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Underwater solar cells reach new depths  The Portugal News
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Portugal launches tender for new photovoltaic plants  The Portugal News
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The Solar Markt Group’s hybrid power plant, consisting of a solar farm with a peak capacity of 70 megawatts and an 80-megawatt-hour energy storage system, has begun operating in Hódmezővásárhely (southeastern Hungary).
The investment—developed without state subsidies on a commercial basis at a cost of approximately 28 billion forints (around 76.7 million euros)—is part of the company’s decarbonization portfolio with a total capacity of 140 megawatts. Imre Mécs, chairman of the Solar Markt Group said: “The investment in Hódmezővásárhely simultaneously serves the goals of domestic decarbonization, strengthening energy independence, and increasing the flexibility of the electricity grid. The exceptionally high-efficiency solar power plant and the associated battery energy storage system together form a state-of-the-art energy system that supports the more efficient use of renewable energy, the smoothing of production fluctuations, and the expansion of the company’s green energy supply.”
Solar Markt Group hybrid power plant inauguration in Hódmezővásárhely on September 24, 2026. L-R: Gábor Ferenczi, Péter Márki-Zay, Imre Mécs, James Li, Miklós Mormer, and Anton Raic. Photo: Tibor Rosta/MTI
Thanks to its battery backup, the power plant is capable of providing system-level balancing services to MAVIR in real time, thereby increasing grid stability. The system feeds the stored electricity into the grid when grid load and market demand are at their highest—such as during the evening peak period—thereby directly reducing the country’s dependence on imports and the need for fossil fuel power plants, the company said.
Grid connection is provided by a 40.32 MVA substation. The energy storage system consists of eight dedicated units, capable of delivering a total output of 40 MW and a capacity of 80 MWh.
The system can feed its full stored capacity into the grid within two hours if necessary, effectively smoothing out fluctuations in generation, according to the technical details of the project.
E.ON is responsible for the automated commercial optimization of electricity market and grid scheduling; and STEM, a San Francisco-based publicly traded company, provides AI-based energy storage and optimization, as well as the integration of individual units, which facilitates continuous, real-time data communication with the grid dispatch center and automatically decides when to initiate charging, storage, or feed-in cycles based on market prices and grid stability requirements.
At the commissioning of the power plant, representatives of Sungrow—one of the world’s largest manufacturers of solar inverters and energy storage systems and a company listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange—signed a strategic agreement with the Solar Markt Group.

