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A big part of the Iran war has been its impact on gas prices.
The war in Iran, which escalated in a matter of weeks, has shown just how complex wars can be. They never go as planned, especially because all parties involved have a say, and one can never predict how the other will act.
While no one doubted that the U.S. and Israel had an advantage over Iran from a military perspective, the conflict has proven difficult because Iran has used tactics to wage war on the global economy as a result of their influence over oil.
Here's why the aftermath of this conflict could make a strong case for buying renewable energy stocks.
Image source: Getty Images.
If there's been a weak spot for the U.S. in the war in Iran and broader Middle East conflict, it's been the world's reliance on foreign oil, much of which lies in the Middle East.
Once the conflict began, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) essentially halted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which borders Iran. The Strait of Hormuz is a 20- to 30-milewide body of water through which 20% of the world's oil flows daily in normal times. After the war broke out, the IRGC threatened to attack ships not approved for passage by Tehran.
This effectively brought activity to a standstill because oil companies didn't want to risk ships and crews being attacked when passing through. That's why crude oil has risen above $100 per barrel on several occasions in recent weeks. Furthermore, other energy assets in the Middle East, such as natural gas facilities, have also been damaged and could take years to rebuild. That adds to the stress on broader energy markets.
Energy costs are also embedded in so many other areas of the economy that higher prices end up serving as a tax on consumers while raising the cost of doing business for businesses. Higher oil prices came at a bad time for the U.S. economy, which has been trying to escape elevated inflation and exacerbated affordability issues since the pandemic.
This should bolster the case for reducing reliance on the global oil supply chain and increasing energy production that can be completely done in the U.S. Renewable clean energy sources, such as solar, wind, and other electrification methods, are an obvious choice.
"Renewables and its associated technologies are now commonly perceived as an energy security tool, no longer only a way to combat pollution and climate change, but a geopolitical asset supported by pragmatism rather than idealism," Gonzalo Escribano, a senior fellow for energy and climate at the Madrid-based Elcano Royal Institute, told CNBC in an email. "Even among governments and citizens with little concern for environmental issues."
While renewable energy is by no means a new concept, there is still significant runway in the sector. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, renewable energy made up about 9% of total primary energy production in 2024. Natural gas and petroleum still accounted for 38% and 35% of production, respectively.
Furthermore, the Trump administration has not emphasized renewable energy and has removed many government incentives for renewables, such as the federal tax credit for electric vehicles.
Still, the sector has performed well, primarily because artificial intelligence (AI) has driven tremendous demand for power to fuel the massive data centers and other infrastructure needed to support the new groundbreaking technology.
The iShares Global Clean Energy ETF and the Invesco Solar ETF are up roughly 54% and 75%, respectively, over the past year, although both are still down significantly over the past five years.
I believe what has happened in recent weeks in the Iran war could place a new emphasis on renewable energy. It should get much more attention if deemed of national security importance, which I think is hard to dispute at this point.
Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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SAN ANGELO, TX — Doral Renewables has closed nearly $900 million in financing and issued a notice to proceed for the Cold Creek Solar + Storage project in Tom Green and Schleicher counties. 
The 430 MWac solar facility with 340 MWh of battery storage is expected to begin commercial operation in summer 2028. MUFG led the financing syndicate, which included Santander, HSBC, Ally and IDB. The package features more than $400 million in construction-to-term debt, about $35 million in tax equity bridge financing, $55 million in letters of credit, and a $360 million production tax credit transfer agreement. 
The project marks Doral’s second-largest financing to date, behind its 1.3 GW Mammoth Solar complex in Indiana.
“This project will be a cornerstone for our future work across the Lone Star State,” said Evan Speece, Doral Renewables’ chief financial officer. 
Doral’s solar and storage development portfolio now totals nearly 18 GW, with about 450 MW in operation and close to 1,500 MW under construction. 
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play One oh Four One FM KMOX on Audacy
A new solar project was announced in East St. Louis on Tuesday
An electrical bill sits on a table
A new program will provide some East St. Louis residents with cheaper renewable energy.
Once up and running, the East St. Louis Solar Project will provide over 2,000 households with free energy. Another 1,000 households will receive energy discounted by 50%.
Former Mayor Alvin Parks says the project could be a lifeline for some residents.
"People are struggling between, 'do I get medicine or do I pay this light bill? Do I pay this light bill or do I send this brilliant child to college?' Now, it's going to be a little bit easier [for them] to do some of those other things because they're not being strangled by electrical bills."

Former East Saint Louis Mayor, Albert Parks, speaks at a Tuesday press conference in the East Saint Louis City Hall.Jade Aubrey

Officials said ownership over the solar panels will transition to community leaders after 7 years of operation. The development is projected to produce energy for over a decade after that.
The project will be located at the intersection of N 29th Street and Illinois Avenue, which used to be an industrial waste site.
While there's no word yet on when construction will begin, KMOX will have updates when more information becomes available.
A new solar project was announced in East St. Louis on Tuesday

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…To take effect April 1
Nigeria’s fast-growing solar power sector is facing a new constraint as China moves to dismantle the export subsidies that once made renewable hardware historically cheap.
For years, developers and households across Africa’s most populous country benefited from a flood of low-cost Chinese solar modules, which underpinned everything from rooftop installations in Lagos to mini-grid projects in the country’s underserved north. Now, that pricing dynamic is shifting.
BusinessDay’s findings showed Beijing will end value-added tax rebates on solar panel exports from April 1, 2026 and gradually phase out incentives for battery manufacturing, a move that analysts say will lift costs across Nigeria and other African countries, where most equipment is imported.
Read also: Data centre boom overtakes oil, solar investments as capex hits $770bn
The consequences matter most in Nigeria, where millions suffer some of the world’s most acute power shortages, with several households and businesses running diesel generators at a cost that has long made solar an attractive alternative.
“We are likely to see solar panel prices increase in Africa because most of the inputs come from China,” Wangari Muchiri, an energy analyst focused on the continent’s clean energy sector, told AP news. “Removing the rebate will add to existing costs, especially when you consider shipping, logistics, and other import fees.”
Fierce competition among Chinese manufacturers sent module prices crashing from roughly $0.25 per watt in 2022 to as little as $0.07 per watt in 2025, a collapse that made solar the cheapest source of energy across much of the world but left many producers nursing heavy losses.
Beijing, now trying to drain industrial overcapacity and pivot toward more sophisticated technologies, has pulled back the subsidies that enabled that pricing.
John van Zuylen, chief executive of the Africa Solar Industry Association, said the “entire recent solar boom was built on artificially cheap Chinese pricing.
“That era is now ending,” van Zuylen said.
For Nigerian buyers, the most likely outcome is a slow upward drift in what they pay, not a single dramatic spike that would freeze projects overnight.
“When a structural rebate is removed, exporters typically either absorb the cost, raise prices, or reduce discounting,” van Zuylen said. “African countries will likely feel this as a gradual upward shift in pricing rather than a single dramatic spike.”
Even so, the ripple effects through Africa’s project pipeline could be meaningful. “It will increase project costs slightly and might delay the project construction pipeline due to supply chain shortages and contractual changes, stockpiling rush, congestion in shipment for countries heavily reliant on Chinese imports,” said Sonia Dunlop, chief executive of the Global Solar Council.
Developers who had locked in earlier pricing assumptions may find their numbers no longer add up.
Read also: Yobe gets $5m World Bank grant to power critical institutions with solar
Batteries Present the Harder Problem
If higher panel prices are a manageable headache, the phaseout of battery storage incentives may prove to be a more serious complication.
Storage is what transforms solar from a daytime supplement into something approaching reliable electricity, a distinction that matters enormously across a continent where power demand runs around the clock and grid infrastructure is thin.
“Batteries matter more than panels for Africa because storage is what makes solar reliable for off-grid and backup users,” van Zuylen said.
For most of the history of solar adoption in Nigeria, battery storage was simply too expensive to include in most installations. Systems were built to push power during daylight hours and go dark after sunset. Only recently have the economics of pairing solar with storage started to shift.
“Batteries have historically been expensive, and many solar installations in Africa were built without them,” said Basil Abia, co-founder of Truva Intelligence, a Nigerian energy research firm. “Only recently have we started seeing more systems combining solar with battery storage.”
Implications for Nigeria’s households
For ordinary Nigerians and the small business owners who have quietly built their own workarounds to an unreliable national grid, the China price reset lands at a particularly delicate moment.
Over the past half-decade, the slide in panel prices unlocked solar for a class of Nigerians who had previously been priced out entirely.
Middle-income families in cities like Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt who could not afford the N3 million to N5 million that a decent solar system once cost began to find the numbers workable as prices fell.
Micro-businesses, the hair salon running clippers, the roadside welder, the phone repair shop that needs a screen on all day, made the switch in large numbers, calculating that the upfront cost would pay itself back within two to three years against what they had been spending on generators and petrol.
If battery prices rise as Chinese incentives are withdrawn, the full solar-plus-storage package becomes harder to justify for the household on a tight budget.
Fewer will buy panels and batteries together. The result is a slower transition away from generators, and from the noise, the fumes, and the fuel bills that go with them, a daily reality that Nigerians in every income bracket know with an intimacy that no energy statistic quite captures.
For businesses, the stakes are somewhat different but no less concrete. A manufacturing outfit or cold-storage operator that invested in solar to stabilise its cost base has already locked in its gains.
But the medium-sized enterprise that was building a case to its board for a solar retrofit, pointing to falling prices and short payback periods, now has to update those projections. Approvals that looked straightforward six months ago require a fresh look today.
Read also: Blackouts drive more Nigerians off-grid as solar demand booms
The policy shift in Beijing is also forcing a longer-term conversation about Africa’s industrial strategy. Nearly all of the solar equipment installed across the continent is imported, almost entirely from China, a dependence that leaves African energy projects exposed to decisions made in Beijing’s ministries and boardrooms.
Despite significant aspirations, local solar manufacturing capacity across Africa remains thin. The combination of weak domestic demand signals, limited access to capital, and the inability to compete with Chinese prices has made it difficult to build industries from the ground up. The removal of Chinese subsidies narrows the pricing gap, but doesn’t close it.
Abia argued that the moment contains an opportunity, even if it arrives with costs attached.
“The VAT removal will slow, but not reverse Africa’s clean energy transition,” he said. “Countries that use this moment to accelerate local manufacturing will emerge stronger. Those that do not will remain exposed to Beijing’s next industrial policy adjustment.”
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A new study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory published in the journal iScience uses a new methodology to predict patterns for utility-scale wind and solar energy costs and concludes that they will progressively decline in the coming years.
Solar Energy Technologies Office
Projections of the future cost of wind and solar power generation can help inform investments and power sector planning. But accurately projecting the future cost of renewable generation is challenging. One commonly used method—learning curves—holds that for each doubling of deployment, costs fall by a certain percentage, known as the learning rate. The learning rate is derived from the historical relationship between cost and deployment and can be applied to deployment projections to estimate future costs.
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Past learning curve studies have often focused on the upfront installed cost of wind and solar. But installed cost is just one of a handful of inputs—including operating costs, financing cost, and annual energy production—that affect the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) generated, and each of these cost components can benefit from learning.
In a new study published in the journal iScience, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers Mark Bolinger, Ryan Wiser, and Eric O’Shaughnessy improve upon past learning curves for utility-scale wind and solar through a combination of approaches. First, drawing on Berkeley Lab’s extensive utility-scale wind and solar plant databases, they calculate plant-level LCOE estimates over time, and then use LCOE, rather than installed costs, to assess historical learning curves. Second, they normalize LCOE to control for, or remove, external influences that are unrelated to learning. Finally, they employ techniques to identify how learning has varied over time.
Figure 1 shows the raw and normalized LCOE history of both wind and solar. These curves represent annual averages of LCOE for the majority of wind and solar plants built in the United States through 2020.
Figure 1. Annual average raw and normalized LCOE (in U.S. dollars [$] per megawatt-hour [MWh]) of wind and solar power in the United States.
“One important thing that we bring to the table is extensive empirical cost and performance data for individual wind and solar plants,” Bolinger said. “This granularity not only enables us to estimate plant-level LCOE for most of the U.S. fleet, but also allows us to filter out certain external LCOE influences to better separate the learning signal from the noise.”
The normalized curves in Figure 1 control for variation in geography, exchange rates, finance costs, materials costs (steel for wind, steel and silicon for solar), and income tax rates—all of which fall outside of the control of the wind and solar industries, and make it harder to determine the influence of learning.
Figure 2 shows the learning curves and learning rates derived from the normalized LCOE history in Figure 1 (shown as dots in Figure 2). Wind’s full-period learning rate of 15% means that for each doubling of cumulative installed wind capacity worldwide, wind’s LCOE has declined by 15%. Solar’s full-period learning rate is higher, at 24%. The team’s regression model identified two significant learning change points for wind (around 2006 and 2010), and one for solar (around 2014), with both technologies exhibiting a period of accelerated learning of 40%–45% through 2020. But it is possible that wind’s accelerated learning rate from 2010–2020 is at least partly a correction to the period of rising LCOE witnessed from 2006–2010.
“These segmented regression results nevertheless suggest that learning need not slow as industries mature,” Wiser said.
Figure 2. LCOE-based learning curves for utility-scale wind and solar exhibit significant change points that separate periods of faster and slower learning. An asterisk indicates statistical significance (p<0.05); LR is the learning rate; and GW is gigawatts.
Figure 3 uses the full-period learning rates from Figure 2 (along with average deployment projections) to project LCOE into the future.
“We used the full-period learning rates to project LCOE because of uncertainty over how long the recent period of accelerated learning might persist,” O’Shaughnessy said. “We have already seen supply chain challenges and commodity price inflation pressuring wind and solar costs in 2021 and 2022.
Though the LCOE normalization process would likely remove some of the recent inflationary pressure, it is also possible that the model might identify 2021 or 2022 as the next change point, signaling a shift back to slower learning.
With its higher full-period learning rate of 24%, coupled with greater deployment projections, solar’s LCOE is expected to drop below wind’s LCOE within the next few years, though there is greater uncertainty surrounding solar’s LCOE projection given its shorter history.
Whatever the ultimate rate of decline ends up being, with positive learning rates and deployment of both technologies widely expected to continue, learning curves suggest that we can look forward to progressively lower-cost wind and solar energy in the coming years—which is good news for the transition to renewable energy in the near future.
The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Wind Energy Technologies Office, Solar Energy Technologies Office, and Office of Strategic Analysis.
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By Brian Shane
Staff Writer
(April 2, 2026) A solar farm on the outskirts of Berlin that drew opposition from the Worcester County Commissioners is advancing anyway under state authority that overrides local zoning.
Arizona-based developer TurningPoint Solar is scheduled to meet next Wednesday with the county’s Technical Review Committee for a major site plan review. If approved, the proposal would be heard by the county’s planning commission for a favorable or unfavorable vote, followed by a public hearing.
Worcester County’s zoning does not allow utility-scale solar farms like this one within residential areas. But Maryland’s high court in 2019 ruled that the state’s Public Service Commission has final say over placement of solar farms and may preempt local zoning. The best a county or municipality can do is write a strongly worded letter in opposition.
That’s what happened a year and a half ago. Before TurningPoint had even filed the project paperwork with the state, the developer came before the commissioners for a courtesy consultation. The commissioners were skeptical of the plan and unanimously voted to oppose the proposal.
Commissioner Eric Fiori (District 3, West Ocean City) expressed serious concern about building a renewable energy project in a spot already designated for future residential development.
“It’s really kind of affecting the way we’ve planned the growth of Berlin and growth of Worcester County. I think there’s a lot of better sites than this particular one,” he said at the Oct. 1, 2024, meeting.
A month after that meeting, TurningPoint filed an application with the Public Service Commission. Following two public comment hearings last year, the commission on Jan. 13 gave its approval for the project to proceed, a regulatory order known as a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity.
That state certification typically hinges on local site plan review to address technical details like screening, stormwater, and road access, which is why the project is headed to the county’s Technical Review Committee.
The 5-megawatt project would be constructed on a triangular parcel of agricultural land off Old Ocean City Boulevard. Its 13,780 solar panels would take up 35.5 acres of the 137-acre site. It would be enclosed by a 7-foot security fence and buffered by 35 feet of landscaping.
Power generated by the facility would be delivered through Delmarva Power’s electric distribution grid to Maryland subscribers, rather than sold directly to a single utility buyer.
TurningPoint spokeswoman Christy Scott said the proposed project would serve more than 800 residential subscribers, with a minimum of 40% of the capacity of the project set aside for low-income customers.
She also said the company scouted the site for a solar farm based on its proximity to a nearby substation, the landowner’s interest, and interconnection viability with the utility, among other factors.
TurningPoint says the project would generate $3.5 million in tax revenue from its land lease and employ about 50 people during construction. The company has been developing solar projects in Maryland since 2016.
By 2030, renewable energy sources must account for 50% of the electricity sold by suppliers in Maryland, including a 14.5% requirement for solar power, according to state law. That mandate was set by the 2019 Clean Energy Jobs Act, which expanded the state’s original 2004 renewable energy law.

