued a public call
Minister of Infrastructure and Energy of Albania Enea Karakaçi said the next PV auction would be held by early 2027 and that it would include battery storage
Renewable energy production spiked in Greece, covering almost 80% of estimated daily electricity consumption today
Renalfa IPP and Eurowind Energy formally launched the operation of the enlarged Tenevo hybrid renewable energy complex in southeastern Bulgaria
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An international research team has developed a hybrid photovoltaic-evaporative cooling system designed to raise electrical efficiency in PV modules while also supplying precooled ventilation air, according to pv magazine. The work, reported by the publication, combines rear-side evaporative cooling through water-soaked cellulose pads with intermittent water spraying on the front face of the PV module.
The corresponding author, Deyaa M.N. Mahmood, told the publication that the central advance is an integrated dual-effect cooling framework aimed at countering thermal and electrical degradation in hyper-arid desert conditions such as those in Iraq. Beyond recovering electrical output, Mahmood said, the system uses conditioned exhaust airflow, with controlled temperature and humidity, to provide secondary building ventilation and thereby lower indoor cooling loads.
The setup places a water-soaked cellulose pad behind a PV module and adds intermittent front-side spraying. A pump recirculates water through the pad, and a 35 W fan pulls air through it, cooling the module and producing cooler, humidified ventilation air. Front-side spraying begins when module temperature rises above 45 C, with water released in bursts of roughly 10 to 20 seconds.
The researchers compared two identical 150 W PV modules, one cooled and one uncooled, on a rooftop in Baghdad, Iraq. Testing took place on clear days between July 1 and Sept. 15, 2023, during the hours of 09:00 to 15:00.
In a first scenario, the team tested rear-side cooling with cellulose pads of 50 mm, 100 mm, and 150 mm thickness and water flow rates from 1 L/min to 3 L/min. In a second scenario, front-side spraying was added, using a 50 mm pad at 2 L/min and a 100 mm pad at 3 L/min. At a fixed air velocity of 3 m/s, the researchers measured module temperature, electrical output, efficiency, and outlet-air temperature and humidity.
Mahmood described the most notable outcome as strong thermal regulation stability under peak solar irradiation. He said the combination of intermittent front-side spraying and backside evaporative cooling produced a rapid drop in operating cell temperatures, which translated into a large and sustained recovery of electrical efficiency relative to unmanaged reference panels. According to Mahmood, this indicates that highly effective thermal management can be engineered with sustainable, low-energy processes even under extreme desert conditions.
Results showed that rear-side evaporative cooling in the first scenario lowered PV module temperature by about 20 C compared with the uncooled module. The cooled air delivered to the space averaged around 35 C. In the second scenario, adding intermittent front-side spraying produced a maximum module temperature reduction of 29.7 C.
The researchers reported maximum efficiency gains of 13.3%, 9.3%, and 14.2% for the 50 mm, 100 mm, and 150 mm pads, respectively, in the first scenario. For the 100 mm pad, average PV panel temperature reduction rose from 15.0 C without front-side spraying to 29.7 C with front-side spraying, while the average power output difference increased from 8.3 W to 16.7 W. Across both scenarios, the highest maximum efficiency enhancements were 14.2% for the 150 mm pad in the first scenario and 26% for the 100 mm pad in the second.
The second configuration also reduced supply-air temperature to approximately 30 C to 33 C at around 62% relative humidity. The researchers indicated this could support passive precooling and ventilation rather than serving as a stand-alone thermal comfort solution.
Mahmood said ongoing and upcoming work is moving toward intelligent optimization, with the team integrating AI and Internet of Things technologies to run real-time, multi-objective control algorithms. He said the main goal of this phase is to dynamically regulate water spraying and airflow rates to achieve the lowest possible water consumption while maintaining peak electrical and thermal performance for large-scale commercial deployments.
The article, titled Performance enhancement of a hybrid photovoltaic-evaporative cooling system for hot arid regions, appeared in Results in Engineering.
The research group included scientists from Iraq’s Middle Technical University, the University of Baghdad, and the University of Fallujah, as well as Sweden’s University of Gavle, Qatar’s University of Doha for Science and Technology, Sudan’s Nile Valley University and Sudan University of Science and Technology, Serbia’s MB University Belgrade, and China University of Petroleum-Beijing.
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THE FOLLOWING IS A NEWS-GAZETTE ARTICLE BY JENNIFER BAILEY
 
ABOVE: Pivot Energy officials present the proposed solar farm project at a Danville Area Planning and Zoning Commission meeting.  The Danville City Council will act on the permit on October 20th.  (Jennifer Bailey/The News-Gazette)
 
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DANVILLE — The Danville Area Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approving — by a 4-1 vote Thursday night — Pivot Energy’s special-use permit request for a solar farm off West Newell Road.
It moves to the Danville City Council on Oct. 20 for final action.
Voting against the permit was Michael Hall. Commissioner Ashton Greer was absent.
Among those the commission heard from were attorney Nick Standiford and Elan McMillin, a developer with Pivot who graduated from Oakwood High School and received his associate’s degree from Danville Area Community College.
“I have a personal commitment to making sure that we’re doing right by the community when we build this project,” McMillin said.
He said Pivot is an independent power producer that develops and oversees about 1,800 projects. This project would generate about 6,030 megawatt hours of energy a year which is enough to power approximately 600 homes.
With it being community solar, Ameren customers can sign up for the program to receive electric bill discounts.
 
FOR MORE FROM THIS ARTICLE PLEASE GO TO https://www.news-gazette.com/business/solar-permit-advances-to-danville-city-council/article_aaed0569-4c3f-4bb2-b1a8-26505478798e.html

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The Global Polysilicon Marker (GPM), the benchmark for polysilicon produced outside China, was unchanged from the previous week at $19.312/kg, or $0.041/W, according to the OPIS Global Solar Markets Report released on Sept. 29.
Market participants in the global polysilicon market continue to respond to policy, demand and financial pressures based on their individual circumstances. One trade participant said fulfilling monthly delivery obligations under existing long-term contracts could become increasingly difficult after November, with legal action being considered to enforce contractual commitments.

The dynamics shaping global PV supply chains – including solar modules, inverters, and battery energy storage systems – will be discussed during the “Decoding solar supply chains” session at the NetZero event in Milan on Oct. 21.
The session will examine the forces reshaping clean energy supply chains, from manufacturing and sourcing strategies to shifting trade and regulatory requirements. It will also explore what these developments mean for companies procuring solar and energy storage equipment in an increasingly complex global market.
Join us in Milan to hear from industry experts and take part in the discussion on the future of solar supply chains.
Global polysilicon demand is facing further pressure following a temporary final rule (TFR) issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce, according to a market participant. The rule restricts stockpiling of polysilicon and its derivatives ahead of the Section 232 import adjustments taking effect on Dec. 4, 2026.
The rule covers imports during the transition period from Sept. 22 to Dec. 3 and was introduced after trade data showed a sharp increase in polysilicon imports following the release of the Section 232 measures in early August.
Another source, however, said solar imports into the U.S. before Dec. 4 largely consisted of China-origin wafers, cells and modules entering through circumvention channels involving smaller traders and companies. The source said the TFR could significantly curb such imports and help normalize the market after Dec. 4, with limited direct impact on global polysilicon demand.
Meanwhile, some market participants have observed upward price momentum for U.S.-made polysilicon. According to sources, using U.S.-made polysilicon could create additional value for manufacturers with approved U.S. onshoring plans, as certain tariff relief or onshoring incentives under the Section 232 proclamation are explicitly linked to the use of U.S.-made polysilicon. Some counterparties have therefore been actively negotiating long-term agreements. Industry participants nevertheless expect the impact to emerge gradually rather than translate into firm demand immediately.
In China, the China Mono Premium, the OPIS assessment for mono-grade polysilicon used in n-type ingot production, increased 3.74% week on week to CNY 38.786 ($5.78)/kg, or CNY 0.081/W.
According to market feedback, the price increase this week was driven by the completion of some previously signed low-priced contracts, increasing the share of higher-priced new contracts in the market.
However, trade sources said downstream buyers have yet to broadly accept polysilicon offers around CNY 43/kg. Transactions at these levels have been limited and mainly involved special trading arrangements, such as polysilicon producers selling material to long-term customers and subsequently purchasing wafers from the same customers.
Outside these two-way procurement arrangements, wafer manufacturers are finding it increasingly difficult to accept higher polysilicon prices, one source said. In conventional one-way sales, n-type M10 wafers are trading at around CNY1/pc, below cash costs of roughly CNY1.10/pc, the source added.
On the supply side, industry-wide operating rates are expected to fall to around 35% from October, according to the Silicon Branch of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association (CNMIA). The association also said that some downstream players had started replenishing polysilicon inventories amid the expected supply contraction.
The 35% utilization level is broadly in line with the production-control arrangement reportedly discussed at meetings between the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIA) and major manufacturers in early September, with unconfirmed reports indicating a cap of combined annual capacity at 1.028 million MT.
Market participants said, however, that the planned cuts would largely return operating rates to levels seen in the first half of 2026, while polysilicon inventories remain elevated at more than 500,000 MT. As a result, the supply reduction alone may be insufficient to trigger stronger downstream procurement.
Another market participant noted that polysilicon futures contracts for the two nearest delivery months were trading below CNY38/kg, allowing buyers with immediate requirements to source lower-priced material through the futures market and further limiting the pace of spot price increases.
Although polysilicon manufacturers are now insisting on full-cost pricing, a sustained move toward CNY 43/kg would require higher downstream product prices, one market participant said. With limited room for such increases, the source expected the gap between offers above CNY40/kg and transactions below CNY40/kg to persist.
OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides energy prices, news, data, and analysis on gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, LPG/NGL, coal, metals, and chemicals, as well as renewable fuels and environmental commodities. It acquired pricing data assets from Singapore Solar Exchange in 2022 and now publishes the OPIS APAC Solar Weekly Report.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those held by pv magazine.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: [email protected].
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Next-Gen Solar Cells, AI Computing Head to Space on CRIMSON-1  miragenews.com
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Renewable energy specialists are installing a new solar panel array on the grassy, sloped southern edge of a former landfill along NE 82nd Avenue, now owned by Bird Alliance of Oregon. Once complete, the community solar array will reduce utility costs for 140 low-income Portlanders through a collaboration with APANO, Bonneville Environmental Foundation, and other partners. The new energy source at 2800 NE 82nd Avenue uses the site’s topography to receive year-round sun exposure while staying low to the ground, making the installation less visible, particularly as the nonprofit continues habitat restoration on its 12.49-acre property purchased in 2024.
Crews have placed over half of the solar panels on a metal gridwork that supports them. Most people passing the site will not see all of the units, which sit a few feet above the ground, with views blocked by the adjacent People’s Courts pickleball facility. However, they will contribute 800 kW of renewable energy to the grid. The array operators expect credits from the electricity generated at the site to reduce participant low-income households’ energy bills by up to 40%. Portland Pacific Power customers who directly pay their own utility bill and earn up to 80% of Oregon’s Median Income can apply to APANO’s community solar project as a low-income subscriber and potentially receive credits on their utility bill. The organization describes community solar as a way for people historically left out of traditional solar to benefit without buying their own solar panels. APANO also has a Residential Rooftop Solar program that uses Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund (PCEF) money to install solar panels for homeowners. That program launched to serve 14 homes, while this latest effort should support 140 power ratepayers.
This new activity follows habitat restoration and the demolition of long-abandoned structures. For decades, this overgrown field was known for the graffiti-covered remnants of a golf driving range built on top of a landfilled quarry. For most passersby, all they observed was an abandoned building at 2806 NE 82nd Avenue, situated next to a tall, grassy field. Hidden inside the overgrown brush was the collapsing structure of a half-moon driving range. Several fires in the former “Pro Shop” administrative building on NE 82nd Avenue complicated its demolition. However, in September 2025, crews completed removing this site’s golfing past.
PCEF supported construction of this community solar array across NE 82nd Avenue from McDaniel High School as its seventh community solar project. It is one of the first public benefits planned for the Bird Alliance of Oregon site, which will host nature trails and a wildlife hospital that should provide educational opportunities for area students. Work on the solar array is proceeding quickly and should be visibly complete within the coming weeks. More visible changes to the site will continue over the coming years.
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Valenciaport begins testing 1MW floating solar system  Port Technology
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Independent power producer ContourGlobal and community-owned public power utility Platte River Power Authority have finished building a 324MW solar photovoltaic complex in Colorado, according to PV-Tech.
The final 139MWP section of the Black Hollow Sun solar complex, located in Weld County, was completed four months ahead of schedule, the independent power producer reported.
Work on the project started in July 2024. The first phase entered commercial operations in September 2025, while construction of the second phase began in April 2025.
With both phases now operating, the 324MW solar project stands as ContourGlobal’s largest operational solar asset.
The plant was also the first renewable energy project for which the independent power producer arranged financing in the United States. In November of last year, ContourGlobal closed financing for the 324MW photovoltaic plant through a US$350 million investment, comprising US$260 million in debt financing and US$90 million in tax equity financing.
Solar photovoltaic manufacturer Hanwha Qcells supplied the modules for the project, which were assembled at the company’s US manufacturing facilities, according to Javier Alvarez Canedo, general manager for the USA at ContourGlobal.
The 688-hectare facility contains more than half a million solar photovoltaic panels and uses single-axis tracking technology intended to maximise energy production across the day.
Electricity generated at the Black Hollow Sun complex will be supplied to Platte River under a long-term power purchase agreement.
Jason Frisbie, general manager and chief executive of Platte River, said the project reflects years of commitment, perseverance and partnership. He noted that from project selection in 2019 through global supply chain disruptions, inflationary pressures and construction challenges, the teams stayed focused on delivering a resource that advances shared energy goals while supporting reliability and affordability for the utility’s owner communities. He added that the celebration recognises the dedication of everyone who helped make Black Hollow Sun a reality.
ContourGlobal has nearly 800MW of solar photovoltaic capacity and 300MW of energy storage under construction in the United States. Together with the 324MW Black Hollow Sun complex, this brings the company’s renewables portfolio in the country to 1.5GW.
This report provides an in-depth analysis of the Solar Panels market in the United States, covering market size, growth trajectory, demand structure, supply capability, trade flows, pricing, competitive landscape, and forecast to 2035.
The study is designed for manufacturers, distributors, importers, exporters, investors, procurement teams, advisors, and strategy teams that need a consistent, data-driven view of market dynamics and a transparent analytical definition of the product scope.
This report covers photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, which are devices that convert sunlight directly into electricity. It encompasses the global market for finished modules, including all major product technologies and form factors designed for a wide range of end-use applications.
The report combines the standard market-statistics backbone with strategic chapters that are useful for commercial planning, sourcing decisions, market entry, competitor monitoring, and portfolio prioritization.
The market is segmented into decision-relevant buckets so that demand drivers, pricing logic, supply constraints, and competitive positions can be compared across the same analytical frame.
The market data is classified and analyzed according to international trade codes, primarily under the Harmonized System (HS) headings for photovoltaic cells and electric generating sets. This ensures consistent tracking of trade flows for assembled solar modules and relevant apparatus across global markets.
Coverage focuses on United States and includes demand, supply capability where present, trade flows, pricing, competition, and outlook.
The report combines official statistics, trade records, company disclosures, product-level evidence, and analyst validation. Data are standardized, reconciled, and cross-checked to keep market sizing, trade flows, pricing, and forecasts comparable across countries and time periods.
All indicators are mapped to a consistent product definition and reviewed against the segmentation framework used in the Table of Contents.
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Where Demand Comes From and How It Behaves
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Camp JORI: New solar array generates savings, cuts CO2 emissions  Jewish Rhode Island
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Plants are the original solar panels, and they’re very good at converting light into energy – red and blue light, that is.
But what if a solar panel could co-exist with plants, capturing the light that they aren’t using while allowing those red and blue wavelengths through?
That’s what a team led by Silvia Ma Lu of Mälardalen University in Sweden has tested in a new study, using semi-transparent, rose-tinted solar panels that let specific wavelengths of light through to plants growing below, while also capturing solar energy for electricity.
They’ve presented their prototype in the scientific journal Cell Reports Physical Science.
“The basic concept is quite straightforward,” Ma Lu says.
“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.”
Perhaps we could be harvesting sunlight more efficiently by allocating different portions of the solar spectrum to crop growth and electricity generation, she says.
The magenta panels tested in this study, however, are more like a prototype than the final product. Their magenta color filters light in the green spectrum, but at present, that green light energy is not actually captured by the solar cells.
But the experiments suggest this could be a possibility in the future.
Ma Lu and team chose broccoli as their crop of choice to test the magenta cells.
Broccoli, being a cultivar of Brassica oleracea, is the same species as many other commercial crops, including cabbage, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, and kohlrabi. If broccoli could grow well in the rosy shade of the solar cells, perhaps others in its species will, too.
The researchers set up three different 20-square-meter plots of land to grow the broccoli.
In one plot, the broccoli was grown in full Sun, to provide a comparison point for ‘normal’ growth, sans solar cell.
On the other two plots, the broccoli plants were reared beneath magenta solar cells: on one plot, the cells had 50 percent transparency, while on the other, transparency was 70 percent.
“One of the most interesting findings was how similarly the broccoli performed under the two solar panel systems despite their different transparency levels,” says Ma Lu.
“However, these findings are specific to our experimental conditions and should be validated across additional growing seasons and system configurations.”
The broccoli plants all had similar yields when it came time to harvest, but the ones grown under the magenta panels took 25 days longer to reach that point.
Given that these plants received far less light than those grown in the full Sun, this actually means they were making more efficient use of the available light: 4.5 times greater under the denser, 50-percent-transparency panels, and 2.8 times greater under the 70-percent panels.
It’s not just the magenta tint that alters the light reaching those plants.
The active component of these cells, opaque cadmium telluride (CdTe), is embedded in strips across the glass panel.
It’s this element of the design that truly makes for a solar panel that light can pass through. If the strips are more densely spaced, then the cell can soak up more sunlight to produce electricity – but it also means less light gets through to the plants below.
That raises an interesting question: why do the panels need to be magenta at all, if the strips of CdTe let light through anyway, regardless of the glass color?
Well, they don’t, really. The glass could just as well be neutral.
These magenta panels were actually originally intended for building design, to offer a rosy glow to a building’s interior while also capturing some electricity. They ended up in this experiment purely because they were already commercially available, ripe for repurposing.
The magenta filter lets through two important light spectra for plant growth: red and blue. The leftover green light that the filter blocks isn’t necessarily captured by the solar cell.
As a result, it’s not entirely clear from this study whether it’s the magenta filter into which the CdTe strips are inlaid, or the overall light levels, that affected the broccoli’s growth. And there’s the greenhouse effect of laying glass over a growing vegetable: something this experiment does not account for.
More detailed experiments will be needed to tease out all those variables.
But since these rose-tinted panels are already on the market, Ma Lu says they could readily offer households and community groups a way to make the most out of a small space.
“Configurations similar to our prototype may currently be suitable for smaller-scale applications, such as community gardens, or for integration into greenhouse roofs rather than immediate deployment over large agricultural areas,” she says.
The idea of filtering different spectra of light to allocate the energy to separate goals – growing plants and generating electricity – makes sense in theory. However, it seems there’s still a way to go in creating a solar panel that would be worth it for larger commercial applications.
“From an engineering point of view, this is about getting the best overall use from sunlight and land,” explains power systems engineering expert Ramesh Rayudu, who was not involved in the study.
In terms of energy harvested, in the experiment the magenta cells produced around 224.7 MWh of electricity per hectare over the growing period – about 100 MWh per hectare less than conventional solar panels of similar size.
“Depending on the value of electricity and the price received for broccoli, that lost electricity could require roughly 1.2 to 3.2 tonnes of additional broccoli per hectare to offset its value,” Rayudu says.
“The real question is whether the extra complexity of wavelength-selective solar panels produces enough additional agricultural value to compensate for lower electricity generation. That is the comparison I would like to see next.”
The research has been published in Cell Reports Physical Science.
This article was fact-checked by Fiona MacDonald and edited by Fiona MacDonald. While we pride ourselves on our process, we are only human. If you spot a mistake, please let us know.