Green Cloud, a member of the Solar Markt Group, sells the electricity generated at the Hódmezővásárhely solar power plant—an average of 105 GWh annually—directly to large domestic corporate consumers under long-term power purchase agreements, entirely on a market basis. The arrangement guarantees predictable, fixed energy costs for corporate partners while verifiably reducing their Scope 2 carbon dioxide emissions, thereby supporting increasingly stringent ESG compliance.
Based on information on the company’s website, the group commissioned its hybrid solar power plant in Szihalm, Heves County, in September 2024. The power plant has a nominal peak capacity of 69.8 MWp and an annual generation of 101.7 GWh. The solar farm is connected to an 80 MWh storage facility with a capacity of 40 MW.
The exact scale of the job cuts and production line relocations remains unconfirmed by any official source.Continue reading
Via MTI; Featured photo: MTI/Rosta Tibor
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Home » National News » Solar farm pact protects prairie chickens in Wisconsin’s Buena Vista Wildlife Area
A large solar farm under construction in Portage County’s town of Grant isn’t expected have a significant effect on Wisconsin’s largest population of greater prairie chickens, despite being built right next to the Buena Vista Wildlife Area.
A 2025 agreement between the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation (WWF) and Vista Sands Solar is expected to protect Buena Vista’s greater prairie chickens from the solar farm project, said Andy Lewandowski, of Muskego, a member of the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation board of directors.
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Bone white limestone bakes under a southern Sicilian sky, and a floor that bright is supposed to hand free electricity to the back of every panel in the field.
The rear glass catches that bounce and converts it.
Most project models assign the bonus a rough round number and move on.
Two operating farms measured what actually comes back off the ground, string by string.
So why do rear-face estimates keep missing, and what does the soil underneath have to do with it?
A bifacial panel is a two sided collector. The front face catches direct sunlight. The rear face catches whatever bounces back from the ground, neighboring panels and a cloudy sky, a quality the industry calls ground albedo, and albedo is the hard part to model because it depends on soil color, grass cover, gravel, dust and the geometry of every row around it.
The standard approach estimates albedo as a single flat number for the whole site, multiplies it by a bifaciality factor printed on the module datasheet, and calls it done. That shortcut made sense when bifacial panels were a niche product and a one percent modeling error was inside the noise. But bifacial technology has now crossed 90 percent of the global module market, meaning nearly every new utility scale plant relies on the same rough estimate to close its financing.
Ground albedo is not uniform across a site. It varies row by row, hour by hour and season by season, and a model that flattens that variation into one figure will be wrong in ways that compound across a twenty-year contract.
The study examined two multi-MW solar plants in southern Sicily, equipped with monocrystalline silicon bifacial modules on single axis tracking systems aligned north to south. That configuration is now the global industry standard for utility scale solar: trackers sweep the panel face through the day, following the sun’s arc from east to west, while the north-south axis maximizes the afternoon sweep.
Sicily is a near-textbook site for testing this hardware. Sitting at roughly 37 degrees north, the sun angles are steep for much of the year. The pale limestone and clay soils push ground albedo far higher than the green-grass default that most European models assume, and those soils dry to near-white in summer, exactly when panels are producing hardest.
Working at the stringbox level means the team was not averaging across an entire field. Instead, they were reading the output of small groups of panels at specific row positions, which is precisely where rear-face variation shows up most clearly.
The researchers built an optimized energy model at the stringbox level, using data filtering, clear-sky condition selection and numerical estimation of bifaciality factors, calibrated on measurements taken during the first operational months. Their result: the rear-side contribution produced additional energy gains of approximately 5.3 percent.
To put that in context, a 10 MW plant generating roughly 17,000 megawatt-hours a year picks up approximately 900 megawatt-hours annually from the rear face alone. At a wholesale price of around 50 dollars per megawatt-hour, that is close to 45,000 dollars a year flowing through a gap that many project models set to zero or round to two percent.
The Sicily result arrived from measured hardware, not a modeled scenario, and that distinction carries real weight in a financing conversation. Solar PV plants worldwide have systematically underperformed, with underperformance rates ranging from 7 to 13 percent and triggering multimillion-dollar performance contract disputes. A model that undershoots bifacial gain compounds that gap from day one.
The flat-albedo shortcut is not wrong in every setting. On sites with dark soil, dense vegetation or frequent cloud cover, the rear face contributes little and the rough estimate lands close enough. It breaks down on bright, arid surfaces, the very conditions across much of the American Southwest, the Middle East, northern Chile and the Mediterranean basin, which together account for a large share of the world’s utility scale pipeline.
Trackers make things worse. A fixed-tilt panel always presents the same geometry to the ground. A tracker changes its angle continuously, so the shadow pattern beneath each row shifts all day and rear irradiance at any given string changes with it. Collapsing that into a single albedo constant was a reasonable shortcut when software could not resolve the geometry. Today it is simply a choice to leave money in the ground.
The investors and lenders who sign twenty-year power purchase agreements feel the gap most acutely, because the shortfall compounds over the life of the contract. For a look at how automated construction is closing other cost gaps on solar sites, see how robotics platforms are cutting build costs, a pressure that makes accurate yield modeling even more important when margins are already tight.
The Sicily team’s method is not exotic. Working at stringbox resolution simply requires a finer data pipeline than most developers commit to during early-stage modeling, and many operating plants already have the sensors in place. The barrier is not hardware but the willingness to replace a convenient assumption with a measured one before financing closes rather than after the first annual report lands short.
The authors calibrated the model only during the first operational months. Longer-term drift in soil albedo as vegetation establishes or dust accumulates differently row by row remains an open question, and the rapid growth of bifacial market share calls for systematic reduction in uncertainty, especially on single axis tracker systems where rear-side irradiation behaves in significantly more complex ways.
The honest conclusion is that 5.3 percent is not guaranteed at every bifacial tracked site; it is what two specific Sicilian farms delivered when someone looked carefully enough. For context on what happens when solar output meets peak demand, the story of grid operators under peak load is the other half of the same picture. A plant that models its output accurately is one a grid operator can plan around, and that reliability matters as much as the yield itself.
Hugo is an engineer with strong technical expertise. Multilingual from an early age, his writing combines technical clarity with a strong interest in science and energy.
Hugo is an engineer with strong technical expertise. Multilingual from an early age, his writing combines technical clarity with a strong interest in science and energy.
Hugo is an engineer with strong technical expertise. Multilingual from an early age, his writing combines technical clarity with a strong interest in science and energy.