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Government to promote rooftop panels using budget already dented by fuel tax cuts
Solar panels installed on rooftop in Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam is promoting alternative energy sources amid the oil crisis following the U.S. and Israel-led attacks on Iran. (Photo by Yuki Kohara) 
HO CHI MINH CITY — Vietnam is preparing financial perks to get more solar panels on homes and offices, citing a need for energy security amid the global oil crisis as war continues in the Middle East.

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Perovskite-based multi-junction solar cells  Nature
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DARIEN — A field full of solar panels in rural Walworth County could soon sprout a natural gas-fueled power plant. The planned Foundry Ridge Energy Center is now in the environmental review stage.
The proposed power plant near Darien from energy developer Invenergy aims to provide 324 megawatts of power during peak energy usage times. Some neighbors who live next to the proposed site are not happy about the potential development.
Watch: Darien neighbors worried about planned power plant:
“It’s difficult when you choose how you want to raise your family and this gets slammed at us,” said Cheryl Simer, who lives within walking distance of the potential Foundry Ridge site. “Don’t put this in our yards. Don’t put this within a half a mile of anyone’s home.”
“We don’t want to see this monstrosity in our community,” said Hannah Schlick, who lives across Turtle Creek from the solar fields and Foundry Ridge site. “We don’t want to deal with the potential impact of our air quality, our wells, and our water quality.”
TMJ4 asked Invenergy what the impacts of the project would be if it is approved by the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin.
In a statement, they said:
The statement continued:
The Public Service Commission is taking comments from the public on the Foundry Ridge proposal until April 24. You can share your feedback by clicking here.

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Published 8:46 am Thursday, April 2, 2026
By Don Jenkins
Scout Clean Energy claims in a court filing that the Horse Heaven wind and solar project would equal the output of a large coal or natural gas power plant, a disputed claim never examined by regulators.
With batteries, the 1,150-megawatt installation in Benton County, Wash., would supply power even when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining, the company stated in a brief to the Washington Supreme Court.
“At that scale, the project could replace a large fossil-fuel fired facility,” the brief reads.
Benton County PUD manager Rick Dunn said Scout’s project won’t be an adequate substitute for a fossil fuel plant, even with batteries. Windmills, the project’s largest part, likely will make little or no electricity on some winter days, he said.
“You can’t get rid of the fossil fuel plant. What do you do on the coldest mornings?” Dunn said. “A wind farm can never replace the controllable capacity of a coal plant.”
Scout has a permit to build on Horse Heaven hills in southeast Washington, but must, along with the state, defend the project at a Supreme Court hearing June 11.
The Yakama Nation, Benton County commissioners and Tri-City CARES allege that then-Gov. Jay Inslee overstepped his authority in approving the project.
In a process that took several years, the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council studied potential impacts to views, noise, traffic, wildlife, agriculture, socioeconomics and tribal culture.
It didn’t, however, evaluate the project’s projected output of electricity or its projected output during peak hours, when energy planners say the Northwest is at risk of power shortages.
“We tried to get that data, and we were foreclosed from doing that,” Tri-City CARES attorney Richard Aramburu said.
“We wanted to talk about the need issue, the capacity issue,” he said. “We really wanted to see if it was true that this project was going to justify all the damage it was doing.”
At 1,150-megawatts, the Horse Heaven project would have a larger maximum potential output than any of the state’s natural gas plants. But the Western Power Pool estimates that windmills in Washington operate at only 5.5% of their potential during peak-demand hours in January, typically the coldest month of the year.
Scout declined to comment for this story. The company emphasized to the Supreme Court the project’s maximum capacity and ability to supply power with batteries.
“That reliability is what makes the project useful to the local electrical grid,” the company stated.
Utilities won’t be able to count on Horse Heaven in the winter, Dunn said. The project can be expected to generate more electricity in the spring, but that’s when hydro power peaks, he said.
“What they’re contributing to is an energy glut,” Dunn said. “We don’t need this wind farm in the Tri-Cities at all.”
The project will span 72,000 acres of leased farmland. Washington is turning to carbon-free energy because of climate change, according to the Washington attorney general’s office.
“The transition requires the development of clean energy facilities, such as wind and solar, on a scale that demands considerable space in rural areas,” its brief states.
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Malaysia based Sunview Group secured its largest contract to date for a floating solar PV project in Malaysia. The award was issued by TNB Power Generation Sdn. Bhd. for development at Tasik Kenyir, Terengganu. The project will be executed through a consortium with Cypark Renewable Energy Sdn. Bhd. The development includes a 595 MW (AC) floating solar PV plant integrated with Battery Energy Storage System (BESS). The contract carries a potential value of MYR 2 billion. Project completion is targeted by September 2028. The project marks Sunview’s entry into utility scale floating solar deployment.

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Two solar projects in Concord are expected to deliver power to the grid this summer — and their quick turnaround could be attributed to the utility company they worked with: Unitil.
Over the last two years, development has progressed rapidly on two five-megawatt solar arrays, one built over a closed landfill at Concord’s transfer station and the other on private land near West Portsmouth Street.
Solar arrays themselves can be installed fairly quickly, but the bulk of the work comes down to connecting the panels to the grid. Such connections are often a stumbling block for new power projects, but working with Unitil made a “critical difference,” according to a developer.
“Unitil was much more reasonable and timely throughout the study process,” Oliver Sandreuter, director of business development for Lodestar Energy, said in a statement. “We had to abandon multiple projects under development in Eversource, largely because Eversource lacked transparency and timeliness when studying them.”
Lodestar developed the five-megawatt solar farm near West Portsmouth Street on 30 acres owned by Brochu Nurseries.
A project at Hopkinton’s transfer station, for example, had to be abandoned because of connection difficulties. The town is partly served by both Unitil and Eversource.
Don Kreis, the state’s consumer advocate, said Eversource has historically been “sluggish when it comes to responding to interconnection requests.”
The difference between the two companies, he said, was that Eversource is older and larger while Unitil is more scrappy and forward-thinking.
“Unitil is an example of a competent, well-run, responsive utility, and Eversource is also competent and well-run, but I don’t think it perceives that speedy interconnection is necessarily in its best interest as a business,” Kreis said.
Construction on Lodestar’s project is almost finished, Sandreuter said, although it won’t be able to send power into the grid until Unitil completes upgrade work at a nearby substation, which is expected to happen by this summer.
The project at Concord’s transfer station is also expected to come online soon. The developer, Kearsarge Energy, received approval from the city last year to build around 11,000 panels on 17 acres of closed landfill, which is expected, on a sunny day, to power as many as 1,000 homes.
Beth Fenstermacher, the city’s director of special projects and strategic initiatives, said these two projects build on the solar farm established at the wastewater treatment plant on Hall Street. That one sits at a meager 136 panels with peak daily production at 60 kilowatts.
Fenstermacher said weight and ground disturbance restrictions limited what could be built at the site, but a solar farm turned out to be the perfect fit.
“That site is actually a great reuse, because there was nothing else we could do with this land,” she said. “We’ve actually created a tax-producing development on a closed landfill, which is a great use for that type of site.”
In 2021, legislators increased the net metering cap for municipalities from one megawatt to five megawatts, clearing a path for larger-scale solar farm constructions like the two emerging in Concord. A five-megawatt project has also been under construction in Warner, holding 12,000 panels on a gravel pit off I-89.
But New Hampshire lags behind on solar energy production, with solar accounting for only about 2% of the state’s energy. This is the lowest percentage out of all New England states, which average a production rate of 15%, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.
Rob Wener, state director for the advocacy group League of Conservation Voters, said the organization has been talking about these projects for a while and is excited to see them brought to fruition.
He’d also like to see the state go further in encouraging these kinds of projects.
“I think it’s certainly welcome that they pass the five megawatt expansion for municipalities and school districts,” Werner said. “But there’s so much more that we could do to help reduce energy costs and make things more efficient.”
David Brooks contributed to this report.
Emilia Wisniewski is a general assignment reporter that covers Franklin, Warner and Henniker. She is also the engagement editor. She can be reached at ewisniewski@cmonitor.com or (603) 369-3307 More by Emilia Wisniewski
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Concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) technologies can be used to generate electricity by converting energy from sunlight to power a turbine, but the same basic technologies can also be used to deliver heat to a variety of industrial applications, like water desalination, enhanced oil recovery, food processing, chemical production, and mineral processing. Learn more about how CSP works.
The U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) supports CSP research and development projects that work to improve the performance, reduce the cost, and improve the lifetime and reliability of materials, components, subsystems, and integrated solutions for CSP technologies.
In the past decade, the cost of electricity produced by CSP has dropped more than 50 percent thanks to more efficient systems and the wider use of thermal energy storage, which allows solar energy to be dispatchable around the clock and increase the time each day that a solar power plant can generate energy. SETO is working to make CSP even more affordable, with the goal of reaching $0.05 per kilowatt-hour for baseload plants with at least 12 hours of thermal energy storage.
In September 2021, DOE released the Solar Futures Study, a report that explores the role of solar energy in achieving these goals as part of a decarbonized U.S. electric grid. Learn more about SETO’s goals.
In October 2021, Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) published a DOE-funded publicly accessible digital CSP archive. SNL solar researchers and librarians collected, digitized, and cataloged a host of historical CSP research documents, including reports, memos, blueprints, photos, and more. Sharing this information can help make the technology more accessible and the path to commercialization faster by preventing new researchers and companies from having to reinvent the wheel.
Within SETO’s CSP research area, efforts are focused on several topics. Learn more about them below.
SETO funding for CSP research is awarded to projects that substantially advance, develop, or engineer new concepts in the collector, receiver, thermal storage, heat transfer media, and power cycle subsystems, including technologies that will lower operations and management costs. This includes transformative concepts with the potential to break through existing cost and performance barriers. Projects are managed by the CSP team and executed with the goal of developing technologies that are commercially relevant for the U.S. energy sector. Reports resulting from research projects can be found on the Office of Science and Technical Information (OSTI) website. Learn more about SETO’s funding programs and current funding opportunities.
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by Kody Bair
CHEBOYGAN COUNTY, Mich., (WPBN/WGTU) — A months-long legal battle in Cheboygan County over a proposed 810-acre solar farm has taken a major step forward after a judge overturned the project’s approval.
Last week, the issue ended up in a courtroom. On one side, the county defending its approval of the solar farm, and the other, 19 concerned residents asking a judge to reverse that decision.
"Just the community coming together to fight this. We were unwavering, relentless, and we knew that we were fighting for justice,” Sherry Long said.

Joe and Sherry Long have lived in Cheboygan County for a couple years now. They say last year, a new guest in the county caught their attention.
"We were shocked to learn that not only was it not an 80/20 issue, it was a 99 to 1 percent issue,” Sherry said.
EDP Renewables, an international renewable energy company, requested a special use permit to build a 110-megawatt, 810-acre solar facility, powering the equivalent of more than 30,000 homes. The Longs had concerns, mostly for another couple living in the area.