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Enel has finalized the acquisition from an unspecified US utility of a portfolio of seven operating photovoltaic plants with a total installed capacity of approximately 270 MW and average annual generation of approximately 0.4 TWh.
“The acquisition consideration, equivalent to the enterprise value, is approximately $140 million. The impact on the Group’s net financial debt is approximately $180 million,” wrote the company led by Flavio Cattaneo.
Enel estimates that the acquisition will have a positive impact on the Enel Group’s consolidated ordinary EBITDA of approximately $20 million per year. The transaction was carried out through its wholly-owned subsidiary Enel Green Power North America.
“The transaction is consistent with the Enel Group’s strategy, which envisages accelerating the growth of its renewable generation capacity, including through the acquisition of assets already in operation in Tier 1 (Brownfield) countries,” Enel wrote.
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Next-Gen Solar Cells, AI Computing Head to Space on CRIMSON-1  Mirage News
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Welcome to the PV Tech Best of the Week roundup, covering the week’s biggest stories from the global solar PV industry. This week features a mix of US news, technical insights the latest legal dispute.
The shifting US policy landscape has successfully reduced reliance on solar module imports from a number of Southeast Asian countries, but more work needs to be done to encourage domestic manufacturing deployment to completely fill this gap.
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This is a takeaway from Crux’s latest report into the US clean energy supply chain, covering shipment and manufacturing announcements across a number of clean energy technologies. Published this week, ‘The State of the Clean Economy Supply Chain’ makes immediately clear that efforts to onshore US renewable energy manufacturing capacity have been a “success” story, pointing to the successes of policies such as the 45X advanced manufacturing tax credit that have encouraged investment in domestic manufacturing.
The report also notes that advances in US solar manufacturing, and foreign policies such as the anti-dumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVDs), have helped reduce reliance on the import of solar components from several countries. Crux notes that in the first half of 2024, four Southeast Asian countries were responsible for 86% of US crystalline silicon (c-Si) imports, but that this figure fell to just 2% in the first half of this year, with the Department of Commerce (DOC) conducting several AD/CVD investigations in this part of the world.
Read more on this report here.
In this contributed blog for PV Tech, Dr KT Tan, CTO of Viridian Solar, argues that DC connectors, though among the cheapest components in a PV installation, sit in the same dangerous blind spot as the low-cost parts blamed for catastrophic engineering failures like the Challenger and Columbia disasters.
History’s most catastrophic engineering failures rarely stem from massive technical oversights; more often, they are triggered by the silent failure of a humble, low-cost component. Whether a frozen rubber O-ring or a damaged thermal-protection tile, NASA missions such as Challenger and Columbia suffered tragic loss of life because of these unassuming parts.
Similarly, in everyday life, we are all familiar with how neglecting a seemingly trivial, inexpensive item can lead to disastrous consequences. In the solar photovoltaic industry, DC connectors occupy that exact same dangerous blind spot. Accounting for a mere fraction of a percent of a system’s total capital expenditure, they are among the lowest-cost components in a PV installation—yet when one fails, the consequences could be disproportionately dire.
Read more of Dr Tan’s blog here.
New York-based silicon ingot manufacturer Linton Crystal Technologies, a wholly-owned subsidiary of China’s Dalian Linton NC Machine, has filed a lawsuit in the Marshall Division of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, accusing Hangzhou-headquartered Jingsheng Mechanical & Electrical of infringing two of its Czochralski (CZ) crystal growth equipment patents.
Linton filed the complaint on 22 September, alleging that some of Jingsheng Mechanical & Electrical’s crystal growth equipment sold in the US infringes on patent numbers 11,255,024 and 11,814,746, both titled ‘Seed Lifting and Rotating System for Use in Crystal Growth,’. The seed lifting technology improves the lifting and rotation of seeds during the CZ crystal growth process, a necessary step in producing monocrystalline silicon ingots for use in PV manufacturing.
The case was accepted by the Marshall Division of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas on 23 September, and Jinsheng Mechanical & Electrical issued a notice regarding the litigation the following day. The case has not yet gone to trial, and no monetary damages have been specified in the lawsuit.
Read more on this case here.
Mollie McCorkindale, senior analyst at PV Tech Research, writes about PV inverter manufacturing trends across different markets.

The solar inverter industry is undergoing a significant technological transition, with string inverter technology rapidly gaining ground over traditional central inverters. This shift reflects evolving market demands, technological advancements, and strategic positioning by manufacturers worldwide, all increasingly shaped by government policy and regulatory frameworks.
Leveraging insights from our in-house market research team and the PV InverterTech Bankability Ratings Report, this article uses analysis of the leading 30 companies in the utility-scale PV inverter market. 
Read more of our market research insights here.
India added 50.6GW of solar module manufacturing capacity and 9.7GW of solar cell manufacturing capacity in the first half of 2026, according to Mercom India’s State of Solar PV Manufacturing in India H1 2026 report.
India installed a record 27GW of solar generation capacity in 1H 2026, up 49% year on year from 18GW in H1 2025, according to the research firm. The growth followed a record first quarter, with India installing 15.3GW of solar generation capacity in Q1 2026, up 143% year on year from 6.3GW in Q1 2025 and 49% from 10.3GW in Q4 2025, according to data released by Mercom in May 2026.
Cumulative annual module manufacturing capacity reached 261.7GW as of June 2026, while annual solar cell manufacturing capacity stood at 36.6GW.
Read our latest coverage of Indian solar deployments here.
Imports of PV modules to Brazil have dropped by 48% year-on-year in the first half of 2026, from 10.6GW in 2025 to 5.5GW in 2026.
According to a recent report from Brazilian PV research and consultancy firm Greener, the decrease was more notable in the utility-scale segment, with an 82% drop from the same period a year ago, from 2.3GW in H1 2025 to 0.43GW in H1 2026. The distributed generation segment, which represents the bulk of installed solar PV in Brazil, also decreased from 8.2GW in H1 2025 to 5GW in H1 2026, representing a 39% drop.
Similar to the decrease in imported PV modules to Brazil, installations of solar PV in the distribution generation (DG) segment dropped 23% YoY in H1 2026. In total, Brazil witnessed 4.2GW of new DG installations in H1 2026, down from the 5.2GW added in H1 2025.
Read our full coverage of Brazil’s solar imports here.