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Vikram Solar has retained the Top Brand PV India recognition in modules for the second consecutive year.
September 24, 2026. By EI News Network
Vikram Solar Ltd. has been recognised as a Top Brand PV India 2026 in the modules category by Germany-based EUPD Research Sustainable Management GmbH, marking the second consecutive year the company has received the recognition.
The Top Brand PV Seal is based on an independent survey of solar installers conducted by EUPD Research, covering customer relationships, customer satisfaction and distribution. Vikram Solar was also recognised as a Top Brand PV India in 2025.
Vikram Solar CMD Gyanesh Chaudhary said thar the recognition for the second consecutive year reflects the trust of installers and partners and the company’s commitment to quality, performance and service.

EUPD Research Chief Customer Officer Daniel Fuchs congratulated Vikram Solar, saying that the Top Brand PV Seal reflects installers’ assessment of the brands they work with and recognises the standing the company has established in India’s solar market and clean energy transition..
EUPD Research has been analysing perceptions of PV market intermediaries and end customers for more than two decades. Its Top Brand PV Seal is based on independent installer surveys, market analysis and brand performance indicators.
Vikram Solar was also awarded the EcoVadis Platinum Medal at the group level for the second consecutive year. Vikram Solar has an international presence across 39 countries. The company has a network of more than 110 authorised distributors and over 550 dealers in India.

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Trilegal advises Caelux Corporation on supplying energy-producing solar glass to Rayzon Solar, Navitas Solar  Bar and Bench
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Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, Radiolab is a show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience.
Unionville High School in Kennett Square and Universal Audenried Charter School in Philadelphia are building solar arrays that will slash their energy bills.

Unionville High School in Kennett Square and Universal Audenried Charter School in Philadelphia are building solar arrays that will slash their energy bills.
This story is part of the WHYY News Climate Desk, bringing you news and solutions for our changing region.
From the Poconos to the Jersey Shore to the mouth of the Delaware Bay, what do you want to know about climate change? What would you like us to cover? Get in touch.

About a dozen students wearing yellow safety vests watched from the sidewalk as a 6-story-tall crane hoisted a stack of cinder blocks onto the roof of Universal Audenried Charter School in Philadelphia’s Grays Ferry neighborhood.
“That thing is tall,” said 18-year-old student Malakai Tim, looking up at the crane. The blocks will be used as weights to keep solar panels from blowing off the roof. “We’re planning on using the panels … for one of our projects.”

The school is one of a growing number in Pennsylvania that have installed solar panels under a state grant program that helps cover the costs.
The Solar for Schools program, first funded in 2024, has given grants to 85 schools across the state, including 10 in Philadelphia. Grants cover up to 75% of the solar project costs, or up to $900,000. Proponents say the solar will save schools money on utilities, lower their climate pollution and teach students about careers in renewable energy.
The program received $25 million in this year’s state budget.
At Audenried, the 350-kilowatt solar array will produce enough power to cover roughly 40% to 50% of the school’s electricity needs, said Micah Gold-Markel, founder of Solar States, the company installing the panels.
With the state grant covering half of the cost and a 40% federal tax credit, the school will only pay around $100,000 for the project. This means the project should pay itself off in energy savings in one to two years, Gold-Markel said.
Unionville High School in Kennett Square flipped on the switch to its new solar array installed under the program last Friday. The 650 kilowatts of solar power will cover about a quarter of the school’s and district office’s energy needs.