EDP Renewables, an international renewable energy company, requested a special use permit to build a 110-megawatt, 810-acre solar facility, powering the equivalent of more than 30,000 homes. The Longs had concerns, mostly for another couple living in the area, pictured here. (Sherry Long)

"They're in their mid-80s. Born in Cheboygan County,” Sherry said.
Sherry says this is the Johnsons home in Grant Township:

Sherry says this is the Johnsons home in Grant Township.{ } (Sherry Long)

She says based on EDP Renewables application sent to the county, she used A-I to generate this picture of approximately what she says the Johnsons' home would look like with the solar farm:

Sherry used A-I to generate this picture of approximately what she says the Johnsons home would look like with the solar farm: . (Sherry Long)

"They've lived in the home 24 years and would be completely surrounded by these industrial solar panels,” Sherry said.
In August, the Cheboygan County Planning Commission approved the solar farm. And not long after, the Johnsons, the Longs and 15 other locals took the county and EDP Renewables to court.
"Regardless, if you're a corporation or just a single guy living in a trailer; It doesn't matter,” Joe said. “You have the right to peacefully enjoy your property. Stand up for it."
They say commissioners did not officially state standards were met in sections 18 and 20 of the ordinance, which rule on special land use permit procedures.
"It's just a major void here that the planning commission didn't address 18 and 20,” the plaintiffs’ attorney said in court. “It's inexplicable and I don't know why they did not."
The attorney representing Cheboygan County argued there was no need to look at each section, because a compatible renewable energy ordinance, or CREO, was in the county zoning ordinance.
"Plaintiff’s attorney’s argument is they didn’t consider section 18 and that is fatal– I'm saying it's not fatal,” The county’s attorney said. “‘Any solar energy facility with a capacity of 50+ megawatts shall be a permitted use by right.’”
A few months after the approval, a judge said the planning commission does not need to have a CREO in its ordinance, so it took it out and put a temporary moratorium on large-scale solar energy projects.
"The day after this court ruled in January, the board of commissioners rescinded that ordinance,” the plaintiffs’ attorney said.
Judge Gauthier says since the application was for a special use permit, findings of fact on each section of the zoning ordinance must be done, even if there was a CREO.
"They say they evaluated an application for a special use permit and granted it,” Judge Gauthier said. “How can I say they didn't even need to do any of that?"
Joe says if they did look at those sections, the permit wouldn't have been approved, because the requirements were not met. EDP Renewables said in court that the requirements were met.
"If this record, which has hundreds of pages of expert testimony, is not sufficient, I don't know what is,” an EDP attorney said.
The judge says it doesn't matter since sections 18 and 20 in Cheboygan's zoning code weren't addressed by commissioners.
After a little more than an hour of arguments, Judge Gauthier ruled.
"The proper remedy for me is to reverse that decision and vacate the special use permit that was issued,” Judge Gauthier said.
And with that temporary moratorium in place, the Longs say EDP Renewables cannot reapply right now.
"Doing this for them and seeing the happiness on their face and Mr. Johnson just feeling such great relief last week when we won the lawsuit,” Sherry said. “He went home, turned on the Tigers game, and had a good peaceful nap."
That moratorium was made official on March 18. It was put in place for six months with the right to extend it while commissioners take another look at the zoning ordinance.
We received a statement from EDP Renewables North America saying the group is disappointed by the court's ruling and went on to say in part:
"We will be pursuing all avenues available to bring Northern Waters Solar online, as we believe in the project as an economic engine for Grant Township and Cheboygan County and its potential to support hundreds of jobs and more than $24 million dollar revenue for local public services and infrastructure."
Meanwhile, Cheboygan County Administrator Jeffrey Lawson said the county will respect the court's decision.
2026 Sinclair, Inc.

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A few showers this evening with overcast skies overnight. Low near 30F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 30%.
Updated: April 3, 2026 @ 11:35 am

Dordt University engineering students join a pair of Rock Valley electricians and Bruce Dooyema in a mission project to install solar energy systems into chicken barns for Christian vocational school Ebenezer Rapale in Mozambique.
A group of Dordt University engineering students helped install solar electrical systems for several chicken barns in Mozambique. The chicken barns benefit Christian vocational school Ebenezer Rapale and its special needs school.
Wife and husband Hannah and Andrew Cox are Dordt University students, each contributing during a mission trip to aid Christian vocational school Ebenezer Rapale in Mozambique. While Andrew helped with an electrical engineering project, Hannah spent time with the special needs school.

Dordt University engineering students join a pair of Rock Valley electricians and Bruce Dooyema in a mission project to install solar energy systems into chicken barns for Christian vocational school Ebenezer Rapale in Mozambique.
SIOUX CENTER—A team of Dordt University students went to Africa as part of their senior engineering project, lending their knowledge and skills to do electrical work in Mozambique, as well as do preparatory work in South Africa.
Dordt senior Andrew Cox, studying for an engineering degree, is a Sioux Center native and served as the project manager and the student lead for the five-person student team during the trip, which took them to Nampula, Mozambique and Mokopane, South Africa from March 5-15. Among the group of students was also Andrew’s wife, Hannah, a junior at Dordt. The couple now live in Orange City while they attend Dordt.
As Andrew explained, it’s customary for Dordt engineering students to take on a senior design project. Students can come up with their own engineering design projects to work on throughout the year or take one from a list; as it turns out, Versova director of strategic projects Bruce Dooyema had one added, requesting assistance in designing solar energy electrical systems for chicken barns in Africa.
A group of Dordt University engineering students helped install solar electrical systems for several chicken barns in Mozambique. The chicken barns benefit Christian vocational school Ebenezer Rapale and its special needs school.
The March trip was done so that the students could actually take their designs and help with the installation process. In Mozambique, this work benefited an organization called Ebenezer Rapale, a Christian vocational training center that empowers its students by developing their agricultural, poultry and business skills.
The chicken barns therefore are a part of the program and help feed the students, including students who are a part of a special needs school also run by Ebenezer.
“The actual electrical system is not very big. For what we installed, there’s three 450-watt panels for two barns and then there will be three 300-watt panels for two smaller barns,” Andrew said.
Two batteries for the two bigger barns get charged by the solar panels, while one battery gets charged up for the two smaller barns.
Although that project was relatively straightforward, there was so much more they experienced in their time in Africa.
One of the highlights came the day after they arrived in Mozambique, when they attended a Sunday church service in a rural community. The service was held in an open-air hut, with the worshippers seated on plastic lawn chairs or benches and young children sat on woven mats on the floor.
What they experienced was a very interactive service filled with song and dance.
“It was about two and a half hours long,” Hannah said. “There were times you would get up and go make up a song and dance and perform that for the rest of the group. They had some different youth groups perform as well. There was a sermon at the end of it for the last 30 minutes or so.
“It was a really neat experience. Something that really stuck out to me was watching them sing and dance a song during the offering how it’s more pleasant to give than to receive. Not all of them had shoes on. You don’t know what their background is completely, but you know it’s not like we have it here in the U.S. Just seeing them open up their pockets and sing about how much they love to give to the Lord, it was stunning to me.”
Andrew added that there was a time during the service for the people to share with each other the things that had happened during the week.
During the week, the Dordt engineering students worked on the solar panels and electrical system from about 8 a.m.-4 p.m. They also received help from two electricians from A&K Electric in Rock Valley and Dooyema.
Wife and husband Hannah and Andrew Cox are Dordt University students, each contributing during a mission trip to aid Christian vocational school Ebenezer Rapale in Mozambique. While Andrew helped with an electrical engineering project, Hannah spent time with the special needs school.
Their work extended beyond the electrical, with the Dordt students lending a hand building the chicken cages and moving the chickens in.
“That was the first time I handled a living chicken, and now I’ve handled dozens of them,” Andrew said.
During that time, Hannah put her studies as an education major and background as a former special education paraprofessional to good use, spending time at Ebenezer’s special education school. On one day, Hannah shared with the staff members what she knew.
“I was able to share some ideas and resources and techniques for them and their teachers,” she said. “If you’re a teacher in this rural area, it’s not like you’ve gone to a school such as Dordt and finished a four-year program and have your license. You really basically show up and have a heart and passion for the children and possibly some training. But it’s different from here. They wanted to know more about what it’s like here. I was able to train them and give them some info.”
Seeing that school make do with so little left an impression on her.
“This school is in a house, the classes are bedrooms. Watching the resilience of the children and the loving care of the staff really made me reflect on, wow, this system is different from what we have in the U.S. but it’s still working,” she said. “These children are receiving education, love, care, support. There were children there who couldn’t walk last year and now they’ve had enough therapy and time at this school that they’re starting to walk and move around. Just seeing the staff and the families put their trust in God. What He has in store for these kids is beyond amazing.”
Another thing to note is that it was warm and rainy in Mozambique, as the land was at the end of the rainy season. Hannah called it refreshingly green.
“It was about 85 degrees and humid every day we were there. Some days it rained, but not all day,” Hannah said.
Rains would come in heavy downpours for about 10 minutes before suddenly stopping.
When their time with Ebenezer came to an end, the group moved on to South Africa to meet with people from Blessman International, whose main campus was about three hours from Johannesburg. There, the weather was damp but a cool 60-65 degrees.
“We visited a farm where four of the chicken barns were,” Andrew said, “and we visited an after-school care program. There’s a church on site there and agricultural training for adults that’s also on site there. There’s even some sporting facilities there. It’s a very multipurpose site.”
No solar panels or other electrical work was done at the time, as the group mainly used their time there as an opportunity to see for themselves the setup they had and how they could go about such a project in the future.
“They ended up putting a few thousand more chickens in barns while we were visiting Blessman,” Hannah said. “You guys probably put maybe 3,000 chickens in one of the barns in some new cages. Everyone was willing to be hands-on and help in whatever way they could.”
One of the biggest challenges of the trip was simply getting back, as they had a blizzard to contend with in the U.S.
“We were supposed to get to the Sioux Falls airport at 10 p.m. Sunday that day there was the ice and the blizzard. So we did not make it at 10 p.m. Sunday,” Hannah said. “Shoutout to Travel Advantage because they were like our saviors in some ways.”
Now that they’re back home, they’ve been left with a lot of memories and thoughts to process. It’s certainly left a lasting impression on Andrew and Hannah.
“It was such a great experience that I want to stay connected with it. I’d be happy to do more work even after I graduate, pro bono engineering work. So, wanting to stay involved because of how meaningful and important and cool the things happening are,” Andrew said.
Hannah started donating more of her clothes and possessions since getting back.
“You don’t need much to be faithful to God and to be happy with your life,” she said. “I saw how faithful and joyful everyone was, especially when we were in Mozambique.”
SIOUX CENTER—Dordt University’s John J. and Henry J. Spronk Animal Science Education Center out at the Agriculture Stewardship Center is livin…
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Alaska’s energy leadership means American energy independence  Alaska Beacon
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Photo:LONGi

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April 2, 2026 Opinions, Top Headlines
By Christopher R. Gibbs
Shelby County, Ohio, has found itself in a revealing split-screen moment. On the one side, township residents are packed into a county community hall to weigh in on the future of their farmland and to participate in a public process to testify that industrial wind and solar energy development threatens their soil, livelihoods, and the landscapes their families had tended for generations.
On the other side, inside the City of Sidney, the view looks entirely different. A $3 billion Amazon data center project is advancing not because residents were meaningfully consulted, but because a majority of city council members approved a property tax abatement on more than 200 acres of annexed farmland. Residents’ questions were heard only after decisions had essentially been made, and concerns were addressed only after the city had committed to Amazon’s most significant financial incentive.
So why is it that landowners in the townships have a formal voice about wind and solar projects that create energy, while city residents have none over a sprawling data center campus that consumes that same energy?
SB 52: A voice in the townships
Senate Bill 52, passed in 2021, was a direct response to rural Ohioans’ demand for greater local control over utility-scale wind and solar farms. For the first time, county commissioners and township trustees could bar such projects within unincorporated areas. While in my view, SB 52 severely limits a farmland owner’s ability to maximize their asset’s potential, Shelby County’s commissioners did administer the law as intended. They held hearings, listened to residents, confirmed township support, and passed a resolution restricting wind and solar across 14 townships. More than 30 Ohio counties have imposed similar restrictions.
Whether one agrees with the policy or not, the process was public and collaborative. Township residents heard a clear message that their land and neighborhoods matter, and their voices count.
City limits: A different system, A different outcome
Sidney residents, like most Ohioans living in incorporated municipalities, have little recourse other than the ballot box to influence their city’s land-use decisions. Under Ohio’s home-rule system, city councils can approve tax abatements, zoning changes, and megaproject agreements without public referendum or township-style veto power. In theory, this makes cities nimble, yet in practice, it often means residents learn about major deals only after they are largely complete.
That is exactly what happened with Amazon. City council approved a tax package worth up to $350 million in foregone property taxes over 30 years. In exchange, Amazon will make a $50 million payment-in-lieu-of-taxes over 15 years.
Residents raised concerns about environmental impacts, water usage, electric grid capacity, and the fairness of granting a multinational corporation a multi-decade tax holiday when many local businesses operate without such incentives.
Their frustration was not only with Amazon’s footprint. It was with a system that asks residents to trust decisions they believe were not fully disclosed.
The uneven geography of public power
The contrast, where one part of the county is empowered while another is sidelined, raises an interesting question: Why do Ohioans have vastly different levels of control over land-use decisions based solely on which side of a city boundary they live on?
If you own 200 acres of farmland in “Anytownship, Ohio,” SB 52 gives you legal standing to stop a solar project next door. But suppose you own a home near a proposed data center being built within city limits. In that case, you can speak at a council meeting for two or three minutes to voice your concerns, yet the city can still approve a project that may increase utility bills, strain water capacity, and change your neighborhood forever.
Both decisions involve land. Both shape the county’s future. But only one involves robust public input.
Toward a more transparent urban process
I concede that Ohio cities cannot and should not operate exactly like Ohio townships. Economic development often requires speed and confidentiality. But that reality does not excuse a process that leaves residents wanting.
Local leaders still have the chance to close the trust gap. Upcoming agreements with Amazon covering infrastructure, water, and sewer, as well as ongoing development, give the council another opportunity to invite public engagement before votes.
Amazon’s data center may ultimately prove a wise investment that invites yet more economic activity and jobs, or it may set precedents that residents regret for decades. Regardless of the outcome, if township residents can be trusted to help shape the future of their land and community, surely city residents deserve the same consideration.
~ And that’s the way I see it from where I sit.
Gibbs is a farmer and lives in Maplewood, Ohio. He and his family own and operate 560 acres of crops, hay, and cattle. Gibbs is retired from the United States Department of Agriculture and currently serves as President of the Gateway Arts Council, Chairman of the Shelby County Democratic Party, and President of Rural Voices USA and Rural Voices Network.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Ohio’s Country Journal or Ohio Ag Net or its staff.
March 5, 2026
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By Don Jones, State Executive Director, USDA Farm Service Agency – Ohio Since January 20, …
April 3, 2026 — Scattered rain showers holding on over Ohio today. We will only end up with about 60% coverage, but we can not rule out scattered precipitation anywhere in the next 24 hours…