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Renewable energy platform Inox Clean Energy files draft papers for Rs 10,000-crore IPO  Moneycontrol.com
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Operator for Renewable Energy Sources and Efficient Cogeneration – Operator za OIEiEK has issued a public call for households under the program for co-financing prosumers.
A total of BAM 4 million (EUR 2 million) has been approved for the implementation of the program.
Of that amount, BAM 1.2 million (EUR 600,000) is for the first group of beneficiaries – socially vulnerable households, and BAM 2.8 million (EUR 1.4 million) for the second group of beneficiaries – individuals, owners, or co-owners of family houses.
Households can receive co-financing of 50% to 100%
For the first group, the Operator za OIEiEK would fund up to 100% of eligible costs determined by the program and the public call. This enables socially vulnerable households to access their own electricity generation without the need to independently finance eligible costs of the construction of the facility, the operator said.
For the second group, co-funding of up to 50% of eligible costs is provided, enabling citizens to invest, with the support of the operator, in electricity generation for self-consumption, and reduce their electricity costs in the long term.
Public call published on October 1
The public call was published on October 1 and remains open until the available funds are spent, or a maximum of 90 days from the date of publication.
Operator za OIEiEK launched the program in June last year. Prosumers were introduced as a category in the Federation of BiH through new regulations in 2023. At the end of that year, a school in Lopare became the first prosumer in BiH.
The second entity of BiH – the Republic of Srpska, was the first in the region to adopt the rulebook on renewable energy communities, which also defined rules for prosumers. It plans to continue the further development of prosumers with a loan from the World Bank.
Acting President of the Management Board of Operator za OIEiEK, Goran Valka, stressed that the publication of the public call represents one of the key moments in the practical application of the prosumer model in the Federation of BiH.
“For me, this is one of the most important moments since I took responsibility for leading the operator. It is important that we managed to make this major step forward in less than six months. Behind this lies a lot of work, responsibility, and the belief that changes should not remain only on paper, but must bring concrete benefits to citizens,” he added.
Valka pointed out that this is the beginning of a major change. “We want the citizen to be at its center,” he said.
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—
Winifred Sylvah unlocks the door to access her farm patch at a solar generating facility in Big Lake, Minn., Monday, Sept. 14, 2026.
Photo by Aaron Nesheim/Sahan Journal via AP
(Sept. 21, 2026) – Winifred Sylvah picked a handful of plump cucumbers on a cold, wet September morning as raindrops trickled off rows of solar panels in the background.
They’ve been a productive plant for Sylvah on a new plot of land at a solar farm in Big Lake. She’s already harvested about 140 pounds of cucumbers, with rows more waiting to be picked. Sylvah is one of three farmers working the land in between and outside the rows of a 1-megawatt solar array in Big Lake.
The Big Lake Farm is an example of agrivoltaics, a technique of mixing farming and solar power generation. The two interests are often pitted against each other in rural areas, but the rows of flourishing crops between rows of solar panels shows there’s enough sun to go around.
The farm is a partnership between The Food Group — a Minnesota-based nonprofit organization that helps emerging farmers and fights hunger — U.S. Solar and Conexus Energy. It allows farmers like Sylvah to affordably lease farmland while providing an additional use for land that would otherwise be fenced-in rows of panels.
The project started as a pilot in 2023, but this year was made permanent with Sylvah and two other farmers entering 10-year leases on the land. She wasn’t sure what to make of farming between panels, but after hearing from pilot project farmers and seeing new infrastructure like irrigation systems and a walk-in cooler to store freshly picked produce come to the land, Sylvah was up for the challenge.
“I decided to take a chance,” Sylvah said.
The program expansion comes as federal officials slash support for emerging farmers. In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced $300 million in cuts for a grant program focused on supporting land and market access for new farmers, defunding three programs aimed at helping farmers of color in Minnesota, MPR News reported. The cuts are part of the Trump administration’s eradication of federal spending aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
“Because racial equity is a core value for our organization and how we’ve set up our programming, we aren’t going to actively pursue federal grants for the next couple years,” Food Group Executive Director Sophia Lenarz-Coy told Sahan Journal.
Accessing land is a challenge for emerging farmers. The Food Group’s Big River Farms in Marine on St. Croix, Minn., is a popular incubator program for emerging farmers, many of whom are immigrants. But once they leave, farmers who can’t afford to buy land often lease plots for a year at a time, which doesn’t allow them the certainty to become certified organic or the chance to adapt to the soil over the years.
“What’s nice about people having longer term leases is they’ll have a little more time to experiment,” Leranz-Coy said.
Agrivoltaics seen as win-win
Growing between rows of solar panels offers similar yields to standard farming, according to Iowa State University Professor Ajay Nair. Nair has helped lead research on agrivoltaics in Ames, where a partnership with utility firm Alliant Energy led to a 10-acre solar garden lined with rows of crops.
Iowa State researchers have tried various fruits and vegetables in the solar garden, and for the most part are seeing the same yield as in comparison plots.
“Any grower can commercially grow their produce within an agrivoltaic system,” Nair told Sahan Journal.
There’s more space between solar rows than many assume, Nair said. Wires are deep underground and typically don’t prohibit tilling the land, and some plants benefit from rotating shade. As long as irrigation is in place, it’s a perfectly viable place to farm, he said.
There are co-benefits between farmers and solar firms, Nair said. Solar companies build large fences around their projects, which is useful for farmers. Farmers are on the land consistently and can tell the company right away if a panel has been damaged in a storm or if anything is amiss on the property. It also helps ease rural land politics by allowing solar and agriculture to co-exist.
“Having some sort of an agriculture system in there gives them the social license to operate,” Nair said.
Most agrivoltaic projects in the United States focus on livestock grazing, not produce farming. In western Minnesota, researchers at the University of Minnesota-Morris have run a successful cattle agrivoltaics plot for the past eight years.
Some 275 cows munch grass in between rows of a 500-kilowatt solar array in Morris, Minn., animal science Professor Brad Heins said. The cows benefit from the solar panels’ shade, with researchers finding less heat stress in the herd. That helps keep the cows healthier and more productive, Heins said.
“I think it’s garnered a lot of interest in Minnesota and around the world,” Heins said.
Learning curve
Sylvah came to Minnesota from Sierra Leone as a student in the 1980s. She worked in banking for more than 30 years before retirement. But she always loved growing food and has fond memories of tending the family vegetable garden with her grandmother.
She grew vegetables at home and got involved in a community garden, but when she retired she decided to make farming her profession. She got involved with The Food Group and worked a plot at Big River Farms.
The Big Lake farm is much closer to her home in Otsego. And it gives her the chance to get to know the land. She has about an acre and a half total: one acre in the solar garden and half an acre in an adjacent plot.
Sylvah has a large mix of crops. In the solar garden she planted vegetables that benefit from shade: onions, collard greens, green beans and scallions. They all did well, she said.
She’s learned from this season. She didn’t put down fabric to discourage weeds, but she will next year after spending too much time maintaining her beds.
Her banking background shines through: Sylvah is always thinking about the market for anything she grows. She’s developed a following for her West African crops. Her okra, sweet potato greens, collard greens and eggplant are in high demand, she said.
“I make sure I know people are interested in what I’m growing,” Sylvah said.
She has some bitter balls, a West African eggplant that Sylvah said is popular in Minnesota’s Liberian community, but she’s not selling any this year and instead hopes to get seeds for a larger haul next season. In late August, she put down new rows of green beans, planning a late fall harvest.
“I always will do my last harvest for Thanksgiving,” she said.
Sylvah sells her food through a Community Support Agriculture program and to local public school districts in Albertville, Minn., and Buffalo, Minn., harvesting and delivering to the schools herself this fall.
This story was originally published by Sahan Journal and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press. To view the original story on the Sahan Journal website, visit https://tinyurl.com/yxzbfdct.
© Devil’s Lake Daily Journal 2026

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California Governor Gavin Newsom’s pen was busy on the last day of the 2026 legislative session. The outgoing chief executive signed dozens of bills (and vetoed a few) in the final hours of Sept. 30, 2026, bringing the total number of bills that reached his desk during the session to 1,160. 
Among the bills acted upon by Newsom on the day were several that have implications for clean energy and climate. The governor signed bills that establish plug-in solar rules, make it easier for farmers to build solar projects on water-starved land where farming is no longer viable and enable greater participation for virtual power plants in the state’s wholesale energy market.
Newsom also vetoed one important solar-related bill — AB 1813 — which would have created a statewide community solar framework. 
Virtual power plants and grid utilization
SB 905 and SB 913, both authored by Senator Josh Becker, represent an aggressive push to lower skyrocketing utility bills by calling upon coordinated networks of customer-owned batteries, smart thermostats, and EVs instead of building expensive new grid infrastructure.
SB 905 establishes a grid utilization metric for the distribution and transmission grids, requires the state’s largest utilities to track and report on grid utilization and provides a pathway for the CPUC to mandatory establish utilization targets for the utilities to meet. SB 913 directs the Commission to establish a valuation methodology for virtual power plants (VPPs) made up of customer-sited batteries that export to the grid during grid stress.
Historically, fleets of customer devices have been restricted in the state’s Resource Adequacy (RA) market, only receiving credit for reducing an individual home’s electricity consumption. The RA program is designed to ensure the safe and reliable operation of the grid by incentivizing the buildout of energy resources needed to ensure grid reliability.
“The solar and storage industry is pleased to see Governor Newsom sign numerous bills that will support reliable electricity generation and transmission and increase access to the cost-saving benefits of solar and storage,” said Stephanie Doyle, California state affairs director for the Solar Energy Industries Association in a statement. “SB 913 will modernize rules to allow aggregated distributed energy resources to help stabilize the grid and lower electricity prices at times of peak demand.”
The grid utilization metrics of SB 905 go hand-in-hand with the increased usage of VPP resources. The pathway provided in the bill that allows the CPUC to require improvements in utilization creates opportunities for VPPs to be called upon to shift usage away from distribution circuits that are constrained during peak times.
“Customer batteries are already moving electricity usage away from the hours that are most expensive for utilities, but these new laws will take that to another level by operating batteries as a network that can more precisely target the hours when utility costs spike,” said Brad Heavner, executive director of the California Solar and Storage Association (CALSSA). “Resources installed on garages and campuses can provide energy cheaper than building new power lines to faraway power plants. It’s crazy for the utilities to spend money on power lines when there is energy stored right in the neighborhoods where it’s needed.”
Regulators have until June 30, 2028, to finalize the rules that give VPPs a clear route to compete alongside conventional gas power plants.
The Community solar veto
AB 1813 (the Community Renewable Energy Program Act of 2026), authored by Assemblymember Chris Ward, was designed to make the financial benefits of solar energy accessible to Californians who cannot install rooftop panels themselves.
The bill would have created a statewide community solar framework and allowed California residents to subscribe to local, shared community solar projects and receive a credit directly on their utility bills for the energy their share generated, effectively bypassing the need to own a roof.
It would have further directed the CPUC to evaluate community solar facilities — specifically those paired with battery storage — as load-modifying resources rather than wholesale generators. This classification would have allowed the facilities to earn energy credits based on the CPUC’s avoided cost calculator. While not equal to retail rates, the ACC values are higher than the rate paid for wholesale energy, and could have made community solar installations more economically viable.
The bill was the legislature’s latest attempt to create a workable community solar program, following the CPUC’s decision to finalize what advocates called an “unworkable” community solar program in response to 2022’s AB 2316 — also penned by Assemblymember Ward. 
AB 1813 passed through both houses of the legislature and was presented to Newsom on Sept. 14. On the last day of the session, the Governor vetoed the bill. 
In a statement related to the veto, Newsom wrote that the bill was “structurally flawed,” adding that it “would effectively require an administratively set price for the generation of power that exceeds the value that generation provides to the grid.”
Solar industry advocates expressed their disappointment (and in some cases, disagreement) with the Governor’s decision. 
“Governor Newsom’s veto of AB 1813 is a missed opportunity for California ratepayers, low-income households, and the state’s renewable energy economy,” said Aaron Halimi, founder and CEO of community solar developer Renewable Properties, in comments to pv magazine USA. “Unfortunately, this veto relies on outdated and erroneous cost assumptions, while a comprehensive analysis by Aurora Energy Research found that AB 1813 could have saved California ratepayers $6.5 billion in total system costs over 20 years compared with the status quo of utility-scale alternatives.”
SEIA’s Stephanie Doyle also weighed in, saying: “We are disappointed to see Governor Newsom continue to prevent the Golden State from establishing a viable, scalable community solar with his veto of AB 1813. The solar industry looks forward to continuing to work with legislators and the next Governor to finally create a community solar program that Californians want and deserve.”
Other notable energy bills signed by Newsom on Sept. 30 include:
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Newsom signs California plug-in solar bill, establishing the nation’s largest balcony solar market
Outgoing California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed SB 868, a law that allows the state’s 39 million residents to use portable solar devices that connect to a home through a receptacle.
Rooftop solar growth makes giant New England gas plant obsolete as region hits 500th Duck Curve day
ISO-NE logged its 500th BTM solar duck curve day on September 21, more than eight years after it observed the region’s first in April 2018. The grid operator has told federal regulators that behind the meter solar growth was a leading reason it no longer saw a reliability need for a new natural gas terminal.

Anza expects at least a 40% spike in solar module prices after Section 232
The challenge for developers is to move quickly to secure lower costs before the minimum pricing takes effect, with the options being to secure modules already in the U.S., accelerate imports or shift procurement strategies to preserve project economics.
U.S. small-scale solar adds 1.6 GW in Q2 2026 as fossil fuel capacity surges

Distributed solar maintained a steady deployment pace alongside 2.5 GWh of new behind the meter storage, even as a wave of thermal generation additions pulled solar’s total share of new U.S. power capacity down to 55%.
Twenty-two U.S. solar PV manufacturers included in first domestic Ratings Pyramid

A new analysis of solar PV manufacturers in the United States by Terawatt PV Research provides the first detailed analysis of the current U.S. solar PV manufacturing landscape, with each company analyzed across production, capital expenditure, technology, global activities/ownership and U.S.-specific strategy.
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Two hundred megawatts (MW) of electricity generation from photovoltaic solar parks will be exclusively allocated to water pumping in Havana, so that, in the first months of next year, this service in the Cuban capital will not depend on the National Electric System (SEN), heavily affected by the tightening of the US blockade against the island.
Meanwhile, distributed generation will allow the reversal of disruptions to begin in November. To support the first 29 selected supply sources and impellers, generator sets from distributed generation are being mobilized.
Almost 70 sites have been visited to date to evaluate on the ground the alternatives that will ensure pumping and determine the needs of each facility.
These actions are part of a comprehensive strategy to reduce the energy vulnerability of supply systems and guarantee the continuity of an essential service, based on solutions that should progressively extend to the rest of the provinces. This strategy is reviewed weekly by Cuba’s top leadership.
During the broadcast of the program Criterio Compartido on Radio Rebelde, the First Secretary of the Party’s Central Committee and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, explained that distributed generation is the most immediate response, while for next year, the fundamental focus will be on renewable energy sources (RES).
Cuba Nears Completion of Reforms to Revitalize the Economy

“Two hundred megawatts from photovoltaic parks will be arriving to be dedicated solely to the water pumping system,” Díaz-Canel specified. This will be complemented by the installation of solar complexes and energy storage systems.
The priority has a strategic reason: water pumping is the activity with the highest electricity demand generated in the country. Reducing its dependence on the SEN and guaranteeing its own sources for its operation is, therefore, decisive for advancing the energy sovereignty of this service.
 