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Electricity bill savings will add up to cover the upfront cost of the solar array in around seven years, said James Whitesel, director of facilities at the Unionville Chadds Ford School District. This means savings of roughly $75,000 per year — the equivalent of a full-time staff member, he said.
“The state grant almost made it like a no-brainer to do it,” Whitesel said.
Over the course of 25 years, Whitesel estimates the solar panels should save the Unionville Chadds Ford School District over $1 million.
“It’s huge,” he said.
The solar projects will also lower the schools’ carbon emissions. Nearly 60% of the electricity mix on the regional grid is produced using climate-polluting natural gas and coal.
“It also is about being good stewards of our environment,” Whitesel said. “If we’re using less of those electrical resources, then there’s less that has to be generated to support our site.”
“As someone who believes in sustainability, I should put my money and energy where my mouth is,” said Audenried Principal Josh Anderson.
At Unionville High School, students in math and science classes will work with real-time power production data from the solar panels and will get up on the roof to see the system in action, Whitesel said.
Anderson said the educational benefit of the solar project was a major motivator for Universal Audenried Charter High School’s pursuit of the Solar for Schools grant.
“There’s a lot of emerging jobs in basically any hands-on industry, but specifically electronics and electricity,” he said.
The solar array on Audenried’s roof will give students in the school’s engineering career and technical education program the chance to learn how to connect, disconnect and service solar panels, Anderson said. The school plans to work with Solar States to create a “solar lab” where students will also gather real-time data on the energy the panels generate.
Audenried senior Richie Palillero, 17, said he hopes to work in mechanical or robotics engineering, and that he’s curious about how the new solar panels work.
“I’m pretty sure this is interesting to all of us,” he said.
Watching the crane lift materials onto the Audenried roof alongside Palillero’s class, Gold-Markel directed students’ attention to the worker operating the crane.
“I think he’s making about $80 an hour,” Gold-Markel said. “Guess what the roof workers on this job who are installing the solar are going to make. … $100 an hour.”
“Who here wants to make $100 an hour?” he asked.
Several students raised their hands.
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Samudera Logistics Services, a subsidiary of Samudera, has implemented a solar power system at its warehouse facility as part of the company’s broader sustainability and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) initiatives.
The project entered full operation in June 2026 and comprises 1,216 solar panels with a total installed capacity of 753.92 kWp.
According to the company, the system is expected to supply approximately 25–30% of the warehouse’s total electricity demand.
All electricity generated by the solar panels will be used for internal operations, reducing dependence on conventional grid power and helping improve energy efficiency across the facility.
The project is also expected to support long-term operational cost optimisation through greater use of self-generated renewable energy.
Samudera estimates that the solar installation will reduce carbon emissions by approximately 819 tonnes of CO₂ annually.
The initiative supports the company’s wider Net Zero Emissions objectives while strengthening the sustainability performance of its logistics operations.
Samudera said the project also provides additional value for customers seeking more environmentally responsible supply chain solutions and forms part of its continued efforts to develop greener logistics operations.
อัพเดตข่าวสารและบทความที่น่าสนใจในอุตสาหกรรมโลจิสติกส์ก่อนใคร ผ่าน Line Official Account @Logistics Mananger เพียงเพิ่มเราเป็นเพื่อน @Logistics Manager หรือคลิกที่นี่