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NASA’s Voyager Spacecraft Detected A 30,000-50,000 Kelvin “Wall” At The Edge Of Our Solar System  iflscience.com
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Photo:LONGi

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Reports from the International Energy Agency’s Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (IEA-PVPS) indicate Malaysia added over 1.4 GW of solar in 2025, with more than 5.7 GW now deployed across multiple government schemes.
Image: mkjr, Unsplash
Malaysia’s solar capacity reached 5,777 MW by the end of 2025, according to figures from the International Energy Agency’s IEA-PVPS.
The figure includes solar deployed across Malaysia’s large-scale solar (LSS), feed-in tariff (FiT), and net energy metering (NEM) schemes. An IEA-PVPS report from 2024 put the country’s cumulative solar capacity at 4,329 MW at the end of that year, implying additions of around 1,448 MW in 2025.
The country’s total solar capacity may stand even higher, as the figure does not account for any solar installed outside the government schemes, such as off-grid installations.
Malaysia’s LSS program is a competitive auction scheme targeting utility projects that had deployed 2,648 MW of solar by the end of 2025. The most recent auction round kicked off in January 2025, tendering 2 GW of large-scale solar projects with capacities ranging from 10 MW to 500 MW.
It approved 13 projects in September 2025 with a combined capacity of 1,975 MW. Figures from Malaysia’s Ministry of Energy Transition and Water Transformation published in October said the LSS has now approved 6,028 MW of solar capacity to 117 companies since its inception.
IEA-PVPS adds that a total 345 MW of solar was deployed under Malaysia’s feed-in tariff scheme, an earlier policy offering a fixed tariff for small-scale rooftop solar, before it was replaced by a net-metering scheme at the start of 2016.
The three rounds of Malaysia’s net-metering schemes, which have expanded over time to include residential, commercial and industrial (C&I), and government-owned buildings, had deployed 2,747 MW of solar, IEA-PVPS’ figures add, by the time of its conclusion in June 2025.
At the start of 2026, Malaysia replaced its net-metering program with the Solar Accelerated Transition Action Program (ATAP), aimed at both residential and commercial customers.
Lam Pham and Alnie Demoral, energy analysts at Ember specializing in Asian markets, told pv magazine that the LSS program and third net metering scheme were key drivers of Malaysia’s solar market last year, as well as high commercial tariffs helping to make solar competitive for the C&I market.
Looking ahead, Pham and Demoral forecast that more solar will be deployed in Malaysia in 2026 than in 2025, driven by the launch of the ATAP and completion of utility-scale solar projects awarded in the most recent LSS rounds.
“The ATAP in 2026 removes quota constraints and expands rooftop adoption which previously constrained distributed solar,” the pair told pv magazine. They also explained the program will bring easier approval compared to the NEM but focuses on self-consumption by offering no export benefits.
Pham and Demoral said allowing the monetization of excess generation under ATAP would help support Malaysia’s solar market further. They also suggested standardizing and speeding up grid connection approvals and publishing hosting capacity maps for improved transparency, as well electricity pricing and subsidies reform, explaining that natural gas and coal remain indirectly subsidized, in turn distorting solar competitiveness.
Data centre developments also appear poised to play a growing role in the development of Malaysia’s solar sector. Among the largest solar project under development in the country is a 1.5 GW project to be tied with battery storage to supply hyperscale data centres under the country’s Corporate Renewable Energy Supply Scheme scheme, which allows businesses to purchase green electricity directly from renewable energy developers via the grid. 
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: editors@pv-magazine.com.
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Ethical Marketing News
The No.1 Resource for Ethical Marketing
British homeowners are racing to future-proof their properties against global energy shocks, with new data from Octopus Energy showing a 27% surge in solar installation enquiries since the start of the conflict in the Middle East.
Recent geopolitical turmoil has caused a dash for solar as households seek to shield their bills from the volatile global gas market. Since late February, gas prices have soared by more than 60%.
According to the latest industry data from MCS, the UK is currently experiencing its strongest year on record for solar. More than 260,000 homes installed solar in 2025, bringing the total to 1.85 million households generating their own clean energy.
Recent data from MCS also shows that battery installations in the UK nearly doubled year-on-year, allowing households to capture and use their own power during peak evening hours.
Aside from security of energy and less reliance on the national grid, home solar generation provides a massive reduction in bills for households. A report from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), found that an average homeowner could save around £500 a year on energy bills by installing rooftop solar panels.
Rebecca Dibb-Simkin, Chief Product Officer at Octopus Energy, commented: “We are seeing a fundamental shift in the national psyche when it comes to energy. With the second energy market shock in less than five years, homeowners are looking for security. This surge in solar interest suggests people now see their rooftops as a frontline of their financial resilience. By generating their own power, they can help to insulate their bank accounts against global energy crises.”
Keith and Elizabeth Stork from Norwich first installed solar panels to live more sustainably and help keep their home warm. With the help of a battery and smart tariff, they now save more than £60 a month on their energy bills. When asked how they used them, Keith said: “I’ve got batteries installed too, so I charge them during the cheaper electricity rates and use the stored power during the more expensive times in the day.”
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Published on: April 3, 2026 / Updated on: April 3, 2026 – Author: Konrad Wolfenstein
The end of cheap solar panels? Why modules from China are suddenly becoming more expensive – Image: Xpert.Digital
Why Beijing is now pulling the emergency brake – and the world is paying the price
For years, homeowners and stakeholders in Europe's energy transition benefited from an unprecedented drop in the price of photovoltaic systems. Solar panels and balcony power plants were cheaper than ever before – fueled by massive government subsidies and enormous overproduction in China. But this era of "cheap solar" is now coming to an abrupt end. With a far-reaching political U-turn, Beijing is radically cutting billions in export subsidies for its solar industry. What at first glance appears to be a distant fiscal policy measure has direct and tangible consequences for the domestic market: Prices for solar technology will rise noticeably. But why is China, the undisputed global market leader, pulling the emergency brake now? The following article examines the background of this historic decision – from the destructive price spiral of the so-called "Neijuan" to geopolitical power plays and the question of what this development means specifically for consumers' wallets and the future of the energy transition.
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As of April 1, 2026, China has implemented a quiet revolution in the global solar market. The Chinese Ministry of Finance and the State Revenue Administration jointly announced the complete elimination of value-added tax (VAT) refunds for the export of photovoltaic products. This step affects all key components of the solar value chain – from monocrystalline silicon wafers and solar cells to fully assembled modules and inverters. A phased approach applies to energy storage products: The refund rate will initially be reduced from 9 to 6 percent and completely eliminated from January 1, 2027.
What at first glance appears to be a technical tax adjustment is in reality the culmination of a decades-long subsidy program. As early as December 2024, China had reduced the tax refund rate for photovoltaic products from 13 to 9 percent – ​​a first warning sign, now followed by its complete elimination. In barely three years, the state support framework for solar exports has thus been reduced from 13 percent to zero, unequivocally demonstrating the fundamental reorientation of Chinese industrial policy in this sector.
To understand the implications of this decision, one must grasp the extent of Chinese market dominance in the photovoltaic industry. China currently controls over 95 percent of global polysilicon production for solar applications, 97 percent of wafer manufacturing, 85 percent of solar cell production, and approximately 75 percent of module production. This near-complete control of all stages of the value chain is no accident, but rather the result of a two-decade-long industrial policy that combined government subsidies with massive capital inflows, favorable land prices, and coordinated technology promotion.
The production capacities resulting from this expansion are unprecedented. In 2025, China's manufacturing capacity for solar modules is estimated to have reached 1,200 gigawatts – a figure almost double the total global installation demand of around 650 gigawatts in the same year. In the first half of 2025 alone, China installed 212 gigawatts of new solar capacity, equivalent to the total photovoltaic capacity built in Germany over 25 years. By the end of 2025, China's cumulative photovoltaic capacity had surpassed the historic mark of 1,200 gigawatts – the first country in the world to do so.
Behind these impressive figures lies a structural crisis known in the People's Republic as Neijuan – a term from agricultural sociology that originally described stagnation despite increasing resource input, but today stands for destructive cutthroat competition without productive progress. In the solar industry, Neijuan has taken a concrete and mathematically verifiable form: manufacturers systematically sell below their cost to defend market share and finance the resulting losses with cheap government loans and provincial subsidies.
The consequences are dramatic. The four largest Chinese module manufacturers – Longi, Jinko Solar, Trina Solar, and JA Solar – recorded combined net losses of 11 billion yuan in the first half of 2025 alone, equivalent to approximately US$1.54 billion and representing a 150 percent increase compared to the same period of the previous year. Longi Green Energy, once the undisputed global market leader, reported losses of up to €700 million for the first half of 2025, while Tongwei warned of losses of up to €400 million in the same period. Jinko Solar recorded a 32.63 percent drop in revenue alongside exploding losses.
This price war developed its own dynamic: due to oversupply, solar modules became almost 50 percent cheaper over the course of 2024, which, while accelerating the global energy transition, drove Chinese manufacturers into an existential spiral. Despite a record expansion of 315 gigawatts of new solar capacity in China alone in 2025, the industry remained highly unprofitable – an economic paradox that exposes the limits of state-enforced overproduction.
The abolition of export subsidies is not a spontaneous reaction, but the result of a multi-year situation analysis at the highest governmental level. Several factors drove the decision at this time.
First, the industry's losses have reached a politically intolerable level. Beijing is no longer able to accept systematic losses in the billions as the price of global market dominance when its strategic goals—cost reduction, technological leadership, and market penetration—have already been achieved. Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, describes this step as a necessary intervention to curb inefficient competition, reduce trade conflicts, and steer the industry toward high-quality development.
Secondly, China faces a growing problem with international trade disputes. The EU, the US, and an increasing number of other importing countries have initiated anti-dumping proceedings or imposed punitive tariffs, explicitly arguing that Chinese manufacturers are only able to export below market prices due to state subsidies. The China Photovoltaic Association (CPIA) confirmed in an official statement that the measure is intended to help rationalize pricing in foreign markets and reduce the risk of trade conflicts.
Third, the entire economy is trapped in a deflationary cycle, fueled by serial overproduction in several key industries—solar panels, batteries, and electric vehicles. Nomura analysts interpreted the decision as a signal that Beijing will rely more on non-currency instruments to manage its massive trade surplus problem, rather than resorting to yuan appreciation. The decisive end to subsidies also demonstrates a serious intention to enforce market correction in multiple sectors simultaneously.
 

New: Patent from the USA – Install solar parks up to 30% cheaper and 40% faster and easier – with explanatory videos! – Image: Xpert.Digital
The core of this technological advancement is the deliberate departure from conventional clamp mounting, which has been the standard for decades. The new, more time- and cost-effective mounting system addresses this with a fundamentally different, more intelligent concept. Instead of clamping the modules at specific points, they are inserted into a continuous, specially shaped support rail and held securely in place. This design ensures that all forces – whether static loads from snow or dynamic loads from wind – are distributed evenly across the entire length of the module frame.
More information here:
 
Alongside the elimination of export subsidies, Beijing is attempting to curb neiyuan competition through industrial policy coordination. In July 2025, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology invited 14 major solar companies to a meeting where measures against irrational low-price competition, the decommissioning of outdated capacity, and improvements in industrial quality were agreed upon. The wording was the official terminology for what is internationally known as cartel coordination: coordinated production restrictions, minimum price agreements, and the coordinated closure of older manufacturing facilities.
This strategy carries significant domestic political tensions. Six leading polysilicon manufacturers, along with the industry association CPIA, were summoned by the state market regulator because their self-regulation agreements raised suspicions of illegal price-fixing. The authorities face a fundamental dilemma: effectively combating overcapacity requires coordination, which, without clear boundaries, risks veering into market manipulation. Industry experts anticipate that consolidation in silicon, wafer, and module manufacturing will take months or even years before its effects become noticeable.
Related to this:
The elimination of export subsidies is hitting an industry already suffering from increasing cost pressures. Silver, a key material in solar cell manufacturing, reached a record price of $83.62 per ounce at the end of 2025 – a year-on-year increase of over 130 percent. This means that silver paste now accounts for 15 to 17 percent of the total cost of a solar module, surpassing polysilicon as the largest single cost factor. According to OPIS analysts, FOB prices for TOPCon cells – the technologically leading product generation – had already risen by around 30 percent since mid-December 2025, even before the tax reform officially took effect.
In parallel, the Chinese Ministry of Industry has curbed polysilicon production through regulatory intervention. Leading manufacturers are now producing at only 55 to 70 percent of their capacity, which led to a 48 percent price increase for this key raw material in September 2025 alone. Wood Mackenzie had already predicted price increases of around 9 percent for modules and storage systems starting in the fourth quarter of 2025 – an assessment that has proven too conservative with the complete elimination of subsidies.
Since nearly 90 percent of solar modules sold in Germany are of Chinese origin, Beijing's tax policies are directly reflected in end-customer prices. Market analysts anticipate a price increase of 10 to 15 percent for solar modules in the European market. For mid-range systems, typically installed on single-family homes and currently costing between €15,000 and €18,000, this translates to an additional cost of around €600. In some sub-segments, price increases of 20 to 30 percent were already observed before the effective date, as European buyers attempted to protect themselves against the anticipated price hikes by placing pre-orders.
For balcony power plants – a booming entry point into decentralized energy generation in Germany – the elimination of Chinese export subsidies means a price increase of around 10 percent, according to industry representatives. A device currently available for 600 euros could rise to as much as 660 euros by 2026. Current export prices for TOPCon modules are already between 0.09 and 0.13 US dollars per watt-peak – and trending upwards.
For large-scale systems with 15–18 kWp, a price increase of approximately 3–4% is expected, corresponding to an additional cost of around €600. Standard solar modules could become 10–15% more expensive; the absolute additional costs depend on the respective power class. Balcony power plants, which currently cost around €600, are expected to see an increase of about 10%, i.e., additional costs of around €60. Module prices (FOB, TOPCon) have already risen by up to 30% since December 2025 and are currently around USD 0.09–0.13 per watt-peak. For battery storage systems, a reduction in the subsidy from 9% to 6% is expected in 2026, leading to a gradual price increase; in 2027, the subsidy will fall to 0%, resulting in a complete price increase for storage systems.
China's decision also follows a geopolitical calculation. In a world of increasing trade tensions, US tariff increases under President Trump, and growing EU skepticism towards Chinese subsidy practices, eliminating its own export tax breaks sends a rhetorically effective signal: Beijing is pretending to become more market-compliant and to address international accusations of dumping. At the same time, the Chinese solar industry has long since achieved its strategic goals – global market penetration, cost reduction through economies of scale, and technological leadership – and no longer needs subsidies to remain unrivaled.
The complete market dominance of Chinese manufacturers remains structurally intact even after the subsidies are eliminated. No Western manufacturer has the capacity to operate the value chain from polysilicon to the finished module competitively. Even a 15 percent price increase will only bring Chinese modules back from a historically unprecedented low to a still very affordable level – the cost advantage over alternative sources remains.
Behind the operational decision to eliminate tax breaks lies a deeper strategic realignment. The Chinese government has signaled its intention to transform the solar industry from a volume-oriented mass exporter into a technology-leading, high-value segment. Liu Yiyang, Executive Secretary General of the China Photovoltaic Association, described this transformation as follows: The end of tax privileges marks the point at which the industry must prove itself in free market competition. Companies that were only viable through government subsidies will exit the market; the remaining market leaders will emerge from this consolidation phase technologically stronger and more financially stable.
In this context, the shift towards more advanced cell technologies such as TOPCon, HJT, and perovskite tandem concepts is also understandable. Where cost reductions for conventional PERC cells reach their physical limits, these technologies offer new efficiency gains and thus the basis for a renewed price offensive at a technologically higher level. China installed a new world record of 315 gigawatts in 2025 and achieved its national expansion target of 1,200 gigawatts of installed solar and wind power six years ahead of schedule in 2030.
Eliminating subsidies will not automatically solve the Neijuan problem. As long as overcapacity exists in the value chain, the structural pressure for aggressive pricing will remain – only now without government funding to cover the shortfall. The market consolidation process will be painful: analysts expect significant capacity reductions, bankruptcies of medium-sized manufacturers, and government-orchestrated mergers to bring the industry to a sustainable size.
For international buyers and project developers, this results in a significantly altered basis for calculation in the medium term. The unusually low module prices of the years 2023 to 2025 were likely not a permanent state, but rather the temporary result of a flood of prices created by industrial policy. A return to these price levels is not realistic in the medium term – even if the absolute cost reduction of the technology through further efficiency improvements will enable further price reductions in the long term.
For the European and German energy transition, this is not a catastrophe, but a significant recalibration. The economic advantages of photovoltaic systems remain even with a price increase of 10 to 15 percent, as the levelized cost of electricity is still significantly lower than that of fossil fuel alternatives. What is changing is the pervasive logic of permanent price reductions, on which many installation companies, project developers, and end customers had based their financial plans. China's new solar economy is more expensive – and more honest.
 