(Granma.cu, by Wennys Díaz Ballaga)
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/CD
From Venezuela and made by Venezuelan Chavistas
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ACME Solar Holdings Ltd (ACME Solar) has commissioned an additional 107.36 MW/437.49 MWh of battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity across two projects in Rajasthan. The capacity, commissioned through subsidiaries of ACME Solar, takes the company’s total operational BESS capacity to 4.96 GWh.
The newly commissioned capacity includes 53.73 MW/222.969 MWh from a firm and dispatchable renewable energy (FDRE) project in Neemri village, Chittorgarh district, Rajasthan, connected to the Neemuch substation. The project has a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with a national renewable energy implementing agency (REIA). ACME Solar expects to commission the remaining BESS capacity of the project during the current financial year.
ACME Solar has also commissioned 53.63 MW/214.52 MWh of an assured peak power project in Rajasthan. This takes the project’s total commissioned BESS capacity to 159.58 MW/638.32 MWh. Located in Kelan village in Bikaner district, the project is connected to the Bikaner III substation and has a 25-year PPA with a national REIA.
The BESS capacity for the full 300 MW project is expected to be commissioned during the current financial year.
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According to the International Energy Agency’s Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme, worldwide solar capacity additions totaled roughly 690 GW during 2025. The IEA-PVPS Trends in Photovoltaic Applications 2026 report shows that these additions marked a 15% rise over the volume installed in 2024.
Cumulative installed solar capacity had reached 2.96 TW by the close of last year. According to the report, this installed base could in theory produce approximately 3,845 TWh each year, which corresponds to about 12% of worldwide electricity use.
With 415 GW, China represented 60% of worldwide installations last year. For yearly additions, India came in second at 54 GW, with the United States third at 43 GW, Germany fourth at 18 GW and Pakistan fifth at 14 GW. The European Union as a whole added 68 GW.
The report observes that PV deployment kept expanding geographically, as 36 nations installed over 1 GW of solar, up by three compared with 2024.
Centralised solar systems made up 410 GW of the new solar systems last year, with China leading at 256 GW, followed by India at 42 GW, the USA at 35 GW, Spain at 11 GW and Germany at 8.3 GW. The report further points to Saudi Arabia and the UAE as expanding markets propelled by centralised systems.
Distributed solar represented 282 GW of new installations in 2025, a record for that market segment, rising from 228 GW in 2024.
China installed 159 GW of all distributed solar last year, with Pakistan next at 14 GW, then India at 12 GW, Germany at 9.2 GW and Brazil at 7.9 GW. France, Turkiye, Japan and Australia are listed in the report as additional countries where the distributed market is fueling overall growth.
Last year Australia overtook the Netherlands as the nation with the greatest cumulative installed PV capacity per inhabitant, registering 1,604 W per capita against 1,584 W per capita. Germany holds third place on this measure at 1,413 W per capita.
Eight more European countries — Spain, Greece, Austria, Denmark, Lithuania, Estonia, Switzerland and Belgium — exceed 1,000 W per capita. China’s penetration rate also crossed this threshold, reaching 1,040 W per capita.
In the report’s forward, IEA-PVPS Task 1 co-managers Melodie de l’Epine and Izumi Kaizuka, together with IEA-PVPS chair Daniel Mugnier, wrote that last year’s deployments proceeded alongside significant industrial imbalance. They clarified that module production stays above annual installation figures, while low utilisation rates, ongoing price pressure and weak profitability affect manufacturers across the value chain.
Report figures indicate that worldwide production of solar modules reached 722 GW last year, down 0.6% from 2024. This marks a deceleration from the 61.7% year-on-year growth logged between 2022 and 2023.
China was responsible for 79% of global PV module production last year. Its worldwide share fell from 86% in 2024 as manufacturing capacity grew in India and the USA.
Global PV module manufacturing capacity is estimated to have hit 1,531 GW per year last year, with 71% of that located in China.
De l’Epine, Kaizuka and Mugnier further stated that the scale of solar deployment is altering the relationship among solar capacity, electricity systems and electricity markets. They observed that curtailment, negative prices, declining capture prices and grid connection constraints are appearing more frequently in high penetration markets, and that storage, flexible demand, stronger networks, improved forecasting and suitable market access are becoming vital to extending PV’s contribution beyond the hours in which it generates.
Further figures from the report underscore substantial growth in storage deployment. Annual battery energy storage capacity additions across Europe, Canada and the US combined have risen from 2.9 GWh in 2020 to nearly 79 GWh in 2025, amounting to a more than 25-fold increase.
Interactive table based on the Store Companies dataset for this report.
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Monthly bills would climb from roughly $97 to about $111 if regulators also approve an increase the utility wants to begin in October 2027.
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Customers who heat with Columbia Gas of Virginia will soon pay more each month.
The temporary rate increase will add $10.81 to the typical residential bill, and the company is pursuing an additional increase.
According to Cardinal News, the base-rate increase will take effect Oct. 12 and will raise the monthly bill for a typical residential customer by 11.1%.
Regulators are reviewing the application Columbia Gas filed with the State Corporation Commission in May, so the higher charge is being put in place on an interim basis.
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Public comments are due by Dec. 8, and the SCC has scheduled a Dec. 15 hearing on the case. If the commission approves a smaller increase, Columbia Gas would have to refund customers the difference with interest, per Cardinal News.
The company defined an average residential customer as using 5.1 dekatherms of gas a month. Their monthly bill would climb from roughly $97 to about $111 if regulators also approve a separate $3.03, or 3%, increase the utility wants to begin in October 2027.
Homeowners who want to shield themselves from rate hikes and lock in monthly bills can consider electrification. Even if financing is required for solar power, the cost is predetermined and mostly untouchable by utility companies.
Going solar is one of the best ways to save money on home energy over time. Homeowners who want to explore that option can use EnergySage to get free solar installation estimates and compare quotes.
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According to Cardinal News, the increase affects base rates, not the commodity cost of gas; those charges account for about 60% of a customer’s bill. State law requires Columbia Gas to pass gas costs directly to customers without any markup, so the change targets base rates.
Columbia Gas expects the proposed two-part increase to bring in $78.9 million for upgrades such as customer communication software, advanced meters, safer pipes, and other system improvements, Cardinal News reported. 
The company’s previous rate case was decided in May 2025, when regulators approved an increase that added about $6 to the average residential bill.
For homeowners able to consider upgrades, EnergySage can be especially useful. With EnergySage’s help, the average person can save up to $10,000 on a solar purchase and installation. Tools such as EnergySage’s solar map show the average cost of a home solar panel system by state along with solar incentives available in each state, helping homeowners get the best price for rooftop solar panels and access available incentives.
💡Go deep on the latest news and trends shaping the residential solar landscape
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 who want to compare options can explore EnergySage for information about home battery storage, including competitive installation estimates.
Columbia Gas said the new rates will “allow for the company’s continued improvements to its natural gas distribution system; to continue to provide safe, reliable, and high-quality service to its customers; and to accommodate the sustained demand for natural gas in the areas Columbia Gas serves,” per Cardinal News.
Utility bills are rising across Virginia, and the energy debate is shaping what customers pay.
• In Central Virginia, utility hikes hit homes as Dominion and local water rates climbed.
• Dominion customers in Virginia faced an $8 monthly fuel charge plus years of bond interest.
• In Hopewell and Prince George, Virginia American sought a 30% water bill increase.
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Not everyone thought the proposed system size matched the home’s current demand.
Photo Credit: iStock
A homeowner in Australia weighing a $19,800 solar installation took to Reddit to see whether it made financial sense to pull the trigger.
With quarterly electricity bills ranging from about $650 to more than $1,000, the big question was whether a five- to six-year payback period was realistic.
In a Reddit thread posted to the site’s r/AusFinance forum, the original poster framed the quote around a home that uses about 20 kilowatt-hours per day and, by their own description, may already be holding back on consumption. 
According to OP, the offer was “$19,800 for a 13.37kw solar panel size with a 10kw inverter and a 30.7kwh battery, installation included.”
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OP added, “I’ve calc’d that it’d pay itself off in about 5-6 years” and said that estimate could improve depending on household energy use.
Reactions in the thread were generally favorable, though commenters noted that price alone does not settle the question. 
One person who installed solar and battery storage said that their first system had already paid for itself and wrote, “For me it’s a no brainer. Most days we are 100% self-sufficient.” 
Another commenter added, “Your quote looks good to me,” while noting they already had a 13.3-kilowatt solar array and were really comparing battery-related costs.
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Not everyone thought the proposed system size matched the home’s current demand, though. One commenter questioned whether a 13-kilowatt setup made sense for a household using around 20 kilowatt-hours a day, while the poster responded that consumption would probably increase with more air conditioning, work-from-home use, and the possibility of an electric vehicle later on.
And for some commenters, return on investment was only part of the equation. One person said batteries and backup power can matter just as much for staying comfortable during outages and relying less on the grid. In that view, battery storage isn’t only about cutting utility costs; it can also provide reassurance when the power goes out.
For homeowners comparing offers, going solar is one of the best ways to save money on home energy. Using EnergySage’s free tools can help you get free solar installation estimates and compare quotes before signing a contract. With EnergySage’s help, the average person can save up to $10,000 on solar purchases and installations.
Plus, 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. 
💡Go deep on the latest news and trends shaping the residential solar landscape
If you’re interested in maximizing potential energy savings, adding battery storage to a solar setup is one of the best ways to go about it. Homeowners can also explore EnergySage for information about home battery storage options, including competitive installation estimates. 
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Detroit-based energy firm DTE Energy has finished construction on Cold Creek Solar Park, with funding help from auto giant Ford Motor Co. and its enrollment in DTE’s CleanVision MIGreenPower program.
Located near Coldwater in southern Michigan, the 100 MW solar installation will be key player in Ford’s decarbonization goals. The global automobile company has agreed to purchase up to 650 MW of renewable energy from DTE’s energy programs, which allow homes and businesses to attribute their energy usage to renewable power generated in Michigan.
DTE officials say every Ford vehicle manufactured in the Mitten State will be assembled with the equivalent of 100% carbon-free electricity by the end of 2027.
“Cold Creek Solar Park represents more than a new renewable energy project. It reflects what’s possible when customers and energy providers work together to accelerate Michigan’s clean energy future,” says Matt Paul, president and chief operating officer of DTE Electric. “Through MIGreenPower, we’re helping companies like Ford achieve their sustainability goals while building the renewable energy infrastructure that will power generations to come.”
DTE says its MIGreenPower program is “among the largest voluntary renewable energy programs in the country.” Additionally, the program has accelerated the development of renewable energy projects across Michigan, including Cold Creek Solar.
Alongside the electrical and environmental benefits, MIGreenPower and its associated projects are bringing jobs and tax revenue for local communities. The program aims to help Ford and other companies meet their sustainability goals through large-scale power purchase agreements.
“Cold Creek Solar Park is now delivering on the promise we made when we broke ground on this project — clean, reliable energy for our Michigan operations and for the communities where we build our vehicles,” says Amir Mirshahi, Ford’s director of energy infrastructure and engineering.
“Projects like this strengthen the resiliency of the grid that our plants, our employees and our neighbors all depend on. Investments like Cold Creek are about more than meeting our own sustainability goals — they’re about being a good neighbor and a strong partner to the communities that support us.”
DTE currently has 36 solar parks across the state of Michigan, as well as 20 wind parks. Together, these 56 projects generate enough energy to power nearly 1 million homes, and work toward the state’s goal of 60% renewable energy usage by 2035.

Tags: commercial and industrial, DTE Energy, Ford Motor Co., project, sustainability


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“Thought about running a car battery/solar panel, but this seemed like a cleaner, simpler setup.”
Photo Credit: iStock
How does one add power to a shed without running permanent wiring or buying a pricey solar-and-battery setup? 
For one DIYer, the answer was to turn a removable 18V tool battery into a compact power panel that powers lights, USB charging, and one more accessory.
In a Reddit post to the site’s r/Ryobi community, the original poster wrote that they “Made a power panel for my shed utilizing an 18V battery. Thought about running a car battery/solar panel, but this seemed like a cleaner, simpler setup.”
OP shared images of their setup and added, “Pretty happy with how it turned out! I included photos of the build along with screenshots of the parts I used from Amazon for anyone interested in doing something similar.”
Rather than hardwiring anything, the build uses a swappable 18V pack as the source and steps that power down to 12V inside the panel. From there, it supports the shed lights, a USB outlet, a voltage display, and a spare switch reserved for something else later.
The original poster estimated that “all in, minus the battery and some wiring/connectors I already had on hand, this can be done for under $100.”
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Using a 2Ah pack as a test case, the original poster figured the setup would run for about an hour with the lights turned all the way up. Because the lights can be dimmed, dialing them back should stretch that runtime when less brightness is enough.
Match the system to the job instead of overbuilding it. If your goal is occasional light and device charging, a small removable battery and dimmable LEDs may be all that’s needed.
One commenter wrote, “Lights marketed for RVs are great for these types of projects. They generally have a pretty wide operating range.” In some cases, that could reduce the need for extra components, though only if the lights are actually rated for the voltage involved.
The commenter said their lights had “survived a couple of years on the 20-21 volts my Ryobi battery puts out without a buck converter,” but the safest route is still to choose parts with clear voltage specs and build around how long you really need the system to run.
This kind of battery-powered DIY project fits into a bigger conversation about flexible home energy. 
• One off-grid homeowner built an impressive battery garage setup that now even charges visiting EVs.
• In Australia, one homeowner said a 20kW solar setup made blackouts invisible.
• Another homeowner skipped battery storage and said his solar setup works just fine.
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SECI Invites Bids For 60 MW ISTS-Connected Solar Project In Gaya, Bihar  SolarQuarter
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BREAKING: Tesla Rises On Above-Forecast Deliveries