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GreenYellow Commissions 8 MWp of Rooftop Solar Across 18 Jerónimo Martins Sites in Portugal  SolarQuarter
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The project is expected to generate more than 200 gigawatt hours of electricity annually, enough to power more than 21,000 homes and avoid an estimated 96,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, supporting Michigan’s transition to a cleaner energy future. On October 8, NorthStar Clean Energy will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony bringing together project partners, customers, local officials, community leaders and stakeholders to celebrate the project’s completion and recognize the collaboration that made Hart Solar possible.
Beyond generating clean energy, the Hart Solar Project is helping strengthen Michigan communities through significant economic investment and local partnerships. The project created more than 300 construction jobs and made significant contributions to Michigan’s economy during development and construction, while also providing a long-term source of tax revenue to support local services and infrastructure.
As a result of the project, Hart Township also received roughly $600,000 via EGLE’s Renewables Ready Communities Award Program to fund community improvements that will benefit residents for years to come. Additionally, the CMS Energy Foundation granted a local food bank, Lakeshore Food Club, $100,000 to further support community well-being and access to essential resources. 
“Hart Solar is an important investment in Michigan’s energy future and demonstrates how strong partnerships can help deliver clean energy solutions to communities across our state,” said Brian Hartmann, President and CEO of NorthStar Clean Energy. “By working with organizations like Executive Energy Services and MPPA, we’re helping meet customer energy goals while strengthening Michigan’s energy infrastructure with additional renewable generation. We’re proud to celebrate the completion of this project and the positive impact it will have on the community for years to come.”
For customers, Hart Solar provides a reliable source of renewable energy while helping manage long-term energy costs and support sustainability objectives.
“Oakland County and small businesses across Michigan are expected to save on electric supply charges through the Hart Solar Project,” said Robert Bernardi of Executive Energy Services. Through a partnership with NorthStar Clean Energy, Oakland Schools and 45 other public school districts statewide are projected to save approximately $25 million over a 10-year agreement. These savings will allow schools to redirect funds toward students, staff, and core educational priorities while advancing their clean energy goals.” 
“Hart Solar reflects MPPA’s long-term commitment to helping our Members secure reliable, cost-effective, carbon-free power supply resources that strengthen and diversify their power supply portfolios,” said Patrick Bowland, CEO & General Manager at MPPA. “Through joint action, public power communities of all sizes can share in the economies of scale needed to make utility-scale renewable projects like Hart Solar a practical, long-term resource for the customers and communities they serve.”
NorthStar Clean Energy’s commitment is to deliver renewable energy solutions that create lasting value for customers, communities, and the environment. Through partnerships with organizations like Executive Energy Services and MPPA, the project provides clean power, supports local economic growth, and advances Michigan’s transition to a more sustainable energy future. 