 

Konrad Wolfenstein
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QUINCY (WGEM) – Solar technology may be finding its way into new spaces, and new power outlets, across Illinois.
If passed, Senate Bill 3104 would pave the way for plug-in solar panels, which can plug directly into a standard wall outlet, to become a more common sight in Illinois.
Lawmakers backing SB 3104 hope the plug-and-play panels will ease utility costs by pushing power back into the home.
“By providing a plug-in solar unit, it wouldn’t fuel your entire home, but it could offset your energy costs, and so you might be able to put it on your back balcony or the side of your house that faces south that doesn’t have a tree blocking it, for example, and provide a little bit of relief,” explained Sen. Rachel Ventura (D), who sponsored the bill.
The bill would exempt plug-in solar panels from interconnection requirements with utility companies, while preventing landlords, homeowner’s associations and similar groups from restricting or banning their use.
Similar bills have been introduced in 34 states, but some have met opposition.
In the Gem City, Quincy Fire Chief Steve Salrin is skeptical.
“Anything that gets pushed through legislation this quickly, and without the ability for organizations and… power companies and things like that to vet it, is concerning to me,” Salrin explained.
Salrin is most concerned about people connecting the panels to wall outlets with extension cords, increasing the risk of a fire. He also wants clarification on if plug-in systems would pose a threat to first responders after they’ve cut power to a home in an emergency.
“How can I be assured that it’s not backfeeding power into that system, and [at] what voltage or what wattage, to the point it could injure one of our personnel?” he said, later adding, “[The energy is] going exactly opposite of how we anticipate it being… [I have a] whole lot of questions.”
If the bill passes, Salrin advises residents to do their research and make sure their unit is certified by UL Solutions or a similarly accredited testing lab.
“If it has that stamp, it’s probably ok, but I would advise not to just jump on the first thing they see,” he said.
UL Solutions launched a testing and certification framework for plug-in solar units back in January. A unit must be certified to comply with the new bill in Illinois.
Plug-in solar units have already hit the mainstream in Germany, where more than 1.2 million units are registered.
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Ukraine grain firm Kernel seeks loan for 106-MW solar, storage site  Renewables Now
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(M = P, As, Sb) perovskites via machine learning and numerical simulation  Nature
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Air-conditioners were working hard during the recent heatwave that affected large parts of Australia — and rooftop solar power systems did their bit to alleviate strain on the mains grid while making air-con use greener and cheaper.
From about 4.30AM last Monday January 5, 2026 to the same time this morning (January 12), rooftop solar contributed 18.8% to overall electricity demand in the National Electricity Market (NEM – QLD, NSW/ACT, VIC, SA and TAS) and Western Australia’s South-West Interconnected System (SWIS). Utility-scale solar kicked in another 10.3%.
The maximum contribution from rooftop solar systems installed in NEM regions was 46.9% on Monday, January 5 at 12PM, followed by 45.9% on Wednesday, January 6 at midday. Overall for the period, all renewables met 49.9% of demand.
Here’s what happened in each state and territory for the period (aside from NT – I don’t have figures) based on data sourced from Open Electricity:
Note: I originally recorded figures yesterday, then when checking them again this morning on Open Electricity, they were really off (much lower) for South Australia. So I’ve opted to use January 4 to January 11 figures originally recorded as they seemed to align better with what was happening when I was checking SA from time to time during that period. I’ll check the figures again in the coming days and adjust if necessary.
In a graph:

The period saw underlying NEM demand jump to a record high of more than 40,000 megawatts at one point and January 7-9 saw the highest electricity demand in the NEM during the January 5 – 12 period.
Hot summer days have been challenging for electricity networks, striking fear into the hearts of grid operators as high temperatures drive the increase use of air-conditioners.
But in part thanks to rooftop solar panel installations, Global Power Energy’s Geoff Eldridge said there were no Lack of Reserve notices, no calls for emergency reserves, and prices were largely stable in the middle part of the day. Wholesale spot prices even went negative at times, which is becoming increasingly common.
“Peak [underlying] demand is higher than it was in 2019, and summer heat remains a defining challenge,” he said. “What has changed is how the system absorbs that challenge. Solar now carries much of the heat-driven load during the day.”
The remaining challenge for summer is in the evenings, when panels are no longer producing power. But even that will become less of an issue in the years ahead thanks to the Cheaper Home Batteries program (CHBP). More than 175,000 home batteries have been installed since the program formally launched in July 2025. These batteries will serve their owners well, helping to power their homes during evening peak, and put downward pressure on wholesale power prices — benefiting everyone.
The week also would have been a good test of how home batteries cope with extreme heat.
Beyond home solar batteries, there are also plenty of utility scale energy storage projects being built — there seems to be project announcements every other day at the moment.
Another key element in taming the electricity system are Virtual Power Plants (VPPs). These are  networks of distributed energy resources such as home batteries and solar panels centrally controlled by a third party and smart software to act as a single power source, balancing the grid and reducing peak demand.
But Virtual Power Plants are yet to really take off in Australia; even though we supposedly lead the world. Battery owners are still suspicious and concerned about various issues such as how hard a VPP operator might hit a battery and the impact that may have not only on battery warranty, but longevity.
According to this report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), around 38,200 Australian households were participating in VPPs by January last year, with adoption increasing nearly 22% every six months over the prior two-and-a-half years.
However, participation still trails well behind stand-alone battery installations. While there is a requirement under the CHBP that solar batteries installed be VPP *capable*, it is not required to join a program. But there can be added incentives for doing so. For example, In New South Wales and South Australia there is a payment available for connecting batteries to a VPP.
You can compare what’s available across Australia on SolarQuotes VPP comparison page.
By the way, you can also check out how rooftop solar performed on Xmas day 2025 here.
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Michael caught the solar power bug after purchasing components to cobble together a small off-grid PV system in 2008. He’s been reporting on Australian and international solar energy news ever since.
Denand Price
Our proerty is in SA and on the 10th (peak supply day), our system had the battery full by 13.15 and didn’t even start selling through Amber until 17.20 and the price was low enough that the battery wasn’t used at all to supply the grid. Amber income $1.34 for exporting 12.96 kWh
The 7th though, completely different story. We were selling power from the roof from 15.00 and from the battery by 19.00. Because of the demand from the grid, our battery only charged to 70% before the selling began. Amber income $33.99 for exporting 68.54kWh
FWIW the best income ( demand) during the heatwave was on Tues 5th, $205.14 from Amber for 76.03kWh of exports.
Not sure how this tallies up with the demand for exports to the grid.
Thanks, Michael. For keeping track of this information. Am I correct in saying that these percentages of solar contribution are only what reaches the grid and not the amount consumed behind the meter, that is directly from solar panels to air con? If that is correct the contribution of solar would be much higher. Is there anyway of measuring/estimating this.
that ia a good question, becuase at the distribution level (houses) dnsp monitoring is dark.
So, this implies they can measure solar self consumption. How do they do that?
Shirley this can only measure on front of the meter. We used 116KWh over that time period behind the meter (production minus export, almost exclusively on AC). Most solar owners with AC would be in a similar boat. (Although ymmv in specific KWh)
I believe AEMO uses a statistical model developed by Melbourne Uni. It used data from PVOutput connected system and some early NSW gross meters. It takes into account local weather.
https://www.aemo.com.au/-/media/files/electricity/nem/planning_and_forecasting/demand-forecasts/nefr/2016/uom-rooftop-pv-model-technical-report.pdf
And don’t call me Shirley.
Air-conditioners were working hard during the recent heatwave that affected large parts of Australia — and rooftop solar power systems did their bit to alleviate strain on the mains grid while making air-con use greener and cheaper.
The global mean surface temperature anomaly for 1-8 Jan 2026, was +1.60 °C above the 1850-1900 reference baseline.
https://bsky.app/profile/climatecasino.net/post/3mc3ct5p2m22k
And this is apparently occurring during a weak La Niña phase.
4 Jan 2026: R-Niño3.4 at -0.95 °C
https://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/?ninoIndex=nino3.4&index=rnino34&period=weekly#overview-section=Monitoring-graphs
NOAA’s Jan 2026 ENSO update suggests a 50% chance of an El Niño phase by mid-2026 and more than 60% chance by 3Q-2026.
https://bsky.app/profile/climatecasino.net/post/3mbwdccptic2j
It seems air conditioners will likely be working much harder during the next even hotter Australian summer (i.e. 2026-27). Are you prepared?
Is this summer hot? Humid, sure, but hot? Obviously it depends where you are, a few places apparently have been warmer, but it seems very regionalised.
Depending on the day you’re talking about, and part, the peak temperatures were sub-30!
On the other hand hot and humid (usually cloudy) nights are taxing on folk.
John Alba: – “Is this summer hot? Humid, sure, but hot?”
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) does not use a single, universally fixed temperature threshold for “hot,” “warm,” or “cold.” Instead, these terms are relative to the specific climate zone, season, and historical averages of a particular location.
Australia is divided into six major climate zones (e.g., tropical, subtropical, temperate, desert). A “hot” day in a temperate zone (like Melbourne) might have a lower temperature than a “warm” day in the tropics (like Cairns).
So, where/when are you referring to, John?
John Alba: – “Depending on the day you’re talking about, and part, the peak temperatures were sub-30!”
Meanwhile, Sydney’s (i.e. Observatory Hill’s) maximum temperature peaked at 42.2°C on Saturday, 10 Jan 2026, making it the second time in the summer of 2025/26.
https://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/sydney-tops-42c-twice-in-summer-for-first-time-in-13-years/1891131
Geoff, relative means you’re getting into subjective territory. Britain is ‘hot’ when it hits 30 or so whereas it’s the mean daily maximum even in winter for Darwin, though only the mean maximum in summer for Hobart.
Given Sydney is a concrete jungle and thus a heat sink, might not that have something to do with the temperature? I’m presuming the location in question is a park next to the harbour, so there may be some amelioration, but honestly what do you expect from a built environment that’s only growing worse?
Michael, you’ve mentioned the maximums, but what about the minimums? Folk don’t just use power when it’s peak output, they also need power when it’s at the minimum. Leaving aside the poor solar output at night, what about lowest maximums by region over the same period?
-NSW 20.8% (noon 11th Jan)
-QLD 35.4% (11 am 11th)
-SA 51.9% (1pm 8th)
-VIC 30.8% (10:30am 9th)
QLD aside, it looks like there’s huge variation in maximum contribution, which has implications for reliable power supply.
I believe it is significant due to self consumption. Over the dates mentioned in the blog, the grid would have observed my house consuming about 95KWh. It in fact used about 215KWh. Because I was self consuming so much of my generation for AC, my exports were significantly lower than average for this time of year. Multiply this drop of exported production by all the other houses in the states with a heatwave and the low measured contribution is of no surprise.
Keep in mind too the dire FiT means that there is virtually no financial incentive to set the thermostat a bit warmer and share some of those electrons. The lost export earnings potential for staying way more comfortable is a cup of coffee money over the week.
My grid use for the week in question was less than half yours. Something broke last time I had a power cut so self consumption is a little more complicated, but probably similar direct consumption – AC is a glutton compared to most other things.
I won’t bother comparing exports for the period in question across the years, but the daily average for the first 11 days of the month compared to previous years suggests it could be the highest export month since last year. Obviously the full month is TBC and BoM is predicting plenty of grey days so the export average could plummet radically.
My FiT is still decent at 10c/kWh, but my retailer has indicated they’re not inclined to continue that so things are likely to change radically in the nearish future. : – (
Do you mean you drink cheap coffee, or you export a lot of power? Given how high shop coffee prices are, and how common 2 or 3 c/kWh FiTs are, it takes a lot of kWh to pay off a single coffee. : – )
I’m comparing my exports at my FiT (5c) between two strategies. The first strategy is maximizing for comfort in the heatwave (all zones on, high fan speed, 21C but it’s going to self consume practically everything) vs the second strategy of keeping one zone at 26C and low fan speed. The latter would let me export an additional 25KWh per day than the former (on a sunny day) due to reduced AC draw. My point is that over a week that latter strategy would only earn an extra $5-$10 so poor FiT is encouraging a reduction of exports during heatwaves.
Up in NSW, on a 42°C day, my brother was exporting 10 kW while powering two dwellings. The system nearly cooked, with heatsinks over 75°C, so 100°C+ inside, I figure. That was with a shadecloth shade, which reduced convection cooling. Reduction of inverter and battery life need to be considered when driving the system hard in hot weather.
I’ve advised him to drop exports entirely on hot days.
Many domestic systems have small inverters, already becoming undersized for self consumption, let alone hot weather export. Killing them for peanuts make no sense.
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Proposed legislation aims to bring more plug-and-play solar panels to apartments and condos, but fire chief warns of potential safety risks.
Apr. 3, 2026 at 3:40am
Got story updates? Submit your updates here. ›
If passed, Illinois Senate Bill 3104 would pave the way for plug-in solar panels, which can be directly plugged into standard wall outlets, to become more common in the state. While supporters say the panels could help offset energy costs, Quincy Fire Chief Steve Salrin is skeptical, citing concerns about fire risks from improper installation and potential threats to first responders.
The proposed legislation is part of a broader push across 34 states to make plug-in solar more accessible, but it has faced opposition in some areas. Quincy’s fire chief raises valid safety concerns that could influence how the bill is implemented or received in Illinois communities.
Senate Bill 3104 would exempt plug-in solar panels from interconnection requirements with utility companies and prevent landlords, homeowner’s associations, and similar groups from restricting or banning their use. Supporters say the panels could provide ‘a little bit of relief’ on energy costs. However, Quincy Fire Chief Steve Salrin is worried about people connecting the panels to wall outlets with extension cords, increasing fire risks. He also wants clarification on whether the panels could backfeed power into the system and pose a threat to first responders.
Quincy Fire Chief who has expressed concerns about the safety of plug-in solar panels.
Illinois state senator who sponsored Senate Bill 3104 to promote plug-in solar panels.
“Anything that gets pushed through legislation this quickly, and without the ability for organizations and… power companies and things like that to vet it, is concerning to me.”
— Steve Salrin, Quincy Fire Chief
“By providing a plug-in solar unit, it wouldn’t fuel your entire home, but it could offset your energy costs, and so you might be able to put it on your back balcony or the side of your house that faces south that doesn’t have a tree blocking it, for example, and provide a little bit of relief.”
— Rachel Ventura, Illinois State Senator
If Senate Bill 3104 passes, the Illinois legislature will need to work with fire departments, utility companies, and other stakeholders to address the safety concerns raised by Quincy’s fire chief and ensure proper implementation and oversight of the plug-in solar program.
The push for more accessible plug-in solar power faces pushback from fire safety officials who want to ensure proper safeguards are in place. As Illinois considers this legislation, balancing renewable energy goals with public safety will be crucial to the success of any new solar initiatives.
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The