First Solar fired the opening salvo in a legal battle brewing in the solar energy industry. The Phoenix-based maker of solar panels sued a Corning (GLW) subsidiary, American Panel Solutions, as well as Chinese rival JA Solar over patent infringement, the company said late Thursday. The dispute revolves around alleged improper use of the solar energy company’s patents for a…
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9/10/2026 Global spending on “clean” energy and tech plunged in the first half of 2026, but that’s not the full story.
9/10/2026 Global spending on “clean” energy and tech plunged in the…
Moderna and Merck used the mRNA technology that created the first Covid vaccines to take on cancer. (© Chris Gash)
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ACME Solar Holdings Ltd (ACME Solar) has commissioned an additional 107.36 MW/437.49 MWh of battery energy storage system (BESS) capacity across two projects in Rajasthan. The capacity, commissioned through subsidiaries of ACME Solar, takes the company’s total operational BESS capacity to 4.96 GWh.
The newly commissioned capacity includes 53.73 MW/222.969 MWh from a firm and dispatchable renewable energy (FDRE) project in Neemri village, Chittorgarh district, Rajasthan, connected to the Neemuch substation. The project has a 25-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with a national renewable energy implementing agency (REIA). ACME Solar expects to commission the remaining BESS capacity of the project during the current financial year.
ACME Solar has also commissioned 53.63 MW/214.52 MWh of an assured peak power project in Rajasthan. This takes the project’s total commissioned BESS capacity to 159.58 MW/638.32 MWh. Located in Kelan village in Bikaner district, the project is connected to the Bikaner III substation and has a 25-year PPA with a national REIA.
The BESS capacity for the full 300 MW project is expected to be commissioned during the current financial year.
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One of the main questions addressed at the Solarplaza Seminar BESS Greece conference, held last week in Athens, was how much battery storage Greece will install by 2030. The answer depended on who was asked, with forecasts ranging from conservative to considerably more optimistic.
Louiza Moutafi, senior research associate at Aurora Energy Research, a global consultancy with an office in Athens, said Greece will install around 4 GW to 5 GW of BESS by 2030. The first systems to become operational will include the 900 MW of standalone, front-of-the-meter systems selected through auctions in previous years. Of this capacity, 711 MW comprises two-hour batteries and the remaining 189 MW four-hour systems. Their construction and operation are supported by state subsidies.
Moutafi told the Solarplaza conference that around 400 MW of the auctioned capacity has already been connected to the grid and that the entire 900 MW will be operational by the end of 2026.
Aurora Energy Research estimates that additional storage capacity will comprise standalone batteries operating on a merchant basis, without subsidies, and batteries co-located with power generation, most notably solar PV. The first of these systems, totaling around 100 MW, could become operational this year, Moutafi said. However, the majority – around 3 GW to 4 GW – is expected to be installed between 2027 and 2030. By 2050, Aurora Energy Research projects a further 47.6% increase in this capacity.
Both Moutafi and Stelios Psomas, policy officer at the Hellenic Association of Photovoltaic Companies (Helapco), who also presented at the Solarplaza event, identified the same main segments shaping Greece’s BESS market.
Psomas added that around 100 MW of small-scale batteries connected to self-consumption PV systems, including systems operating under net metering, are already operational.
For standalone batteries operating on a merchant basis without subsidies, Moutafi and Psomas highlighted the government’s ongoing 4.7 GW program. It comprises 3.8 GW of BESS seeking connections to the transmission system and 900 MW to the distribution network, for which the government has invited licensing applications.
The co-located segment of the Greek storage market comprises several categories. One covers batteries installed alongside existing or new solar projects operated by small, medium-sized and large businesses. These systems are intended to increase self-consumption and reduce electricity costs. Greece’s Ministry of Environment and Energy recently published a list of 209 projects that will receive funding under this category.
Psomas also outlined three other segments of the co-located market. The so-called 11A category comprises projects in which batteries can charge only from PV. Under the 11B category, batteries can charge from both PV and the grid but cannot discharge during hours when power curtailment may be required. The 11C category covers batteries serving clusters of PV plants. Discharge restrictions similar to those applying to 11B projects also apply to 11C projects, but only to the battery and not to the PV component.
Aurora Energy Research ranks Greece among Europe’s 10 most attractive battery storage markets and among the top three in Southeast Europe, alongside Bulgaria and Romania.
Moutafi said a two-hour standalone battery entering commercial operation in 2027 on a merchant basis and completing 1.5 charge-discharge cycles per day could achieve an internal rate of return (IRR) of between 9% and just under 12%. By comparison, co-located PV-plus-storage projects could achieve IRRs exceeding 11%, regardless of configuration, commissioning year, battery duration or cycling strategy.
Asked by pv magazine whether such returns could prompt a wave of co-located projects to become operational in the near term, Moutafi said the Greek government has prioritized standalone BESS and that she therefore expects deployment of co-located systems to accelerate from 2028.
She noted, for example, that the government announced the charging rules for the 11A, 11B and 11C categories only a few months ago. Such information is crucial for developers seeking to design project business models.
Moutafi said several factors enable co-located PV-plus-storage projects to achieve higher IRRs than standalone BESS. These include savings on capital and operating expenditure, the ability to charge batteries directly from PV generation and opportunities for load shifting. Co-located projects can also participate in other electricity markets, including the balancing market.
Aurora Energy Research estimates that a two-hour standalone merchant battery entering operation in 2027 and completing 1.5 charge-discharge cycles per day would derive 70% of its lifetime revenue from energy arbitrage and the remaining 30% from capacity payments for ancillary services.
Greece’s balancing market is relatively small, however, and Moutafi expects price cannibalization to emerge relatively quickly in its shallower segments, particularly markets for balancing capacity reservation services.
Helapco’s Psomas presented a considerably more optimistic outlook for Greece’s BESS market, arguing that the country could install 8.6 GW of battery storage by 2030.
He cited two main reasons for the forecast. The first is the growing need for PV investors to deploy storage to mitigate renewable energy curtailment and exposure to negative wholesale electricity prices.
Psomas said renewable energy curtailment remains high this year, although it has been lower than expected. The number of hours with negative electricity prices, by contrast, has risen sharply. Greece recorded only 11 hours of negative prices in 2024, rising to 115 hours in 2025 and 382 hours by Sept. 15, 2026.
The second reason is what Psomas described as an “acceleration scenario.” Once the first BESS projects – whether standalone merchant batteries or co-located systems – are installed, businesses and financiers gain experience that can facilitate further investment.
“Batteries at present are the real disruptive technology,” Psomas said, adding that he expects the sector to grow faster than many anticipate.
As of August 2026, Greece had issued licenses for 55.3 GW/166.2 GWh of standalone BESS, 11.8 GW/28.1 GWh of co-located BESS in the 11B category and 16.7 GW/163.7 GWh of pumped hydro energy storage (PHES), according to Psomas.
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The U.S. Department of Commerce has rolled out an emergency measure designed to stop a rush of imports ahead of new tariffs throughout the solar supply chain, according to pv magazine. Issued as a Temporary Final Rule by the department’s Bureau of Industry and Security in coordination with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the action imposes tight oversight and volume restrictions on polysilicon, wafers, cells, and modules coming from abroad.
The rule seeks to keep foreign suppliers and developers from amassing stockpiles before fresh trade safeguards begin on December 4. Starting that day, arriving shipments will be hit with a 15% tariff plus existing minimum import prices established under Section 232 Presidential Proclamation 11052.
Commerce is reviewing total import volumes for each importer of record relative to historical baseline averages. Those found to be importing amounts far exceeding prior baselines will be prohibited from filing any additional entries of covered solar equipment ahead of the December 4 cutoff.
Procurement contracts for equipment usually name the importer of record, which could be the project developer, an engineering, procurement, and construction contractor, a component maker, or a third-party supplier, depending on how customs clearance is handled.
To shut down possible loopholes tied to newly formed corporate entities, the rule applies stringent weekly quantitative limits to importers of record that registered after August 6 and have no historical baseline data.
From September 22 through December 4, such new importers may bring in no more than 12 kilograms of polysilicon, seven kilograms of wafers, 2,000 solar cells, and 55 solar modules per week. Customs brokers who assist entities in dodging or getting around these volume caps face financial penalties or the formal loss of their broker licenses.
Entities affected by the limits can send email requests to Commerce seeking a waiver to exceed them. Applicants must supply documentation proving that import volumes planned between August 6 and December 4 rest on legitimate commercial grounds rather than pre-tariff stockpiling, together with a binding pledge against stockpiling. Commerce intends to reply within 14 days, and its responses may ask for further trade documentation.
Commerce also keeps the power to provide tariff waivers to manufacturers that file verified onshoring plans to construct, renovate, or enlarge domestic factories for making solar products within the United States.
Clean energy trade associations and project developers caution that layering Section 232 tariffs and minimum import prices onto already existing trade duties will drive up project execution expenses, cause cell supply shortages for domestic module assemblers, and delay broader decarbonization schedules.
U.S. solar manufacturers praised the federal enforcement push, characterizing pre-policy import surges as an opportunistic tactic employed by overseas producers to erode American trade protections.
Andy Park, global chief executive officer at Hanwha Qcells, said that inundating the U.S. market with large volumes of imported products is a strategy companies abroad have long relied on to weaken American manufacturers. He noted that import volumes have repeatedly spiked before major U.S. trade or industrial policies, as companies look to exploit loopholes and secure an unfair edge before new measures kick in.
Park added that the enforcement actions are expected to help remove unlawful market practices, bring integrity and fairness back to the U.S. solar market, and ensure the administration’s trade and industrial policies meet their intended goals. He said the efforts would ultimately help attract more manufacturing investment and high-quality jobs onshore and speed up growth in American-made energy.
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 Polysilicon in the United States. It is designed for component manufacturers, system suppliers, OEM and ODM teams, distributors, investors, and strategic entrants that need a clear view of end-use demand, design-in dynamics, manufacturing exposure, qualification burden, pricing architecture, and competitive positioning.
The analytical framework is designed to work both for a single specialized component class and for a broader electronic materials / semiconductor feedstock, where market structure is shaped by product architecture, performance requirements, standards compliance, design-in cycles, component dependencies, lead times, and channel control rather than by one narrow customs heading alone. It defines Polysilicon as High-purity polycrystalline silicon, a foundational raw material for manufacturing semiconductor wafers and photovoltaic cells and examines the market through end-use demand, BOM and subsystem logic, fabrication and assembly stages, qualification and reliability requirements, procurement pathways, pricing layers, 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 electronics, electrical, component, interconnect, or power-system market.
At its core, this report explains how the market for Polysilicon 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 Semiconductor wafer substrate, Photovoltaic cell absorber layer, and Power electronics substrate across Semiconductor & IC Manufacturing, Solar PV Module Manufacturing, Consumer Electronics, Automotive (EV/Power), and Industrial Electronics and Feedstock Sourcing & Qualification, Crystal Growth (CZ/FZ) Ingot, Wafer Slicing & Polishing, and Cell/Device Fabrication. Demand is then allocated across end users, development stages, and geographic markets.
Third, a supply model evaluates how the market is served. This includes Metallurgical Grade Silicon (MG-Si), Trichlorosilane (TCS) / Silane, High-purity graphite components, Significant electrical power, and Specialty chemical gases, manufacturing technologies such as Siemens Process (TCS-based), Fluidized Bed Reactor (FBR) Process, Upgraded Metallurgical Silicon (UMG) refining, and Monocrystalline vs. Multicrystalline growth, quality control requirements, outsourcing and contract-manufacturing 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 and component suppliers, OEM and ODM partners, contract manufacturers, integrated platform players, distributors, and engineering-support providers.
This report covers the market for Polysilicon 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 Polysilicon. 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 electronics and electrical industry structure.
The geographic analysis explains local demand conditions, domestic capability, import dependence, standards burden, distributor reach, and the country’s strategic role in the wider market.
This study is designed for strategic, commercial, operations, and investment users, including:
In many high-technology, electronics, electrical, industrial, and component-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.
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A new study from IEA PVPS Task 15, published in Energy & Buildings, sets out to correct a persistent bias in how the industry thinks about building-integrated photovoltaics: that rooftop-style, optimally tilted arrays are the benchmark against which every other BIPV configuration should be judged, and that vertical façade systems are a compromise at best.
The publication, titled “Multi-objective assessment of BIPV yield, complementarity, and economic feasibility“, asks under what conditions does BIPV actually pay off, and how much do façade orientation choices really cost in area.
The study delivers one of the most extensive comparative datasets yet assembled on building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV): 357 design configurations tested
The researchers built a standardized 1 m² BIPV module and ran it through simulations across 44 cities in 12 countries on six continents, leading to 357 configurations tested.
Rather than fixing on one “best” angular configuration per city, the team tested a broad spread of tilts and orientations for each of eight BIPV application types — continuous and discontinuous roofs, skylights, curtain walls, rainscreens, double-skin façades, balustrades, and shading devices — and paired that with efficiencies spanning today’s commercial range.
As expected, rooftop BIPV systems peak around solar noon. But when the researchers modelled east- and west-facing vertical façades alongside a rooftop system, using a genetic algorithm to optimise azimuth for temporal alignment and smoothness rather than raw output, a clear pattern emerged: east-facing vertical BIPV generates earlier in the day, west-facing generates later, and the combination of the two with a rooftop array flattens the aggregate generation curve considerably.
The authors frame this as a real design lever — not a fallback for buildings without roof space, but a genuine strategy for reducing ramp rates, improving how well solar generation lines up with a building’s own demand profile, and lessening the burden that concentrated midday peaks place on grids.
The study found that chasing this smoothness and complementarity doesn’t come at much cost to total yield. Vertical façades do require more surface area than an optimally tilted roof to generate the same amount of electricity, but the authors describe the resulting area penalty as staying “within the reasonable building surface” for most projects.
They also note that optimising for complementarity and smoothness barely moves that area requirement compared with a system optimised purely for yield. In other words, architects don’t have to choose between a stable, well-distributed generation profile and a reasonably compact footprint.
The study also pushes back gently on the conventional design rule that panel tilt should simply match local latitude. Across the cities studied, the optimal tilt for maximum annual yield consistently deviated from this convention, particularly at higher latitudes and in places with substantial cloud cover or diffuse radiation, where shallower tilts captured more sky and performed better than the “textbook” latitude-matched angle would suggest.
For façade-integrated systems specifically, the researchers found that steep near-vertical tilts around 75° consistently outperformed true vertical (90°) for capturing irradiance near solar noon, though full vertical installations remained strong second-place performers, especially at higher latitudes where the sun sits low in the sky for much of the year.
Many high-performing façade configurations weren’t even equator-facing, with east- and west-facing surfaces proving valuable for capturing morning and afternoon sun and offering architects more design flexibility without a meaningful energy penalty.
Where the paper is most pointed is in how it treats BIPV’s economics. Conventional NPV and LCOE calculations, the authors argue, systematically undervalue BIPV because they treat it purely as a power-generation asset like ground-mounted solar, ignoring the fact that a BIPV skylight, curtain wall, or rainscreen also replaces a conventional, non-generating building material that the owner would have had to pay for regardless.
By building “effective” versions of NPV, LCOE, and payback period that credit BIPV for this avoided material cost, the study finds BIPV viability is far more attainable than the technology’s “expensive niche” reputation implies.
The paper also highlights a pattern across application types that developers will find intuitive but rarely see quantified: double-skin façades and skylights consistently performed best economically, precisely because they displace expensive conventional materials, while shading devices lagged because the conventional alternative they replace is comparatively cheap.
That gap, the authors note, means the same module technology and price point can look economically attractive on one building element and marginal on another.
One of the report’s most remarkable findings is about what actually drives BIPV’s economic performance over time. The correlation analysis singled out electricity price growth as having the strongest relationship with long-run project value — stronger than the influence of electricity generation itself, the electricity price at the outset, or the price of the BIPV product.
The sensitivity analysis reinforces this by showing that no single input variable drives outcomes in isolation whether that’s module cost, discount rate or generation. Instead, it’s the interaction between variables, such as how long a system operates weighed against the material-replacement benefit it locks in, or how electricity price trends interact with the discount rate applied to future savings, that determines whether a project pencils out.
The authors draw a direct conclusion from this: cutting BIPV product prices alone, without addressing financing assumptions, installation costs, and local electricity market conditions together, is unlikely to be sufficient to unlock large-scale adoption.
The authors are careful to frame their findings as comparative and scenario-based rather than predictive for any specific project. The model deliberately uses uniform assumptions regarding temperature coefficient, albedo, and loss factors across every application type and city to keep the cross-regional comparison consistent.
That means it doesn’t capture real-world variables like rear-ventilation conditions, self-shading between building elements, or mounting-specific thermal behaviour that would differ meaningfully between, say, a rainscreen and a curtain wall.
The paper positions itself explicitly as a macro-level screening tool for early investment decisions and policy design, calling for future work that builds in application-specific detail. It also calls, notably, for better-coordinated international data-sharing on BIPV costs, arguing that fragmented, city-specific datasets have held back exactly the kind of cross-regional evidence base this study tries to provide.
Author: Ignacio Landivar
For more information on IEA PVPS Task 15 and BIPV please click here.
The third phase of Task 15, to extend the activities for four years, started in 2024. Participating in Task 15 can be one way of influencing BIPV standardization without the formal membership of a standardization committee. In case you are a potential participant of Phase 3 of Task 15, please contact the Phase 2 Task Co-Managers Francesco Frontini (for contributions relating to the topics of “Challenges and opportunities of BIPV in a de-carbonized and circular economy”, “BIPV in the digital environment”, “BIPV products, projects and demos: innovation and long-term behavior” and “BIPV training, dissemination and stakeholders’ collaboration”) and Helen Rose Wilson (for contributions relating to the topic of “BIPV characterization & performance: pre-normative international research”)
This article is part of a monthly column by the IEA PVPS programme. It was contributed by IEA PVPS Task 15 – Enabling Framework for the Development of BIPV.