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Jews have been victimized more than any other people in history, yet have remained optimistic, idealistic, and dedicated to helping build a better world. The Jews’ contribution to the world is staggering – and up to 1948, all without political power, a country, or a shared language of everyday speech.
When the State of Israel was founded, it was a barren country with no natural resources, little water, and more than half of its landmass desert. 
The only advantage the new country had going for it was the strength of will and natural creativity of its people.
Zionism challenged Jews to take the initiative, and almost eight decades later, Israeli innovations are improving the world and enriching lives everywhere. Here are nine of them:
In the early 1950’s, Dr. Zvi (Harry) Tabor, an Israeli physicist from England, convinced that solar energy was the surest and cleanest solution to the fact that Israel has no oil of its own, invented the Tabor Selective Surface – thermal panels that could store the heat of the sun even when it didn’t shine. 
Eventually, he integrated this technology with a water boiler to create the modern solar water heater, which earned Tabor the Weizmann Prize for Exact Sciences in 1956.
Today, 95% of Israeli households have solar-heated water tanks based on the Tabor Selective Surface. With over 1.4 million units installed, Israel maintains the highest per capita use of solar-powered water heaters in the world.
Approximately 122 million solar hot water systems were in operation globally at the end of 2022.
Besides simple residential units, these systems included solar power plants in remote locations not hooked up to the grid and even the solar panels built in California’s Mojave Desert, the largest solar power installation in the world – all based on Tabor’s work.
Dr. Zvi Tabor was awarded the Israeli President’s Medal of Distinction in 2014 for “being a symbol of Israeli innovation and for inspiring generations of scientists and entrepreneurs in the field of solar energy.”
In the early 1960s, Simcha Blass, the chief engineer and one of the founders of the Mekorot water company (established in 1937 and now Israel’s national water carrier), developed and patented the drip irrigation concept.
Friction and pressure loss allow water to drip slowly at regular intervals to the roots of plants, providing a sustainable solution to the challenges of water scarcity and climate uncertainty.
Increased water-use efficiency (up to 50% savings) and crop yield (up 30-50%), together with decreased fertilizer loss and soil erosion, have been instrumental in transforming barren deserts in the Middle East, North Africa, India, and parts of Australia into productive agricultural lands.
Netafim, the company that Blass established over 60 years ago, now operates in 110 countries and contributes to food security and economic growth for farmers across more than 15 million hectares worldwide.
In 1971, Dov Frohman, the Israel Prize-winning founder and first general manager of Intel Israel, invented the first non-volatile semiconductor memory that was both erasable and reprogrammable.
Intel founder Gordon Moore declared this innovation “as important in the development of the microcomputer industry as the microprocessor itself.”
From its crucial role in developing the foundations of personal computing, this technology revolutionized data storage, paving the way to flash memory technology (invented by Dov Moran and perfected by Dr. Eli Hariri, the co-founder of San Disk – both Israelis), which led to the commercially feasible development of digital photography, MP3 players, USB drives, smartphones, tablets, laptops, e-books, apps, and portable game controls.
On Feb. 4, 1980, the first cardioverter-defibrillator, invented and developed by Michel Mirowski, a Polish-born Israeli-American physician, was implanted in a patient at John Hopkins Hospital, despite much skepticism and the lack of financial backing.
An Implantable Cardioverter-Defibrillator (ICD) is a small, battery-powered device placed under the skin in the upper chest to monitor and help regulate life-threatening electrical problems with the heart 24/7.
If it detects dangerously fast rhythms (tachycardia or fibrillation), it delivers an electric shock to restore a normal rhythm, preventing sudden cardiac arrest, and often also serving as a pacemaker.
It also delivers “overdrive pacing” for less severe fast rhythms, or a shock (defibrillation) for life-threatening, chaotic rhythms, often restarting a heart that stops beating during cardiac arrest.
Since then, the device – which Mirowski further improved and miniaturized (they now weigh 80-90 grams, have a volume of 30 milliliters, and measure less than a centimeter in thickness) – has been installed in over 4 million people worldwide.
After working on the idea for almost 20 years and successfully creating a prototype in 1998, Gavriel Iddan, an Israeli electro-optical engineer, received FDA approval on Aug. 3, 2001, for a disposable pill-sized camera that passes straight through the digestive tract, continuously broadcasting to an external receiver.
The resulting product, PillCam, was developed to non-invasively visualize the small bowel and gastrointestinal tract.
It takes 2-6 pictures per second for roughly 8 hours, helping doctors diagnose Crohn’s disease, obscure bleeding, and tumors by transmitting images to a wearable recorder.
Not only does it allow for imaging of areas difficult to reach via traditional endoscopy, but it is also considerably cheaper (around $500 per pill, while a colonoscopy costs an average of $4,000).
Since the technology was first approved in 2001, more than 4 million PillCam capsules have been used in patient procedures in over 80 countries, and nearly 1,000 scientific articles have been published about its clinical use.