Australia rooftop solar market is experiencing robust and sustained growth as the country accelerates its transition toward clean and decentralized energy systems. According to IMARC Group, the market reached a value of USD 1,528.1 million in 2025 and is projected to grow to USD 2,654.1 million by 2034, expanding at a CAGR of 6.14% during 2026–2034.
This growth reflects Australia’s position as a global leader in rooftop solar adoption. With abundant sunlight, supportive government policies, and rising electricity prices, rooftop solar has become a mainstream energy solution for households and businesses alike. What was once considered an alternative energy source is now a central component of the country’s energy infrastructure.
Rooftop solar systems—installed on residential, commercial, and industrial buildings—enable users to generate electricity at the point of consumption. This not only reduces dependence on centralized grids but also lowers energy costs and carbon emissions. As Australia continues to modernize its energy systems, rooftop solar is playing a pivotal role in shaping a more resilient and sustainable future.
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Why the Market Is Growing So Rapidly
One of the primary drivers of the Australia rooftop solar market is strong policy support and government incentives. Federal and state programs, such as renewable energy schemes, rebates, and feed-in tariffs, have significantly reduced the upfront cost of solar installations. These incentives have made rooftop solar financially attractive, encouraging widespread adoption across households and businesses.
Another key factor is the rising cost of electricity. Increasing power prices have prompted consumers to seek cost-effective alternatives, and rooftop solar offers a compelling solution. By generating their own electricity, users can reduce their reliance on the grid and achieve substantial long-term savings. This economic advantage continues to drive strong demand for solar installations.
The growing need for decentralized energy solutions is also accelerating market growth. As energy demand increases and grid reliability faces challenges—especially in remote areas—rooftop solar provides a practical alternative. Generating power at the point of use reduces transmission losses and alleviates pressure on centralized infrastructure, enhancing overall system efficiency.
Environmental awareness is another significant driver. With increasing concern about climate change and carbon emissions, consumers are actively seeking cleaner energy options. Rooftop solar offers a visible and effective way to reduce environmental impact, making it a popular choice among environmentally conscious individuals and organizations.
Technological advancements are further boosting the market. Modern solar panels are more efficient and durable, while innovations such as smart inverters and battery storage systems are improving energy management. These advancements enhance the overall value proposition of rooftop solar, making it more accessible and reliable for a wider range of users.

What the Opportunities Are
The Australia rooftop solar market presents a wide range of opportunities for stakeholders:
• Integration with battery storage systems: Combining solar panels with batteries enables energy storage and enhances self-consumption.
• Expansion of virtual power plants (VPPs): Aggregating distributed solar systems can create large-scale energy networks.
• Commercial and industrial adoption: Businesses are increasingly investing in rooftop solar to reduce operational costs.
• Smart grid integration: Advanced grid technologies enable better management of distributed energy resources.
• Growth in solar financing models: Innovative financing options are making solar installations more accessible.
• Regional and remote area deployment: Off-grid solutions provide reliable power in underserved locations.
• Technological innovation in panel efficiency: Continued R&D is improving performance and reducing costs.
These opportunities highlight the market’s potential to evolve into a highly integrated and technology-driven energy ecosystem.

Recent News & Developments in Australia Rooftop Solar Market
• February 2025: A leading solar technology company launched a new 480 W rooftop solar panel in Australia with a record efficiency of 24.3%. The innovation is based on advanced cell technology, improving energy output without increasing panel size. This development is expected to enhance system performance and accelerate adoption among residential users.
• May 2025: The Australian government expanded its support for distributed energy resources through updated renewable energy policies and incentives. These measures aim to increase rooftop solar installations and improve grid integration. The initiative is part of a broader strategy to achieve long-term climate and energy targets.
• September 2025: Australia recorded a significant increase in rooftop solar output, driven by new installations and favorable conditions. The surge highlights the growing contribution of rooftop solar to the national energy mix and underscores its role in reducing reliance on traditional power sources.

Why Should You Know About Australia Rooftop Solar Market?
The Australia rooftop solar market is more than just a segment of the renewable energy industry—it is a defining feature of the country’s energy transition. Its strong growth reflects a shift toward decentralized, sustainable, and consumer-driven energy systems.
For investors, the market offers stable growth supported by strong policy backing and increasing demand. For businesses, it provides an opportunity to reduce costs and improve sustainability performance. For policymakers, it highlights the importance of integrating distributed energy resources into national energy strategies.
As Australia continues to lead in rooftop solar adoption, the market is set to play a crucial role in achieving energy security, reducing emissions, and building a resilient energy future. Understanding this market today provides valuable insight into the broader transformation of the global energy landscape.

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The Pine Tree State joins Utah and Virginia in advancing a law that establishes rules for small plug-in solar generation devices.
The Maine State House in Augusta
MonsieurNapoléon, CC BY-SA 3.0
With the state Senate’s passage of LD 1730 on April 2, 2026, Maine became the third state in the U.S. to pass legislation allowing citizens to use small plug-in solar devices to offset some of their electricity usage — joining Utah, which passed the nation’s first bill in 2025, and Virginia, which acted earlier this year.
Like the previous bill’s Maine’s law would allow any retail electricity customer to install and use a single plug-in photovoltaic or battery system up to 1,200 watts.
The devices may be connected to standard outlets as long as they comply with certain National Electrical Code and UL safety standards.
Notably, the Maine bill is the first to specifically mention the new standards being developed under the UL 3700 outline of investigation, but it would also allow devices certified to comparable standards from other testing laboratories, or that meet the requirements of the National Electrical Code (NEC). 
The bill also prohibits utility companies from requiring interconnection agreements or fees to be paid by customers that use these devices. 
However, unlike the bills in Virginia and Utah, LD 1730 would create two classes of plug-in solar and battery systems defined by their output wattage. 
Owners of systems with power output greater than 420 watts would be required to have the devices installed by a licensed electrician, and required to notify their utility company of their use of the device within 30 days of installation. 
DIY installations of systems with 420 watts or less of power output would be allowed, with no requirement to notify the utility.
Absent from the Maine bill are the kinds of tenant protections that made the Virginia bill unique. The law does have a section regarding a tenant’s use of an eligible device, but it is limited to a requirement that the tenant ensures the system does not compromise the rental property or violate safety codes, and will reverse any changes they make to the structure when removing the device.
While Maine has a “solar rights” law on the books, the current statute only protects the rights of Maine renters to use “solar clothes-drying devices.” As written, the existing solar rights law allows restrictions on solar devices for a number of reasons, including “on residential property in common ownership with 3rd parties or common elements of a condominium.”
The bill, entitled “An Act to Make Small Plug-in Solar Generation Devices Accessible for All Maine Residents to Address the Energy Affordability Crisis,” will now head to the desk of governor Janet Mills, who will have 10 days to veto or sign it into law.
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Apartments, a solar farm and school upgrades are among projects planned in central Pa.  PennLive.com
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As the war in the Middle East eats into global energy security, Indonesia’s president Prabowo Subianto has reiterated the country’s plans to accelerate renewable energy capacity – particularly a 100-gigawatt (GW) target for solar power within the next three years.
“For us, this is more urgent because of…the geopolitical situation in the Middle East,” he said on Monday at the Indonesia-Japan Business Forum in Tokyo. 
To ensure Indonesia’s energy security, “we are determined to enhance whatever we have and to secure renewable and green energy,” Prabowo added. “With these efforts, we will be in a secure position to meet whatever uncertainty there is.”
As of 2023, renewables made up nearly 16 per cent of Indonesia’s energy mix, according to International Energy Agency data, driven primarily by hydropower and geothermal energy.
Solar power stood at just 1.7 per cent of Indonesia’s energy mix, while coal held the largest share of energy at about 36 per cent.
The 100 GW solar power programme, which was initially announced in August 2025 and includes plans to install more battery energy storage systems (BESS), continues to face hurdles, analysts say. 
“Despite a strong economic case, implementation of the solar plus BESS program remains slow due to regulatory uncertainty, financing constraints, and land acquisition challenges,” wrote Mutya Yustika, research and engagement lead for Indonesia energy transition at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), a United States-based think tank.
Recent analysis by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) suggests the shift could save around US$2 billion by reducing diesel imports. It could also cut more than US$1 billion in fuel subsidies, broadly in line with estimates from Jakarta-based think tank the Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR).
However, progress on the 100 GW solar and BESS plan, first announced in August 2025, will require addressing the regulatory uncertainty and financing gaps that have plagued Indonesia’s energy transition for years.
IEEFA pointed out that progress on phasing out diesel has been sluggish, despite efforts for  state utility firm Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) to replace diesel plants with solar and batteries as early as 2022. A presidential regulation that had established procurement timelines of under 180 days, but no power purchase agreements have been signed and delays have persisted, affecting private sector interest.
PLN’s slow update of renewable energy has been cited as the main reason for the delay in Indonesia’s energy transition, affecting project viability. Last year, an official with Indonesia’s Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) secretariat said that the state utility company has not been procuring clean energy, despite its pledges to phase down fossil fuel use.
Although Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources granted PLN permission to operate hybrid plants last year, the tariff framework remains under discussion, according IEEFA’s Yustika.
“Without a clear and finalised tariff structure, PLN is unable to execute power purchase agreements, and developers lack the pricing certainty needed to mobilise capital,” she wrote. “Establishing clear, transparent, bankable, and consistent tariff regulations will be critical to unlock private investment and accelerate deployment.”
The 100 GW solar target also has to be integrated into PLN’s 2025-2034 Electricity Supply Business Plan (RUPTL), a core planning document that currently projects only 17.1 GW of solar by 2034. IESR’s head of energy system modelling and analysis, Alvin Putra Sisdwinugraha, told local media outlet Warta Ekonomi that the plan must be updated to include the new target.
An estimated US$78 billion is needed to fund the 100 GW over the next five years, according to IESR. 
Prabowo, in his speech in Japan, acknowledged the need for Indonesia’s energy transition projects to be bankable and to deliver “real benefits” alongside returns on investment. 
He added that Indonesia is also trying to improve its investment climate by streamlining regulations.
In addition to plans to boost solar power, Prabowo highlighted the country’s potential for geothermal energy and biofuels as alternative renewable energy sources. The country is raising its target blend of palm oil in biodiesel from 40 per cent to 50 per cent effective 1 July this year.
This blend of palm oil and diesel, called B50, is expected to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 4 million kilolitres and save up to 48 trillion rupiah (US$2.8 billion), said Airlangga Hartarto, Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs.
Coal, said Prabowo, would remain a “reserve of last resort” for Indonesia’s energy security. 
However, the president has also reportedly ordered an increase in coal production as the world’s largest exporter of the fossil fuel seeks to capitalise on rising global coal prices. Indonesia on Monday approved a coal production plan of 580 million tonnes this year.
South Korean president Lee Jae-myung expressed appreciation for Indonesia’s exports of liquified natural gas (LNG) and coal to the country, as he met with Prabowo on Wednesday.
South Korea, which last year committed to phasing out coal, has delayed the shutdown of its coal-fired power plants in light of the energy crisis caused by the war in the Middle East. Indonesia is its largest supplier of coal after Australia.
In a joint statement, both leaders said they would accelerate the launch of a high-level energy security dialogue as one of several efforts to stabilise global energy supply chains and minimise disruptions.
The two presidents signed 10 memoranda of understanding (MOUs) covering critical minerals, clean energy advancement, carbon capture and storage, as well as offshore power generation services, among others.
Indonesia’s Airlangga told local media that the government would evaluate its exports of LNG separate from these agreements, given increasing domestic demand for the gas. 
Separately, Indonesia’s finance minister Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa told Bloomberg that the country is mulling a new export tax on coal.
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Plans to build what would become Europe’s largest solar farm have been plunged into doubt following “months of scrutiny”.
The case for renewables looks stronger than ever, as the war on Iran continues to send oil and gas prices soaring. Recent analysis shows that solar, which has been identified as the cheapest form of clean energy, saved Europe €3 billion last month by lowering its reliance on fossil fuel imports.
However, building renewable infrastructure has become increasingly controversial – with many Europeans divided by wind turbines and solar panels taking over their green spaces.
Botley West Solar Farm, which was first pitched in September 2022, has a target of being connected to the grid by autumn 2029.
Located in Oxfordshire, England, the farm could deliver 840 megawatts of clean energy, enough to power roughly 330,000 homes. This represents 1.2 per cent of the UK’s solar capacity targets by 2035.
Photovolt Development Partners (PVDP), the company behind the £800 million (around €916.43 million) project, says the farm will also help the country reduce carbon emissions and improve its energy security.
While PVDP has vowed to deliver a minimum biodiversity net gain of at least 70 per cent, nearby residents have urged the company to scale down its ambitious project over concerns about the impact it may have on the natural area.
Ian Hudspeth, the former leader of Oxfordshire County Council, who lives in one of the areas included in the proposals, argues the farm would create an “ocean of glass and steel” across the countryside.
A campaign group has been set up to protest the launch. Stop Botley West argues that installing so many solar panels could have a detrimental impact on the amount of crops grown in the area, and says current plans span too close to the UNESCO World Heritage site Blenheim Palace.
The group also claims that there will be loss of wildlife habitat, increased risk of flooding and an “unprecedented” visual impact on the area.
Nick Eyre from the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute says many concerns about food impact are “hugely exaggerated”.
“We can produce food much more efficiently, we know how to do that,” he tells the BBC. “To put it in perspective, one per cent of the area [of the UK] is golf courses. I don’t hear anybody saying golf courses are a threat to food security.”
Planning inspectors sent a report on the proposal for Botley West to Energy Secretary Ed Miliband in February. Under UK planning law, this means a decision has to be announced within three months (10 May), unless a statement is made declaring a new deadline will be set.
However, the UK government has now confirmed that a decision on the solar farm will be delayed by four months, until 10 September.
“This is to enable my Department to seek further information from the applicant with sufficient time to allow for consideration of this information by other interested parties,” Martin McCluskey, Minister for Energy Consumers, says.
“The decision to set the new deadline for this application is without prejudice to the decision on whether to grant or refuse development consent.”
Professor Alex Roger, chair of Stop Botley West, says: “We welcome the Secretary of State’s decision to seek further information from the Applicant, and to allow sufficient time for consideration by interested parties such as the Stop Botley West community group.”
Euronews Earth has contacted PVDP for comment.