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As of mid-2026, Texas is just behind California’s 55.5 GW of total solar capacity, and has about half the Golden State’s 60.6 GWh of energy storage capacity. But Texas is catching up quickly. More than 65% of the state’s solar capacity and more than 85% of its batteries were installed since the beginning of 2023. The Lone …
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A solar farm near Taunton can remain operational until 2068 following a vote by local councillors.
Higher Knapp solar farm lies to the south of Higher Knapp Farm, located in the small hamlet of Knapp within the parish of North Curry, east of Somerset’s county town.
The facility has been generating electricity since 2013, with the original planning permission setting its operational limit at 30 years – meaning it would have to be dismantled and the land returned to its original use by 2043.
But Somerset Council‘s planning committee west (which handles major applications within the former Somerset West and Taunton area) has now approved an extension to this permissions, meaning it can continue to generate clean power for a further 25 years.
The solar farm is currently accessible by two means: an access track on Knapp Road near the existing farm buildings, and a public footpath which runs along its western boundary and emerges onto Knapp Hill.
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In addition to extending its operational lifespan, the council’s planning officers have requested that additional landscaping be put in place during the next planning season (i.e. the winter of 2027/28) to provide better screening at the boundaries of the site.
Under the revised permission, the solar farm would have to be completely dismantled by March 31, 2068 or within six months of its ceasing operation (whichever comes sooner) – with the land having to be returned entirely to its former condition by June 30, 2068.
Both Creech St. Michael Parish Council and local division councillor David Fothergill vehemently opposed the extension, with the latter arguing it “fundamentally undermines the temporary nature of the land allocation for solar farms” and would therefore set a potentially distressing legal precedent.
Councillor Frances Nicholson (Conservative, Dulverton and Exmoor) took a different views, welcoming the additional landscaping as part of any extension.
She said: “I’m particularly pleased to see the renewal of the condition around landscaping.
Councillor Frances Nicholson (Conservative, Dulverton and Exmoor) (Image: Somerset Council)
“What’s important is the element which requires maintenance of the landscaping – if that wasn’t present last time, we’ve remedied that now.”
Councillor Gwilym Wren (Independent, Upper Tone) said he found the proposal “quite troubling” and shared Mr Fothergill’s concerns about the loose use of the word ‘temporary’.
He elaborated: “All these solar farms were sold to the local communities and committees on the basis that they were temporary.
“It was going to be 30 years, that crept up to 40, we’re now looking at 55.
“I would submit these are pretty permanent, so long as solar generation is going to be a source of energy. I think the whole ‘temporary’ argument has completely fallen away.”
Councillor Gwilym Wren (Independent, Upper Tone) (Image: Somerset Council)
Councillor Dave Mansell (Green, Upper Tone) disagreed, stating: “The impact of this in landscaping terms is minimal.
“I’m not saying solar farms can go anywhere – they do need to be in the right locations – but there is a view that they’re a very positive sight.
“I have to say, in my eyes, we’re doing something positive to save our future and make a better world. That is seriously important.
“We need more of this sort of thing to contribute to our energy needs. We need more battery energy storage alongside it, but it does make a good contribution.”
After around an hour’s debate, the committee voted to approve the plans by six months to none, with two abstentions.
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Ireland has approved a new package of energy grants for homes and businesses, effective Oct. 6.
The measures include enhanced support for solar PV, alongside incentives for home heating decarbonization and energy retrofits. A new residential battery grant worth up to €600 ($681) is also being introduced.
Ireland already offers a state-administered grant of up to €1,800 for homeowners installing residential solar panels. From Oct. 6, eligibility will be expanded to include newer homes built and occupied before 2025.
Grants of up to €9,000 will also be introduced for lower-income households installing solar and battery systems, while solar-plus-storage systems will be fully funded for people classed as medically vulnerable. In both cases, funding will cover battery capacities of up to 5 kWh and PV systems of up to 4 kW.
The package also includes a €2,000 grant to encourage households to replace boilers with heat pumps.
Solar Ireland, which represents the country’s solar sector, welcomed the introduction of the residential battery grant.
“We have long called for the reintroduction of support for residential battery storage,” said Solar Ireland CEO Ronan Power. “Batteries allow households to make better use of the solar electricity they generate, reduce reliance on the grid during peak periods and provide greater protection from future energy price volatility.”
The package also includes expanded support for businesses. The Irish government said businesses accessing the enhanced solar PV support could reduce annual energy costs by up to €300,000. Grants for solar thermal systems and heat pumps could also deliver savings of up to 45%.
“Businesses across Ireland are facing significant challenges from high energy costs, and we know that improving competitiveness means helping firms reduce their overheads wherever possible,” said Irish Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Peter Burke.
William Walsh, CEO of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), the state agency administering the grants, said the organization has recorded a 200% increase in applications for some grants.
“We’ve had unprecedented demand to our programs this year. These new measures are really welcome and will help us reach even more people next year, especially those most in need,” Walsh said.
The measures come ahead of the Irish government’s 2027 budget, which is due to be announced in the coming weeks. Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment Darragh O’Brien said further measures will be considered as part of next year’s budget.
“The government has already introduced more than €1.4 billion in energy affordability measures since March,” he said.

 
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A research team led by scientists at China’s Nanjing University has developed a healing intervention strategy to improve the efficiency and stability of perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells based on industrial textured silicon.
Textured silicon is particularly important for perovskite-silicon tandem cells because microscopic pyramids on the silicon surface reduce reflection and improve light trapping, increasing the amount of sunlight available for conversion. Such textures are widely used in industrial crystalline silicon solar cells, but their uneven surfaces make it difficult to deposit uniform, defect-free perovskite layers. Achieving conformal perovskite coverage on industrial textured silicon is therefore an important step toward combining high tandem efficiencies with established silicon cell manufacturing processes.
To address this challenge, the researchers applied methylammonium thiocyanate (MASCN) to the perovskite film after its formation. The treatment promoted further crystal growth while maintaining conformal coverage of the textured silicon surface.
“We employ a healing intervention strategy for perovskite top cells, in which an MASCN solution is applied to the as-prepared films to achieve conformal coverage on textured silicon,” the scientists explained. “This approach enables the formation of high-quality perovskite films with minimal grain boundaries, low defect densities, and exceptional stability on various substrates through an Ostwald ripening process.”
The research team used n-type silicon wafers textured on both sides and cut the 4-inch wafers into 2.5 cm × 2.5 cm substrates. The scientists deposited hydrogenated amorphous silicon and indium tin oxide (ITO) layers to form the silicon bottom cell and then thermally co-evaporated lead iodide and cesium bromide onto its textured front surface. They subsequently spin-coated formamidinium iodide and formamidinium bromide to form the perovskite top cell.
For the treated devices, the researchers applied MASCN to the newly formed perovskite film to promote further crystal growth. They then heated the devices at 90 C under nitrogen and annealed them at 150 C in air.
The scientists subsequently applied a passivation treatment and deposited a C60 electron transport layer, tin oxide, a transparent indium zinc oxide (IZO) electrode, silver contacts, and a magnesium fluoride antireflection coating.
The tandem cell was built with a silver (Ag) rear contact, an indium tin oxide (ITO) layer, the silicon bottom cell, another ITO layer, a nickel oxide (NiOx) hole transport layer, a self-assembled monolayer (SAM), and a wide-bandgap (WBG) perovskite absorber. The device also featured a fullerene (C60) electron transport layer, a tin oxide (SnO2) buffer layer, an indium zinc oxide (IZO) transparent electrode, silver contacts, and a magnesium fluoride (MgF2) antireflection coating.
The researchers used scanning electron microscopy to examine film coverage and grain structure, as well as X-ray measurements to assess crystallinity and crystal orientation. They also used photoluminescence and electrical measurements to investigate charge recombination and the film interfaces.
The team compared the electrical performance of treated and untreated control cells, measured the spectral response of each tandem subcell, obtained independent certification for its best-performing device, and tested an encapsulated cell under continuous illumination for 3,400 hours.
“The resulting 1.68 eV wide-bandgap perovskite solar cells achieve a champion efficiency of 21.1%, contributing to a certified stabilized tandem efficiency of 30.77% and an impressive open-circuit voltage of 1.915 V over an active area of 1.164 cm²,” the researchers said. “Notably, an encapsulated device retains its initial performance after 3,400 hours of continuous maximum power point tracking under one-sun illumination in ambient conditions, representing the excellent stability in perovskite/silicon tandem cells reported to date.”
The scientists presented their findings in “Healing intervention for improving the efficiency and stability of tandem devices on industrial textured silicon,” published in Nature Communications.
“This study presents an effective technique for enhancing the quality of perovskite films fabricated via a hybrid two-step deposition method, thereby addressing the photovoltage-loss-induced efficiency limitation in industrial silicon-based tandem solar cells,” the academics concluded.
Scientists from China’s Nanjing University, Renshine Solar (Suzhou), Zhejiang Provincial Innovation Center of Laser Intelligent Equipment Technology, Yunnan University, and Sweden’s Uppsala University contributed to the study.

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Prague-headquartered independent power producer Rezolv Energy says it has signed an up to €561 million ($637.3 million) financing package for its planned 1.3 GW solar plant.
According to an update posted by Rezolv on LinkedIn, the Dama solar project, to be built in the Arad county of western Romania, will be the largest onshore renewable energy project in the European Union.
It is expected to generate around 1.8 TWh of electricity annually once fully operational, equivalent to around 36% of Romania’s total solar electricity generation last year. Rezlov says its production will cover the consumption of over 280,000 households, or close to one million people.
The financing package is underpinned by an anchor investment by the European Investment Bank and comes from a consortium of 14 lenders including ten commercial banks alongside the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Finance Corporation and Black Sea Trade & Development Bank.
Rezolv adds that the financing is its largest transaction signed to date. It is underpinned by two contracts for difference awarded to the project during Romania’s second renewables auction covering 520 MW of the total capacity, the company added, alongside an additional corporate power purchase agreement with an unnamed offtaker.
The financial close follows the granting of final legal approvals for the project by the Romanian Energy Regulatory Authority last month.
Rezolv says the project will now move into construction with commercial operations expected in the second half of 2028.
Romania’s solar market has continued to develop strongly this year, with cumulative capacity exceeding 8.5 GW as of the end of July.
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By Laura Baisas
Published Oct 2, 2026 11:00 AM EDT
The key to helping a nutritious green vegetable grow more efficiently may be the color pink. Magenta-colored solar panels help the broccoli absorb sunlight more efficiently, according to a study published today in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science.
“The basic concept is quite straightforward,” Silvia Ma Lu, a study co-author and engineer at Mälardalen University in Västerås, Sweden, said in a statement. “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. 
The field of agrivoltaics, or using land for both farming and solar power generation, is growing partially due to its versatility. Conventional solar panels allow farmers to produce renewable electricity in fields where ample space is already available. The panels also protect plants from exposure to too much sunlight, and help shield them from hail or heavy rainfall. However, conventional dark-blue solar panels are typically opaque, and can create too much shade. This extra shade reduces some crops’ yields, and semi-transparent and colored panels can help mitigate this crop loss. 
“There is no single agrivoltaic design that will work optimally everywhere,” said Ma Lu. “More research is needed to understand how different crops respond to different system configurations and climatic conditions and to design systems that balance agricultural production with renewable electricity generation.” 
To investigate, the team first had to choose a vegetable. They selected broccoli, a popular (debateable) veggie full of fiber, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, and more. Broccoli is also well suited to the climate of the experimental site on a farm in Sweden. The researchers built two 65-foot by 65-foot (20-meter by 20-meter) systems made from semi-transparent, magenta-colored solar panels with different levels of transparency. This transparency allowed varying amounts of sunlight to reach the plants being cultivated beneath them. In a third plot of land, broccoli plants were fully exposed to the sun. 
EMBED GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
During the 2024 growing season, the team compared the broccoli in each plot. They checked environmental conditions including air temperature, relative humidity, and soil moisture in addition to crop yield, nutrient composition, and how well the plants performed photosynthesis. 
The crops grown with the magenta panels showed a 4.5-fold increase in how efficiently they used sunlight. The broccoli grown here ultimately grew as large as traditional broccoli flowers. However, it took the plants 25 days longer to mature. Still, the solar panels offer a potential tool for farmers to harvest renewable energy while sustaining crop yields at the same time. 
“One of the most interesting findings was how similarly the broccoli performed under the two solar panel systems despite their different transparency levels,” says Ma Lu.
Lu noted that the solar panels with a greater density of photovoltaic cells (the materials in solar panels that convert sunlight into electricity) can produce more electricity, and that these findings should be tested with other growing seasons, crops, and solar panel set-ups. 
Additional research at larger scales could help develop technology for wider use in agriculture. Electricity generated from crops could potentially power irrigation, machinery, cooling and storage systems, or other farm operations. The electricity could also be supplied to the grid, lowering farmers’ electricity bills and providing an additional source of income. 
The team has already begun to test the magenta panels further, as well as red and blue ones. They’ve tested them in controlled lab settings, without interference from light that isn’t filtered through the panels. 
“Configurations similar to our prototype may currently be suitable for smaller-scale applications, such as community gardens, or for integration into greenhouse roofs rather than immediate deployment over large agricultural areas,” said Ma Lu.
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Multitasking in magenta: Colored solar panels could help farms grow crops and generate electricity on shared land  Phys.org
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Renewable energy firm Exus Renewables North America has acquired a four-project solar portfolio totalling 715MWp from ibV Energy Partners, expanding its development pipeline across Wisconsin and Louisiana.
The portfolio comprises the two-phase 310MWp Maple Grove Solar project in Barron County, Wisconsin; the 125MWp Bayou Teche Solar project in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana; and the 280MWp Bayou Chicot Solar project in Evangeline Parish, Louisiana.
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Exus will advance the projects through their next stages of development following the acquisition.
“The acquisition of these projects represents an important step in the continued growth of our development portfolio and reinforces our strategy of building a geographically and technologically diverse portfolio across the US,” said Jim Spencer, president and CEO of Exus Renewables North America.
“These projects are particularly attractive because of their potential to interconnect quickly in markets where demand growth is outpacing available generation. We are pleased to partner with ibV, which shares our belief that successful projects are built through meaningful community engagement and strong local partnerships. We look forward to building on that foundation as we advance the projects.”
The transaction builds on ibV Energy Partners’ development work and expands Exus’ portfolio of utility-scale renewable energy projects in the US.
Exus Renewables North America is an independent owner, developer and operator of utility-scale renewable energy and energy storage projects in the US. The company has more than 6GW of renewable energy capacity across its portfolio, with more than 800MW in operation or under construction.
The firm secured financing for a 130MW solar PV project in Portugal last year. MUFG’s European arm acted as sole mandated lead arranger, hedge provider, facility agent and account bank. Exus did not disclose the value of the financing.
Meanwhile, ibV Energy Partners, the US subsidiary of German renewable energy developer ib vogt, is active across 18 states. The German firm has a global development pipeline of around 29GWp of solar PV, 9.7GW of battery energy storage systems (BESS) and 1.9GW of wind, with nearly 574MWp of solar, 29MW of BESS and 69MW of wind capacity currently under construction, according to the company.

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Vertical solar specialist Over Easy Solar has recently released a new version of its vertical PV system for rooftop applications.
“We have just received the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for our xM-3 flat-roof system,” the company’s CEO, Trygve Mongstad, told pv magazine. “As far as we have been able to establish, this is the first EPD globally for a rooftop PV product covering both the solar panels and the mechanical mounting structure in the same declaration.”
“One interesting detail is that the EPD is expressed per square meter of installed system rather than per kilowatt. The A1-A3 footprint is 51.5 kg CO₂e/m², including both the panels and mounting system. The equivalent global warming footprint for energy generation would be 19 g CO₂e/kWh, assuming a specific yield of 1,000 kWh/kW,” he added.
The xM-3 Quattor-256S is a 256 W bifacial PV unit designed for flat rooftops, including green and gravel roofs.
The prefabricated system consists of four OES64-EU modules arranged vertically. According to the manufacturer, the lightweight design allows unobstructed access for roof inspection, maintenance and repairs. The company offers different support feet for conventional flat roofs, green roofs, gravel surfaces and applications in regions with heavy snowfall.
Each xM-3 Quarttro-256S unit covers 2.31 m² of roof area and weighs approximately 28.4 kg, corresponding to an area load of around 12.2 kg/m². Depending on the support used, ground clearance ranges from 57 mm to 117 mm. The unit incorporates two 3.2 mm sheets of tempered solar glass.
The product uses silicon heterojunction (HJT) solar cells and has a bifaciality factor of 95%. It delivers 256 W at standard test conditions, with a power tolerance of around 3%. Maximum power voltage is 32.96 V and maximum power current is 7.74 A, while open-circuit voltage is 39 V and short-circuit current is 8.04 A. The maximum system voltage is 1,000 V DC.
The module has a power temperature coefficient of -0.24%/C and an operating temperature range of -40 C to 85 C.
Over Easy Solar lists a design load of 1,600 Pa, with a safety factor of 1.5, corresponding to 2,400 Pa. The junction box and connectors are rated IP68, while the product has Class II electrical protection and Class B fire safety.
The manufacturer said 27 units, representing 6.9 kWp of capacity, can be shipped on a single pallet measuring 2,070 mm × 1,600 mm × 1,255 mm.
Several mounting options are available for different rooftop applications, including the STD 60 for conventional flat roofs, the BIO 120 for green roofs, and the STD 125 for gravel roofs or locations with heavy snowfall.
The company specifies first-year power degradation of 1%, followed by annual degradation of 0.583%. The product comes with a 15-year product warranty and a 25-year power-output warranty. Its reference service life in the EPD is also 25 years.
The system is certified to IEC/EN 61215 and IEC/EN 61730 standards, among others, while the datasheet also lists UL 61730 certification. Wind-load calculations are available according to standards covering several European markets, as well as the United States, Canada, Japan and South Korea.
The product is manufactured in China, with the EPD modeling distribution to Norway.

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Exus Renewables North America, a renewable energy company, has purchased a 715MWp solar portfolio consisting of four projects from ibV Energy Partners, broadening its development pipeline into Wisconsin and Louisiana.
The portfolio includes the 310MWp Maple Grove Solar project, developed in two phases, located in Barron County, Wisconsin; the 125MWp Bayou Teche Solar project in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana; and the 280MWp Bayou Chicot Solar project in Evangeline Parish, Louisiana. After completing the acquisition, Exus will move the projects forward through their subsequent development phases.
Jim Spencer, president and CEO of Exus Renewables North America, said the purchase marks a key milestone in the ongoing expansion of the company’s development portfolio and supports its approach of assembling a portfolio that is diverse in both geography and technology throughout the US. He noted that the projects stand out due to their ability to interconnect rapidly in markets where demand growth exceeds available generation. Spencer added that Exus is glad to work with ibV, which shares its conviction that successful projects result from meaningful community engagement and strong local partnerships, and that the company looks forward to building on that foundation as it advances the projects.
The transaction follows on from development work by ibV Energy Partners and grows Exus’s portfolio of utility-scale renewable energy projects in the US.
Exus Renewables North America is an independent owner, developer and operator of utility-scale renewable energy and energy storage projects in the US. Its portfolio contains over 6GW of renewable energy capacity, with more than 800MW either in operation or under construction.
Last year, the company obtained financing for a 130MW solar PV project in Portugal. MUFG‘s European arm acted as sole mandated lead arranger, hedge provider, facility agent and account bank. Exus did not reveal the financing amount.
ibV Energy Partners, the US arm of German renewable energy developer ib vogt, operates in 18 states. The German company reports a global development pipeline of roughly 29GWp of solar PV, 9.7GW of battery energy storage systems and 1.9GW of wind, with close to 574MWp of solar, 29MW of battery energy storage and 69MW of wind capacity currently under construction.
Interactive table based on the Store Companies dataset for this report.
Report Scope and Analytical Framing
Concise View of Market Direction
Market Size, Growth and Scenario Framing
Commercial and Technical Scope
How the Market Splits Into Decision-Relevant Buckets
Where Demand Comes From and How It Behaves
Supply Footprint and Value Capture
Trade Flows and External Dependence
Price Formation and Revenue Logic
Who Wins and Why
How the Domestic Market Works
Commercial Entry and Scaling Priorities
Where the Best Expansion Logic Sits
Leading Players and Strategic Archetypes
How the Report Was Built
Major US solar manufacturer
Residential & commercial solar
Former Cree LED business
Spin-off from SunPower
Specialty & high-power LEDs
LED technology & solutions
Advanced photonics
Residential solar panels
CIGS solar technology
US & Canadian manufacturing
North American manufacturing
US-made solar panels
US operations of Korean parent
3D architecture LEDs
High-quality lighting
High-brightness microdisplays
Disinfection & purification
US crystalline silicon solar
Next-generation tandem cells
Tandem cell technology
Manufacturing equipment
Turnkey production lines
Distributor & assembler
Residential & commercial
Former Philips business
Specialty & horticultural
Military & commercial
Aluminum nitride substrates
Materials for UV LEDs
US division of Kyocera
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Aurora Solar has launched a new quarterly benchmark that tracks how U.S. homeowners view solar professionals and what shapes their confidence in adopting solar, according to the company. The report, called the Aurora Solar Trust Signal, arrives in response to a recurring finding in Aurora Solar’s data that homeowners want to know which companies can be trusted.
Aurora Solar’s annual Aurora Solar Snapshot surveys homeowners about their opinions of solar. In 2023, 22 percent cited trustworthiness of solar companies as a concern, a figure that nearly doubled to 43 percent in 2024 before easing to 41 percent in 2025 and 36 percent in 2026.
The quarterly Trust Signal examines those findings more closely, functioning as a recurring check on homeowner trust in the solar industry. According to the data, the industry is making positive inroads: between August 2025 and July 2026, a growing share of homeowners reported no negative experience with a solar company, with improvement recorded in each quarter.
Aurora Solar said the numbers point to a broader theme, namely that homeowners want guidance on how best to evaluate a solar company, and that better-informed homeowners are less likely to judge installers by the reputation of a few industry outliers.
Chris Hopper, co-founder of Aurora Solar, said homeowners choosing solar and home electrification are making a decision about technology they will live with for 25 years or more, often without enough information to assess the offer in front of them. He described that as a difficult position for a buyer and a challenging one to sell into, and said the Trust Signal is how the company measures that gap while the Aurora Solar Marketplace is how it aims to close it, by giving homeowners real production estimates and side-by-side installer comparisons.
While surveying homeowners about their experiences, Aurora Solar also asked a broader set of questions about how they evaluate solar, and the company highlighted several findings from that work.
Aurora Solar plans to publish an updated Trust Signal every quarter and to continue tracking the broader market through the annual Snapshot. According to the company, the two reports together should give the industry a short-term read on whether homeowner experiences are improving and a multi-year view of how homeowners feel about solar.
Interactive table based on the Store Companies dataset for this report.
Report Scope and Analytical Framing
Concise View of Market Direction
Market Size, Growth and Scenario Framing
Commercial and Technical Scope
How the Market Splits Into Decision-Relevant Buckets
Where Demand Comes From and How It Behaves
Supply Footprint and Value Capture
Trade Flows and External Dependence
Price Formation and Revenue Logic
Who Wins and Why
How the Domestic Market Works
Commercial Entry and Scaling Priorities
Where the Best Expansion Logic Sits
Leading Players and Strategic Archetypes
How the Report Was Built
Major US solar manufacturer
Residential & commercial solar
Former Cree LED business
Spin-off from SunPower
Specialty & high-power LEDs
LED technology & solutions
Advanced photonics
Residential solar panels
CIGS solar technology
US & Canadian manufacturing
North American manufacturing
US-made solar panels
US operations of Korean parent
3D architecture LEDs
High-quality lighting
High-brightness microdisplays
Disinfection & purification
US crystalline silicon solar
Next-generation tandem cells
Tandem cell technology
Manufacturing equipment
Turnkey production lines
Distributor & assembler
Residential & commercial
Former Philips business
Specialty & horticultural
Military & commercial
Aluminum nitride substrates
Materials for UV LEDs
US division of Kyocera
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The Kern County Board of Supervisors has granted approval for the Galaxy Solar PV and Storage Project, which combines 600MW of solar photovoltaic generation with a 4GWh battery energy storage system, as reported by pv-tech. The initiative, advanced by US independent power producer Terra-Gen, is slated for approximately 3,519 acres distributed over 184 parcels of privately owned land in unincorporated southeastern Kern County, close to California City, California.
The location lies south of Highway 58, roughly 2,900 feet east of Highway 14, and extends along both sides of Silver Queen Road. Sam Sours, Terra-Gen’s vice president of solar development, spoke to the Board on 29 September, stating that the project should produce roughly US$16.1 million in property taxes during its first full year of operation. Over a 35-year operational lifespan, the project is projected to deliver approximately US$120 million in property taxes, according to Sours.
Regarding employment, the project is anticipated to sustain about 350 operational roles, with construction employment expected to reach a peak of around 650 workers. Terra-Gen indicated that the construction workforce will be hired through a local union labour agreement that has already been executed.
The development is also designed to support California’s objective of sourcing 60% of retail electricity sales from renewable energy by 2030. Terra-Gen stated that Joshua trees in the vicinity of the project site will be moved and replanted at a tree sanctuary located in Los Angeles County.
Terra-Gen manages approximately 4.2GW of wind, solar and battery storage capacity across the US, including roughly 1.1GW of operating solar capacity and 5.6GWh of energy storage. The company maintains a development pipeline of about 16GW.
In December 2025, Terra-Gen completed financing for the 205MW Lockhart III & IV solar PV project in San Bernardino County, California. The US$383.3 million financing arrangement consisted of a US$236.1 million tax equity bridge loan, a US$107.5 million construction and term loan, and US$39.7 million in unfunded facilities.
During 2024, UAE state-owned renewable energy developer Masdar purchased a 50% stake in the company from Energy Capital Partners. Igneo Infrastructure Partners kept its existing 50% holding after the deal.
Interactive table based on the Store Companies dataset for this report.
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Commercial and Technical Scope
How the Market Splits Into Decision-Relevant Buckets
Where Demand Comes From and How It Behaves
Supply Footprint and Value Capture
Trade Flows and External Dependence
Price Formation and Revenue Logic
Who Wins and Why
How the Domestic Market Works
Commercial Entry and Scaling Priorities
Where the Best Expansion Logic Sits
Leading Players and Strategic Archetypes
How the Report Was Built
Major US solar manufacturer
Residential & commercial solar
Former Cree LED business
Spin-off from SunPower
Specialty & high-power LEDs
LED technology & solutions
Advanced photonics
Residential solar panels
CIGS solar technology
US & Canadian manufacturing
North American manufacturing
US-made solar panels
US operations of Korean parent
3D architecture LEDs
High-quality lighting
High-brightness microdisplays
Disinfection & purification
US crystalline silicon solar
Next-generation tandem cells
Tandem cell technology
Manufacturing equipment
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100 MW solar project planned east of Holland  Pipestone County Star
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As solar development continues to expand across Pennsylvania, understanding the factors shaping these projects is increasingly important for communities, landowners, and local officials. 
This event explores current market trends, siting considerations, and local zoning authorities, along with potential impacts on farmland and municipal infrastructure. 
Participants will gain practical information to help them better understand and navigate solar proposals in their communities.
Who is this for?
— Farmers; Energy professionals; Landowners; Local government officials; Members of the public.
What will you learn?
— Solar siting considerations
— Local zoning
— Relevant legislation
— Concerns for landowners and communities
The October 29 workshop will be held at the Penn State Extension Lehigh County Office, 4184 Dorney Park Road in Allentown from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
The October 30 workshop will be held at the Penn State Extension Northampton County Office, 14 Gracedale Ave., Nazareth from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Click Here to register for either event and for more information.
Visit the Penn State Extension website to learn more about many other educational opportunities.
Related Articles This Week:
— PA Solar Center: Union Aid Society, EIS Solar Turn Sunshine Into Support For The Community With Solar Energy Installation In Allegheny County  [PaEN]
— TribLive: Second Harvest Community Thrift Store Solar Energy Array Powering Good In Sharpsburg, Allegheny County
— Sustainable Pittsburgh Hosts Nov. 5 Webinar – The Affordability Crisis Is A Sustainability Crisis – Need For Action To Reduce Barriers To Sustainability, Strengthening Communities In SW PA  [PaEN]
NewsClips:
— WESA – Rachel McDevitt: Green Advocates Organize Group Buy Of Solar Panels For Pittsburghers To Save On Energy Bills
— TribLive Guest Essay:  Pittsburgh Faces A Climate And Power Challenge, Clean Energy Can Help – By Dana Siler, Cynthia Kirsch, Rob Kahn, Pittsburgh Chapter of Citizens’ Climate Lobby 
[Posted: October 1, 2026]  PA Environment Digest