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The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) supports research and development projects that increase the efficiency and lifetime of metal-halide perovskite solar cells, speeding the commercialization of perovskite solar technologies and decreasing manufacturing costs. 
Perovskites are a family of materials that have shown potential for high performance and low production costs in solar cells. The name “perovskite” comes from their crystal structure. These materials are utilized in other energy technologies, such as fuel cells and catalysts. Perovskites commonly used in photovoltaic (PV) solar cells are more specifically called “metal-halide perovskites” since they are made of a combination of organic ions, metals, and halogens; perovskites in other applications may be made of oxygen instead of halogens and are usually entirely inorganic.
Metal-halide perovskites are the main absorbing material, or “active layer,” in a perovskite solar cell. In this potentially inexpensive technology, a thin layer of perovskite absorbs light, which excites charged particles called electrons; when these excited electrons are extracted, they generate electric power. Perovskite cells are referred to as thin-film because they require much thinner active layers relative to crystalline silicon PV. 
This is possible due to perovskite’s ability to absorb certain colors of light very effectively. Perovskite absorber layers can also be stacked on top of another absorber layer, such as silicon, to use the colors of light not absorbed in the perovskite, resulting in a cell that can be theoretically more efficient than cells made of either material on their own. When two layers are stacked in such a manner, this is known as a tandem solar cell.
In a solar cell, the perovskite absorber is attached to other materials, which “force” electric current to flow in a single direction through the absorber layer and into the metal contacts to be collected as electric current. Learn more about how solar cells work.
Perovskite solar cells have shown remarkable progress in recent years with rapid increases in efficiency, from reports of about 3% in 2009 to over 26% today on small area devices (about 0.1 cm²). Perovskite-silicon tandem cells have reached efficiencies of almost 34%. While perovskite solar cells have become highly efficient in a very short time, perovskite PV is not yet manufactured at scale and a number of challenges must be addressed before perovskites can become a competitive commercial PV technology.
Below is a general overview of the general steps taken to produce perovskite solar cells and modules. Because the technology is still in development, the details of each step can vary widely between research groups. This includes the elements that comprise the perovskite materials, cell and module assembly, and the tests performed on the finished product.
Precursor salts are mixed to form a perovskite ink solution. In some cases, if the material will be deposited as a vapor, the salts are not mixed until they are deposited together on a cell in the next step. 
An ultra-thin layer of perovskite ink or powder is deposited onto a base. The cell is heated to set the film. Other material layers are deposited before (and below) the perovskite layer, or after (and on top of) the perovskite layer. These layers help direct the flow of electrons. 
If a module is to be created, channels are laser scribed to separate the film into individual cells. Electrical contact channels are scribed to wire those cells together. Edge sealant and encapsulant for weather proofing are added.
The cell or module is tested to gauge its efficiency and durability. Since perovskites are not yet in high-volume production, the knowledge gained regarding its materials and electronic properties will be used for further research and development.
SETO has identified four primary challenges that must be simultaneously addressed for perovskite technologies to bridge the gap between lab research and commercial success: cell stability and durability; power conversion efficiency at scale; manufacturability; and technology validation and bankability. Read more about these challenges.
SETO supports projects that address these challenges through several funding programs: 
You can also read SETO’s perspective on the path to perovskite commercialization and review the findings of SETO’s Performance Targets for Perovskite Photovoltaic Research, Development, and Demonstration Programs Request for Information. DOE hopes to develop targets for hybrid tandem technologies by the end of 2026.
Learn more about SETO’s PV research, how PV technologies work, and perovskite research directions. 
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UNSW researchers developed a chemically selective, nitrate-based, single-sided accelerated ageing method for TOPCon solar cells that replicates the mildly acidic environment inside EVA-encapsulated modules. The proposed approach enables rapid, physically meaningful screening of front-side metallisation stability, reliably predicting module-level degradation and reducing development time and costs, according to its creators.
Image: UNSW
A research team from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has developed a new cell-level accelerated ageing method for TOPCon solar technologies.
“Conventional solution-based accelerated tests like cetic acid soaking impose chemically unrealistic conditions and often fail to reproduce degradation trends at the module level,” the research’s lead author, Bram Hoex, told pv magazine. “We introduced a chemically selective, pH-controlled, nitrate-based cell-level aging method that replicates the mildly acidic environment within EVA-encapsulated modules.”
The scientists explained that to accelerate the assessment of TOPCon cell and module stability, solution-based ageing methods, particularly immersion in acetic acid (CH₃COOH), have been widely used. While these approaches provide valuable mechanistic insights, they have limitations, as both sides of the cell are exposed simultaneously, and the chemical conditions are often harsher than the mildly acidic environment that develops inside EVA-encapsulated modules.
Alternative methods, such as spraying salts like sodium chloride (NaCl) or sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO₃) onto cell surfaces, fail to replicate these realistic conditions. Nitrate species are however naturally occurring and can produce tunable acidic environments depending on the cation used, making them well suited for chemically relevant accelerated ageing.
“Building on these insights, we develop a nitrate-based, single-side ageing method in which controlled-pH contaminants are applied to the front surface before damp-heat exposure,” Hoex said. “This approach enables targeted evaluation of front-side metallisation stability and reliably reproduces module-level degradation trends, providing a framework for chemically realistic accelerated testing of TOPCon solar cells.”
The research team conducted the tests on TOPCon solar cells measuring 182 mm × 183.75 mm and based on n-type Czochralski silicon wafers with two front-contact variants: conventional silver/aluminum (Ag/Al) paste and a low-Al Ag paste processed using a laser-assisted firing technique (Ag/LAF). All cells were half-cut to form 144-cell modules, encapsulated with EVA – UV-blocking on the front and UV-transparent on the rear – and completed with a transparent backsheet featuring a white grid.
Module-level damp-heat testing was conducted according to the IEC TS 62782 standard, with electrical output measured and electroluminescence imaging used to identify degradation. At the cell level, accelerated stress tests included immersion in 0.1 M CH₃COOH or CH₃COONa at 85 C, as well as spray application of salt solutions with controlled pH, followed by damp-heat testing at 85 C and 85% relative humidity (DH85). Solution pH was determined at 25 C, and relative acidity trends were maintained during high-temperature ageing.
The electrical performance was measured before and after tests using a LOANA system, while photoluminescence and series resistance maps were acquired with a BT Imaging R3 system. All experiments included multiple replicates to ensure reproducibility, enabling comprehensive assessment of front-side metallisation stability and module-level degradation fingerprints.
The tests showed that the Ag/Al and Ag/LAF cells showed different degradation behaviors, with Ag/LAF contacts exhibiting higher sensitivity to acidic conditions and pronounced losses in efficiency and fill factor due to front-contact delamination.
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and focused ion beam-scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) analyses revealed that Ag/Al contacts rely on Al spikes and high glass frit content, which provide mechanical robustness and slower degradation, while Ag/LAF contacts depend on silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) with thin lead oxide (PbO)-rich glass frit layers that dissolve under acidic or chloride-rich conditions.
Furthermore, single-sided salt treatments highlighted the role of solution pH and specific ions in front-contact corrosion, showing severe degradation under aluminium nitrate (Al(NO₃)₃) and chloride (Cl⁻) salts. Neutral salts were found to cause minor effects, whereas acidic nitrate solutions accelerated PbO glass-frit dissolution. Moreover, Cell-level DH85 with zinc nitrate (Zn(NO₃)₂) demonstrated consistent trends with module-level performance, with fill factor loss as the dominant factor.
“Our approach provides a fast and physically meaningful screening tool to identify reliability risks at the solar cell stage, before committing to full module assembly and long-term damp-heat testing exceeding 1,000 hours,” Hoex said. “It enables rapid optimization of metallization and bill-of-materials (BOM) choices, reducing development time and costs while avoiding misleading conclusions that can arise from overly aggressive or non-representative accelerated tests. By establishing a clear link between cell-level testing and actual module degradation mechanisms, this method enhances the predictive capability for long-term performance.”
The new methodology was presented in “Bridging accelerated cell-level degradation to module-relevant failure mechanisms in TOPCon solar cells and modules,” published in the Chemical Engineering Journal. “In essence, this work demonstrates that well-designed, chemically relevant cell-level tests can significantly accelerate reliability assessment, while still capturing the key degradation pathways observed at the module level,” Hoex concluded. 
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An international reserch team developed two deep learning-based IDS models to enhance cybersecurity in SCADA systems. The hybrid approach reportedly improves detection of complex and novel cyber threats with high accuracy, adaptability, and efficiency, outperforming traditional methods across multiple datasets.
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A Saudi-British research team has develeped two new deep learning-based intrusion detection systems (IDSs) that can reportedly improve the cybersecurity of SCADA networks.
In large-scale solar power plants, SCADA systems play a vital role by overseeing energy generation, monitoring the performance of solar panels, optimizing output, identifying potential faults, and maintaining smooth overall operations. In essence, they act as the central system that converts raw solar data into practical control decisions, ensuring the plant operates safely, efficiently, and profitably.
The scientists explaind that current cybersecurity frameworks are often inadequate for SCADA systems because they cannot fully cope with the complexity and constantly evolving nature of modern cyber threats. Most existing approaches rely on signature-based detection, which depends on prior knowledge of attack patterns and therefore fails to detect zero-day exploits or novel intrusion techniques.
To address this limitation, the researchers considered deep learning methods, as these techniques allows to process large volumes of data, identify complex patterns, and enable more proactive threat detection.
“Such capability of handling and analyzing big data is particularly useful during scenarios when SCADA systems are generating huge streams of real-time data, including sensor readings, control commands, and other system logs,” they explained. “Furthermore, deep learning methods, especially convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and recurrent neural networks (RNNs), have shown outstanding performances in the detection of complex attack scenarios with sequential or spatial patterns in data.”

Do you want to strengthen and enhance the cyber security of your solar energy assets to safeguard them against emerging threats?
Join us on Apr. 29 for pv magazine Webinar+ | Decoding the first massive cyberattack on Europe’s solar energy infrastructure – The Poland case and lessons learned
Industry experts will explore real-world cyberattack scenarios, highlight potential vulnerabilities in solar and storage systems, and share practical, actionable strategies to protect your energy assets. Attendees will gain valuable knowledge on how to anticipate, prevent, and respond to cyber threats in the rapidly evolving solar energy sector.
The proposed approach integrates two new IDSs, named the Spike Encoding Adaptive Regulation Kernel (SPARK) and the Scented Alpine Descent (SAD) algorithm. By leveraging their complementary strengths, the method reportedly improves spike-threshold accuracy while enhancing adaptability and robustness under dynamic conditions.
The SPARK model introduces adaptive spike encoding by dynamically adjusting thresholds based on input signal characteristics. It uses advanced statistical methods to respond to variations in neural input, improving sensitivity to changes in intensity and frequency. By integrating both temporal and spatial features, SPARK enhances information encoding, especially for complex datasets. Unlike traditional fixed-threshold methods, it provides context-aware thresholding, improving accuracy and reliability.
The SAD algorithm complements SPARK by offering an optimization strategy inspired by olfactory navigation, which is the process by which animals and organisms use odor cues to locate food, mates, or home, and Lévy flight behavior, which is a strategy obeserved in many animal species to randomly search for a target in an unknown environment. This purportedly enables efficient exploration of solution spaces and avoids local minima, ensuring optimal threshold selection.
The hybrid approach can dynamically adjust and optimize spike thresholds simultaneously, surpassing conventional static or isolated approaches, according to scientists, which noted that the SPARK model is well-suited for SCADA and IoT systems due to its scalability, real-time adaptability, and efficient data handling. Additionally, its lightweight design reduces computational overhead and false positives, making it effective for resource-constrained environments.
“SAD is complementary to SPARK in the sense that it focuses on improving the detection accuracy while maintaining computational efficiency,” the researchers emphasized. “SAD’s anomaly scoring mechanism can be integrated into this framework to add another layer of detection, which can run parallel with SPARK. In effect, integrating the deep learning models into the scoring mechanism means that SAD would enable a much more fine-grained analysis of attack patterns with little noticeable impact on performance for the SCADA system in question.”
The researchers used multiple benchmark datasets are used to evaluate SCADA intrusion detection performance, including the Secure Water Treatment (SWaT) testbed, Gas Pipeline, WUSTL-IIoT, and Electra. These datasets capture diverse industrial environments, attack types, and operational conditions, enabling comprehensive testing. They also include time-series sensor data, actuator commands, and labeled attack scenarios such as denial-of-service (DoS), distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), malware, and injection attacks.
The diversity of datasets ensured accurate modeling of both normal behavior and complex anomalies in SCADA and IIoT systems, according to the research team. Standardized preprocessing, training, and evaluation procedures also enabled comparison across all tested models. Cross-validation and controlled training conditions, meanwhile, reportedly prevented bias and ensured reliable generalization results. Visualization tools such as histograms, loss curves, and confusion matrices provided insights into model behavior and anomaly detection.
The SPARK model was found to consistently demonstrate “superior” performance, achieving high accuracy, precision, and recall across datasets. It outperformed traditional machine learning and deep learning approaches in detecting diverse intrusion types.

“The findings underline, in summary, that the SPARK and SAD models are basically the final frontier in modern intrusion detection,” the scientists said. “Distinctly designed to provide improved detection capabilities and operational efficiency, the two designs also chart a way into more resilient and intelligent security solutions for modern industrial controlled systems (ICSs) and Internet-of-Things (IoT) networks.”
The novel IDSs have been presented in “SPARK and SAD: Leading-edge deep learning frameworks for robust and effective intrusion detection in SCADA systems,” published in the International Journal of Critical Infrastructure Protection. The research team comprised academics form the Leeds Beckett University in the United Kingdom and King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. 
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WNEG
The Voice of Wonderful NE Georgia
The Voice of Wonderful NE Georgia
The Toccoa-Stephens County Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon-tying ceremony for GRP Wegman’s solar panel project at the Stephens County Jail on Thursday, April 2.

GRP Wegman’s Business Development Director in the Southeast, Mike Wilson, said after speaking with Stephens County Administrator Christian Hamilton and the County Commission, a plan was developed to install solar technology in an empty lot near the jail.
Chamber Board Member Lisa Lawson spoke about tying the ribbon on the project.
The operation of the jail is the largest energy user among the county-owned properties. The panels will offset the electricity expenses at the jail, offsetting the cost to the Stephens County taxpayers in their support of county operations. Stephens County Commission Chair Chris Rickman says a lot of work went into this investment for the county.
Commissioner Tara Simmons said that the solar panels will result in cost savings for taxpayers.
The solar project went live on December 12, 2025. The panels are insured for 30 years.

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India is expected to add 42.5GW of new solar capacity in 2026, according to research analyst JMK Research’s Q4 2025 (Oct-Dec) India RE Update report.  
Of this, 32.5GW will come from utility-scale projects, 8.5GW from rooftop solar and 1.5GW from off-grid installations. During Q4 2025, India added approximately 6.2GW of utility-scale solar capacity, representing a 23% decline from the previous quarter. Rooftop installations reached around 2.1GW, down 22% quarter-on-quarter. 
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Despite the slowdown in the final quarter, India recorded its highest-ever annual renewable additions in 2025, installing nearly 37.9GW of solar capacity. Utility-scale solar additions reached 28.6GW in 2025, a 54.6% increase over 2024, while rooftop installations rose to 7.9GW, up 72% year-on-year, largely driven by the PM Surya Ghar: Muft Bijli Yojana. The Government of India scheme targets rooftop solar deployment across 10 million households, offering up to 300 units of free electricity per month.
Off-grid solar additions stood at 1.35GW in 2025, compared with 1.48GW in 2024, with Maharashtra accounting for 1.0GW of deployments, primarily through solar pump installations under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy’s (MNRE’s) flagship scheme PM-KUSUM and state schemes. The aim of the PM-KUSUM scheme is to de-dieselise the farm sector, enhance farmer income and provide energy security by promoting solar energy in agriculture.
According to the report, India’s total installed renewable capacity stood at 258GW as of 31 December 2025, with solar accounting for 53% of the mix. Installed solar capacity reached approximately 136GW, compared with 55GW of wind and 51GW of hydro. 
The pipeline of solar, wind, hybrid and storage projects expected to be commissioned over the next 4-5 years totals around 169GW, with a further 32GW under bidding. 
Solar and wind additions in 2025 were concentrated in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, which together accounted for approximately 83.7% of total installations. Gujarat led with around 11.1GW of additions, followed by Rajasthan at 10.14GW and Maharashtra at 9.8GW. 
In the fourth quarter of 2025, 10 tenders totalling 4.2GW were issued across solar, wind, hybrid and RE+storage segments, marking a 33% decline from Q3 2025 and a 55% drop from Q4 2024 (9.4GW). The RE+storage segment accounted for 52% of tendered capacity. 
Around 4.6GW was allocated during the quarter, nearly double Q3 2025 levels but 40% lower year-on-year. The lowest tariff discovered was INR2.86/kWh under SECI’s 2000MW solar tender with 1,000MW/4,000MWh storage, while the highest tariff reached INR6.74/kWh under SJVN’s 1500MW RE with ESS tender. 
India’s solar module manufacturing capacity has expanded nearly 14-fold between 2020 and 2025, reaching 200GW. Of this, 145GW is enlisted under the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM). 
Cell manufacturing capacity stood at 31.17GW in 2025, with 17.88GW enlisted under the Approved List of Cells and Manufacturers (ALCM), or ALMM List-II. Upstream capacity remains limited at around 8.12GW of wafer-ingot manufacturing, with no domestic polysilicon production. 
In Q4 2025, four manufacturers added around 13.3GW of module and 1.13GW of cell capacity. Waaree Energies increased module capacity by 3.6GW, taking its total domestic module capacity to 19.7GW by December 2025. 
With respect to exports, in Q4 2025, India’s solar PV module exports reached US$98.96 million, with the US accounting for around 97% of export value. During the same period, module imports totalled US$216.25 million, with Vietnam (33%), China (32%) and Malaysia (31%) as key suppliers. 
However, solar cell imports have increased 31% quarter-on-quarter, at US$892.15 million in Q4 2025, with China accounting for 67% of imports. 

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CW Enerji Says It Decides To Increase Photovoltaic Solar Cell Production Capacity At Its Subsidiary Cw Solar Cell Enerji From 1.2 GW To 2.5 GW  tradingview.com
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Egypt’s Abydos II solar-plus-storage project reaches nears completion  ZAWYA
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On Xmas day 2025, millions of rooftop solar panel systems installed across Australia did their bit to make the electricity consumed during celebrations cheaper and greener for all with impressive contributions to grid exports. Added to this major contribution were a bunch of shiny new home batteries seeing their first Xmas operations.
According to OpenElectricity, overall the contribution to demand across the National Electricity Market (NEM¹) on December 25, 2025 just by rooftop solar power (not including utility/large-scale) was 21.5%. This was sold into the wholesale market at an average (and negative) spot price of -$54.76 per megawatt-hour.
At 21.5%, the contribution wasn’t quite as high as Xmas Day 2024, which was pegged at 22.9% of overall demand. Peak contribution for the NEM occurred at 1pm AEST this year, at 50.3%.
As for the states individually, the contribution over the full day followed by maximums and times they occurred:
And, in a graph:

In terms of the amount of solar energy slurped up by the grid on the day (all regions except NT), that reached 135 gigawatt-hours.
While solar power system installation figures for 2025 won’t be finalised for some time and the following total number will wind up being significantly higher, the Clean Energy Regulator (CER) reports 221,713 solar systems less than 100 kW capacity had been installed this year to 30 November 2025; compared to 319,044 for the full year of 2024.
Just as some indication how high the 2025 number could eventually go, when I reported on the 2024 tally on December 26 last year the total at that point was only 267,000 systems — finishing up at the 319k mark for the year when the dust had settled from the permitted registration period. But while 2025’s total will climb significantly, it looks like installations could be down a bit this year on last.
The year with the highest installations in Australia was 2021, with 377,458. Although annual levels have been less since, the size of systems installed has grown from 8.8 kW capacity on average (Source: APVI) in 2021 to a 10.2 kW rolling average for the period January – June 2025 (Source: CEC).
Since 2001, more than 4.264 million home solar systems have been installed across the country.
The big story for home electrification in 2025 was the launch of the Albanese Government’s Cheaper Home Batteries Program (CHBP). Formally kicking off in July this year and according to the Clean Energy Regulator, 125,447 solar battery systems had been installed and registered since July to 30 November, 2025.
But there are also thousands of already installed systems currently going through the registration pipeline. On December 13, Federal Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said:
“163,016. That’s how many Australian households have put in a battery since 1 July.”
Close to 75,000 home battery systems were sold in Australia in 2024, up from 46,127 in 2023; for a cumulative total of 185,798 installed across Australia by the end of last year (Source: CEC). And after 6 months of the CHBP, some forecasts peg the total installed/commissioned since July 2025 at 175,000; representing around 3.9 GWh of useable capacity when all is said and done.
“To put this in context,” said the CER on December 10, “this is more capacity than the five biggest utility-sized batteries currently operational in the National Electricity Market (NEM) – and all that capacity installed in just six months.”
On top of that there were the systems installed early in the year not covered by the CHBP; so it’s quite possible the overall total for 2025 might eclipse the cumulative number of batteries installed in the years before that.
Not only has it been a stellar success in terms of numbers, installed battery capacities have skyrocketed under the CHBP: from 10 – 12 kWh in 2024 to ~28 kWh since October this year².
Demand has been such that changes are being made to the battery rebate to ensure it can continue out to its intended finish in 2030. There will be accelerated battery rebate reductions and other tweaks, but many more Australian households will benefit from the CHBP and the extra capacity will provide more benefits for the wider grid.
While many solar installers are taking a break over the Xmas/New Year period, you can learn everything you need to know about installing solar in our 101 guide; ready to make enquiries and get quotes when they are back on deck. For existing solar owners considering maximising self-consumption using residential energy storage, read our comprehensive home battery guide.
With generous solar panel rebates continuing, the battery subsidy and low solar panel prices, 2026 will be another great year for Australian households to embark on or continue the journey towards home electrification.
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Michael caught the solar power bug after purchasing components to cobble together a small off-grid PV system in 2008. He’s been reporting on Australian and international solar energy news ever since.
Yep, my solar an battery did a sterling job on a stinking hot christmas day here, ran all the aircons all day and night, hours and hours of cooking etc. Didn’t pay the scum sucking pigs one brass razoo for power!!
Not surprising the level of feed in is slightly down on last year. There is little incentive to feed in solar power these days with the rates on offer being 2/5ths of bugger all. People probably use their generated power with less of an eye to maximising feed in, and of course all those extra batteries don’t charge themselves!
The figures quoted at the start of the article are for solar PV contribution to grid demand. I assume that this does not include solar PV used by the residences where the Solar PV (and batteries) are installed. So Solar PV penetration into the market would be much higher than the figures indicate.
Are there any figures that could indicate the level of grid demand and if this is reducing over time?
Well I agree with your opening summary till you mentioned it was cheaper. Yes its cheaper because of massive direct and indirect rebates & incentives that have been supporting the renewable rollout complements of the taxpayer since 2007….
Oh you mean you and me ( taxpayer) great so are we actually better off financially and also how come we now take on all the financial, fire, insurance etc risk of self supply? So when it breaks we chase the installer and manufacturer to fix it hopefully under warranty otherwise bad luck. How is this a good deal again?
I just want cheap power and only think about turning appliances on or off not managing my power station and ky demand and also the community grid. Seems on reflection I think we have sold a scam…unfortunately I now have PVs an Home batteries to manage. What a sucker I/We have become….
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AIKO has announced a new collaboration with Solar Team Eindhoven, bringing its high-efficiency ABC (All Back Contact) solar cells to power Stella Juva, the world’s first solar-powered ambulance designed to operate entirely on solar energy while supporting onboard medical equipment.
Developed by students from the Eindhoven University of Technology, Stella Juva aims to enable healthcare delivery in remote or infrastructure-limited regions. Expected to hit the road in July 2026, the project represents a significant step in redefining the role of solar-powered mobility, from transport solutions to mobile energy systems supporting essential services.
David Komdeur, Solar Team Photovoltaics Engineer, commented: “Stella Juva pushes the boundaries of what solar technology can achieve in real world applications. We chose AIKO as our partner because of its industry leading efficiency and proven reliability, both critical for a vehicle that must operate independently under varying conditions. The ABC cells use a full back contact design without front side metallization, which maximizes light absorption. In addition, the silver free metallization lowers the risk of microcracks and contributes to long term durability. A low temperature coefficient, combined with strong resistance to degradation, helps maintain stable performance across a wide range of environments.”
The partnership marks a further expansion of AIKO’s engagement with leading solar mobility teams, moving beyond competition platforms toward real-world applications of zero-carbon mobility and sustainable living. By integrating ABC technology into a functional emergency vehicle, the collaboration demonstrates how advanced photovoltaic innovation can contribute to both clean transportation and critical societal needs. For AIKO, this reflects a broader commitment to enabling high-efficiency solar technology in emerging application scenarios, supporting projects that integrate energy generation directly into mobility and infrastructure and exploring how photovoltaic innovation can deliver value beyond traditional installations.

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Aneel okays first BESS linked to solar plant in Brazil  Renewables Now
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Alabama solar farm faces pivotal week: What’s next for $350 million Stockton project  al.com
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Earth’s Building Blocks Came Not From The Outer Solar System But Right Here, Challenging Long-Standing Theories  iflscience.com
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Cabilock Solar Charge Controller – Dual USB Type C PD Output For Phones & Laptops, Outdoor Solar Panel Regulator  ruhrkanal.news
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