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Ørsted has broken ground on Blackwater Solar, a 200 MW photovoltaic facility in Roosevelt County, New Mexico, the company said in a press release. This marks its inaugural venture in the state, alongside a $100,000 pledge to Playa Lakes Joint Venture aimed at restoring and protecting nearby wetlands.
Situated between Portales and Clovis, the solar farm is designed to produce sufficient power for the equivalent of over 56,000 households each year within the Southwest Power Pool area. A long-term power purchase agreement underpins the project, intended to address rising industrial electricity needs in New Mexico. The panels were procured from First Solar, a domestic producer. Operations are slated to begin in late 2027.
Melissa Peterson, who leads Americas Onshore at Ørsted, described the initiative as a promising debut for the company in New Mexico, delivering cost-effective local energy and enduring advantages to the surrounding area. She noted that Ørsted is proud to make its first state investment and aims to be a steadfast ally to Roosevelt County residents.
In line with its role as a community partner and land steward, Ørsted is directing $100,000 to Playa Lakes Joint Venture for wetland restoration close to Melrose, New Mexico. This will aid in preserving an 8.8-acre playa, a vital asset for regional fauna and water supplies. It follows an earlier collaboration with PLJV in West Texas, where Ørsted’s backing facilitated the recovery of over 700 acres of playa habitat spanning five counties. More than 2,100 playas exist in eastern New Mexico, functioning as key water sources and wildlife refuges.
Rich Schultheis, PLJV Coordinator, stated that the group collaborates with various partners to safeguard natural resources for both communities and ecosystems. He welcomed Ørsted’s monetary support for reviving these essential wetlands and the mutual recognition of biodiversity’s value, finding it gratifying that the company backs avian habitat recovery and enhances playa ecological roles.
Blackwater Solar and the related conservation funding exemplify Ørsted’s strategy of satisfying escalating power needs while generating sustained environmental and financial gains in host communities. Beyond the conservation outlay, the project is projected to deliver close to $18 million in property taxes to Roosevelt County throughout its lifespan, aiding schools, infrastructure, emergency services, and other public goods.
Ørsted’s Americas Onshore division manages more than 6 gigawatts of wind, solar, and battery storage across eight states. It ranks among the largest independent power producers with multiple technologies in the U.S., working with landowners and communities to supply affordable, dependable energy. With roughly 250 staff, the unit develops, builds, and runs projects for utilities and corporate buyers under long-term agreements.
This report provides an in-depth analysis of the Solar Panels market in the United States, covering market size, growth trajectory, demand structure, supply capability, trade flows, pricing, competitive landscape, and forecast to 2035.
The study is designed for manufacturers, distributors, importers, exporters, investors, procurement teams, advisors, and strategy teams that need a consistent, data-driven view of market dynamics and a transparent analytical definition of the product scope.
This report covers photovoltaic (PV) solar panels, which are devices that convert sunlight directly into electricity. It encompasses the global market for finished modules, including all major product technologies and form factors designed for a wide range of end-use applications.
The report combines the standard market-statistics backbone with strategic chapters that are useful for commercial planning, sourcing decisions, market entry, competitor monitoring, and portfolio prioritization.
The market is segmented into decision-relevant buckets so that demand drivers, pricing logic, supply constraints, and competitive positions can be compared across the same analytical frame.
The market data is classified and analyzed according to international trade codes, primarily under the Harmonized System (HS) headings for photovoltaic cells and electric generating sets. This ensures consistent tracking of trade flows for assembled solar modules and relevant apparatus across global markets.
Coverage focuses on United States and includes demand, supply capability where present, trade flows, pricing, competition, and outlook.
The report combines official statistics, trade records, company disclosures, product-level evidence, and analyst validation. Data are standardized, reconciled, and cross-checked to keep market sizing, trade flows, pricing, and forecasts comparable across countries and time periods.
All indicators are mapped to a consistent product definition and reviewed against the segmentation framework used in the Table of Contents.
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Where Demand Comes From and How It Behaves
Supply Footprint and Value Capture
Trade Flows and External Dependence
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Silfab Solar has set out a plan to begin operating its solar cell production facility in Fort Mill, South Carolina, according to Solar Power World. The company has faced safety concerns voiced by the community located along the North Carolina border regarding the plant’s operation.
Silfab chose on its own to bring in TRC Engineers to carry out an independent engineering assessment of the methods and procedures used to prevent and respond to leaks in its solar cell manufacturing processes. The manufacturing process relies on specific chemicals, including silane, anhydrous ammonia, hydrochloric acid, potassium hydroxide and hydrofluoric acid, to convert a silicon wafer into a solar cell. A contained chemical incident earlier this year raised questions about the safety of the Silfab site.
TRC issued a detailed report determining that Silfab had designed and installed equipment featuring multiple redundant safety features that satisfied or surpassed regulatory requirements. That report has been provided to the South Carolina Dept. of Environmental Services.
TRC also offered suggestions for further strengthening safety at the site, such as installing additional detection systems, alarms and shut-off valves across the plant. Silfab has either already carried out those suggestions or will do so as manufacturing lines begin operation. The company anticipates that commissioning of the lines will start on Oct. 19.
Paolo Maccario, Silfab president and CEO, said that following the comprehensive, thorough and independent review by TRC Engineers, the company is proud that its existing safety systems and operational controls were confirmed to meet or exceed regulatory standards. He added that Silfab went further by acting decisively to implement additional recommendations, strengthening system redundancies, enhancing real-time monitoring and advancing emergency response coordination.
Silfab has posted the report findings and commissioning plans for the public on its website.
Interactive table based on the Store Companies dataset for this report.
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Commercial and Technical Scope
How the Market Splits Into Decision-Relevant Buckets
Where Demand Comes From and How It Behaves
Supply Footprint and Value Capture
Trade Flows and External Dependence
Price Formation and Revenue Logic
Who Wins and Why
How the Domestic Market Works
Commercial Entry and Scaling Priorities
Where the Best Expansion Logic Sits
Leading Players and Strategic Archetypes
How the Report Was Built
Major US solar manufacturer
Residential & commercial solar
Former Cree LED business
Spin-off from SunPower
Specialty & high-power LEDs
LED technology & solutions
Advanced photonics
Residential solar panels
CIGS solar technology
US & Canadian manufacturing
North American manufacturing
US-made solar panels
US operations of Korean parent
3D architecture LEDs
High-quality lighting
High-brightness microdisplays
Disinfection & purification
US crystalline silicon solar
Next-generation tandem cells
Tandem cell technology
Manufacturing equipment
Turnkey production lines
Distributor & assembler
Residential & commercial
Former Philips business
Specialty & horticultural
Military & commercial
Aluminum nitride substrates
Materials for UV LEDs
US division of Kyocera
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You’re reading Dispatch Markets, a weekly dive into the forces driving economic growth—and those holding it back—featuring Scott Lincicome, Kyla Scanlon, Karl Smith, Marian Tupy, and Adam Ozimek.
One of the least-discussed errors in policymaking today is the assumption that a bold policy experiment could be quickly undone when its failures become apparent. Sure, we are often told, this tax, subsidy, nation-building experiment, or whatever ignores or even contradicts the mainstream view, but the policy might work for us. And, even if it doesn’t work, it won’t cost much, the status quo stinks, and we can just reverse it all later.
All too often, however, American politicians who find themselves in a self-made hole don’t reverse course; they keep on digging. 
This is certainly not a new failing. Every tariff, subsidy, mandate, and waiver creates winners who stand to lose big if the policy goes away, and the politicians who created the policy stand to lose at the ballot box if they ignore the winners’ pleas and publicly admit error. Once a policy is enacted, it acquires lobbyists, congressional champions, and regulators with a stake in its survival. So, the political response to the policy’s effects—even very predictable ones—is usually another intervention, not backtracking or repeal. In this way, these policies are much more like quicksand than a simple hole: Once you’re stuck, it’s incredibly hard to get out—and the more you struggle, the deeper you get. 
The White House in 2026 has given us a host of new examples.
The diesel export ban now under consideration provides the most salient recent case. Trump’s war with Iran has left the Strait of Hormuz semi-closed and significantly reduced Middle East refinery runs and diesel exports. This foreseeable outcome, along with Ukrainian airstrikes on Russian refineries and a Russian export ban, has crippled global diesel supplies because refineries everywhere (including here) are already running full steam and can’t pick up the slack. World market prices, in turn, have hit historic highs, and energy producers warn the situation will persist for another year even if the war stops tomorrow.
The United States makes a ton of diesel but has still been affected. Diesel prices here are closely tied to global prices, so the Iran supply shock has driven the national average above $6.50 a gallon, almost a full $3 above where it was last year and hurting a wide range of U.S. firms that rely on the workhorse fuel. 
High diesel prices are especially bad for American farmers, who are now heading into harvest season, when they burn the most diesel. Their fuel bills have increased by tens of thousands of dollars per month, and suddenly deep red places like Iowa and Kansas, where farmers and ranchers were already miffed by U.S. trade policy (more on that in a sec), are in play for Democrats.
Instead of ending the standoff with Iran (if he even could), or at least broadening the Jones Act waiver (which he unfortunately narrowed last month), the president says he is “thinking very seriously” about banning diesel exports, which have boomed in response to the global supply void. The White House insists no decision has been made, but the indecision hasn’t stopped experts (including my Cato colleagues) and industry groups from widely agreeing that a ban would be a huge mistake.
Fuel prices are set on global markets, and the U.S. doesn’t have sufficient transport capacity—pipelines, ships, etc.—for all regions to consume only U.S. production, which is concentrated on the Gulf Coast. An export ban would therefore leave U.S. refiners with nowhere to send their product, so they’d eventually reduce output, thus causing domestic diesel prices to eventually match the now-higher global price. Some Americans would see a few weeks of price relief, but it would land in the wrong places: The biggest price increases are in places—the West Coast, the Rockies, the Midwest, and New England—that need to import at least some fuel from abroad, where diesel prices would rise in response to the export ban. (Oxford Economics, a global economics advisory firm, estimates that European wholesale prices could jump 40 to 50 percent.) Over the long term, new Washington-made risks to U.S. oil production and profitability would discourage investment in the domestic energy sector, while the global price hike would anger allies and encourage foreign customers to find more reliable suppliers, including Chinese ones. 
In short, diesel export restrictions would deliver a small, temporary price break to the Americans who need it the least, while making things worse in the medium and long term. Indeed, U.S. fuel export bans of the 1970s depressed domestic production and raised prices before Washington repealed them. No wonder, then, that even Energy Secretary Chris Wright has called export restrictions a blunt tool that won’t work. 
Most of the alternatives on the table—“voluntary” export curbs, a suspension of the federal diesel tax, and state-level relief—are more of the same quicksand. Each treats the diesel price, which is a symptom, instead of causes that Washington controls: Iran, record biofuel blending mandates, the Jones Act, and a permitting regime that discourages or even blocks new pipeline construction. As my Cato colleagues explain, fixing the pipeline problem would actually lower diesel prices without wrecking export markets, but they’re not the quick, politically palatable fix the White House wants. That’s why a Jones Act waiver that’s helped coastal areas access huge amounts of U.S. diesel now requires slower, case-by-case approval and is scheduled to expire in mid-November.
So, since Trump can’t or won’t end the war, we might get an export ban—and sink deeper into the very mess the administration’s bad decisions helped create.
The diesel ban hasn’t happened yet, of course, but the administration has followed through on plenty of other quicksand policies. Most notable are its attempts to “fix” the predictable problems caused by Trump’s tariffs and trade wars, which not only raised prices but also cut U.S. farm exports to China to their lowest level since 2007 and, as I wrote last week in the Washington Post, have become a major midterm problem for campaigning Republicans because of their wide and growing unpopularity. 
The Trump administration has nixed a few tariffs to address affordability issues, but the vast majority of them remain. And the Trump administration has dug even deeper through a series of policies that attack the tariff regime’s predictable results, spend more taxpayer money (that we don’t have), and further expand the administrative state:
None of it makes any sense, but Trump just likes tariffs, so here we are, doing the same kinds of crazy, ineffective trade workarounds that Trump did during his first term, only on a much grander scale.
But wait, there’s more. As the Wall Street Journal just reported, the president’s price-increasing policies (tariffs, Iran, immigration restrictions, etc.) and total disinterest in fiscal restraint have combined with a longer-term, bipartisan refusal to deal with the federal debt’s systemic drivers to push up inflation, U.S. bond yields, and interest rates. Most notable in this regard is the rate on a 30-year mortgage, which topped 7.5 percent this week and surely added to voter angst over housing affordability. The Journal reports that, per White House advisers, the debt barely registers with Trump, who instead (and bizarrely) thinks that interest rate cuts would be a magical shortcut to shrinking the government’s bill, which is partly driven by now-trillion-dollar interest payments. 
So, instead of pursuing any semblance of fiscal restraint, the administration has turned to gimmicks. As we discussed in February, Trump ordered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy $200 billion of mortgage bonds, which only dented rates for a couple of days (they now sit more than a full percentage point above their late-February low). More recently, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has tried bond buybacks to lower Treasury yields, tripling the size of his department’s normal operations. Yet the 10-year yield actually rose after Bessent’s most recent announcement, and institutional investors openly warn that Treasury’s moves could undermine its credibility and (rightly) signal that the government is unserious about taming the debt, perversely pushing yields even higher. 
In case after case, the Trump administration has moved to “fix” bad policy with even more bad policy, instead of addressing what got us here in the first place. Often these fixes make matters even worse, and—outside of maybe a broader Jones Act waiver (inshallah!)—they’re always pushing the government deeper into the U.S. economy.
This policy quicksand certainly isn’t limited to Republicans in 2026. As I wrote in 2021, both Trump and Joe Biden repeatedly tried to paper over the effects of their economic interventions with even more interventions, often making things worse—and undermining better reforms—in the process. A year later, the fossil-fuel antagonist Biden responded to the 2022 gas/diesel price spike with a call for gas tax holidays and a scolding letter to refiners, and his administration issued E15 waivers in 2022 through 2024, which Trump has continued. Earlier presidents did similar stuff, and Congress surely isn’t blameless, either.
On the bright side, most of the White House’s moves right now are executive actions rather than statutes and thus not certain to last beyond Trump’s term, if even that long. But they still raise real risks. Any “temporary” policy that delivers goodies to politically powerful groups—farmers, steelmakers, homebuyers, whatever—becomes difficult to reverse once a constituency starts depending on it and a politician starts viewing the scheme as a shortcut to reelection. These Band-Aids also let politicians avoid fixing the underlying policies—on trade, foreign adventurism, or anything else—that created the problems the political pacifiers supposedly ameliorate.
As the classic Milton Friedman quote indicates, this dynamic is common, and we’re seeing it again right now, as farm groups lobby to make E15 permanent after five straight years of “temporary” waivers. Denying them would cost votes in critical states, so the safe money’s on E15 sticking around. The policy’s long-run damage—to our engines, food supply, economy, and political system—will likely never show up on a ballot, and the policies that actually hurt American farmers in the first place will likely remain in place indefinitely.
This quicksand risk should factor into all discussions of economic and foreign policy, especially in widely studied areas like taxes, tariffs, and debt, where we have a very good idea of how market players will react. Yet it rarely does, and we’re all worse off for it. Considering the risk doesn’t mean the government should stop making policy altogether, of course, but it does urge caution about enacting “bold” new policy experiments that contradict a well-earned consensus. The problem is not only that the experiment might fail, but that the policymakers who enacted it will, instead of admitting fault, enact even more bad policy to hide their mistakes and win the next election.
That’s an option the market thankfully doesn’t offer to private parties who make similar errors, and that’s yet another reason to favor it over whatever scheme the guys in Washington come up with next.
Northern Ireland has strict alcohol regulations that prevented the German-owned supermarket chain Aldi from selling beer and wine at one of its Belfast locations. So, the company did the smart thing: apply for a pub license and build a giant pub inside the store. Now the pub, called the “Middle Ale” (get it?!), is wildly popular with locals.  “It’s a good excuse to go shopping,” said one patron, “If I forget the toilet roll, I can just come back for another glass of wine on the way.” Sounds divine.
Wow.
America’s getting richer all the time:
Trade deals ain’t working yet (especially because Switzerland is mostly gold):
I’m sure this will work out well for American farmers:
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above do not necessarily reflect those of the presenting sponsor.
Scott Lincicome is an author of the Dispatch Markets newsletter, vice president of general economics and trade at the Cato Institute, and a visiting lecturer at Duke University Law School. He wrote the Capitolism newsletter at The Dispatch from 2020 through 2026.
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