Waze, a company founded by Israeli entrepreneurs Ehud Shabtai, Amir Shinar, and Uri Levine in 2008, developed a geographical navigation application that provides turn-by-turn information, user-submitted travel times, and route details, downloading location-dependent information over a cellular telephone network.
The platform relies entirely on users to provide real-time data on traffic, accidents, and police, allowing the service to prioritize the quickest route. It truly earned its tagline: “Outsmarting Traffic, Together.”
In June 2013, Google acquired Waze for a reported $1.3 billion, while maintaining its primary research and development hub in Israel. Waze’s 100 employees each received about $1.2 million on average, the largest payout to employees in Israeli high tech.
Since then, Waze has grown to approximately 151 million active monthly users worldwide as of early 2026, operating in over 180 countries, with significant user bases in the US, Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brazil.
Watergen, a pioneering Israeli technology company and market leader in Atmospheric Water Generation, offers low-cost methods of extracting clean and safe drinking water from humidity in the air.
Founded in 2009 by entrepreneur and former military commander Arye Kohavi and a team of engineers, the initial goal was to provide freely accessible water to troops around the world.
Following its acquisition by billionaire Michael Mirilashvili in 2016, the company turned its attention to addressing worldwide water scarcity and responding to the needs of people in the aftermath of natural disasters.
According to a World Health Organization study, one-third of the world’s population (~2.8 billion people) lacks access to safe drinking water. In much of the Third World, contaminated water is the leading cause of death in children.
By producing clean, energy-efficient water at the point of use, Watergen eliminates the need for transportation, storage, and reliance on aging infrastructure and plastic bottles – reducing costs, pollution, and environmental impact.
Watergen operates in more than 90 countries, with installations for communities, enterprises, homes, industrial sites, and emergency response, producing thousands of liters of top-quality pure drinking water per day, while shaping the future of decentralized, sustainable water supplies for the world.
On April 7, 2011, the Iron Dome mobile missile defense system successfully intercepted its first projectile: a rocket fired from Gaza toward Israel.
The decision to build a missile defense system was made by defense minister Amir Peretz in 2007, following a year in which Hezbollah fired thousands of missiles into northern Israel during the Second Lebanon War, and Hamas fired rockets indiscriminately at Israel’s southern communities.
The Iron Dome system was developed by two Israeli firms – Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries – with significant funding from the United States, to counter threats from up to 70 kilometers away (missiles, mortars, and drones).
The system is purely defensive, designed to save lives, prevent injuries, and protect property. In the 15 years after its debut, it has intercepted more than 5,000 enemy rockets, with a success rate of over 90%, in the process changing the strategic balance between Israel and its enemies.
In 1999, Prof. Amnon Shashua evolved his academic research into a vision system that could detect vehicles by adding “intelligence” to inexpensive cameras for commercialization.
The resulting company, Mobileye, founded in Jerusalem, developed into a supplier of self-driving technologies and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS), providing warnings for collision prevention and mitigation.
Mobileye went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2014, raised $890 million, and became the largest Israeli IPO in US history. By the end of that year, Mobileye’s technology had been implemented in dozens of vehicle models from major automakers, including GM, Ford, VW, and Nissan.
In March 2017, Intel acquired Mobileye for $15.3 billion – the biggest-ever acquisition of an Israeli tech company at the time – and went public again in 2022. By 2024, Mobileye reached over 70% market share in camera-based ADAS, with its technology used in approximately 200 million vehicles worldwide.■
The above has been compiled from the archives of Dust & Stars – Today in Jewish History, a day-by-day glance into 4,000 years of history, peopled by the remarkable Jews who have changed the world. Drawing from a total of over 1,800 entries, subscribers (free or paid) receive posts that combat ignorance, inspire pride, and integrate shared Jewish memory into the day-to-day: dustandstars.substack.com/subscribe
Deals, breakthroughs, and the tech shaping Israel's economy
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Fund Managers Unlock More Investments Toward Clean Energy

• Clean Energy
• Finance

ARTICLE

September 25, 2026

Fund managers are unlocking more money for renewable energy from the companies they invest, closing in on the lead fossil-fuel projects have in raking in cash.

Among the companies held by public market funds, for every $1 of capital expenditures for oil, natural gas and coal projects, 80 cents went to low-carbon energy supply like solar and wind power at the end of 2025, according to analysis by BloombergNEF. That ratio has been rising for the past few years, but it’s still short of the level that would deliver net-zero emissions.

BNEF’s Energy Supply Fund Ratio (ESFR) 2026 report highlights that asset managers are unlocking an increasing amount of capital for clean energy build out. Fixed income and private markets funds typically have higher ratios, but they support less energy spending than listed equity funds.

The ESFR measures the volume of capital expenditures (capex) enabled by funds in low-carbon assets against the proportion going to fossil fuels. The report includes data for more than 85,000 exchange-traded, mutual and private market funds. It is part of BNEF’s suite of Energy Supply Ratios, which track the climate progress of financial institutions.

 

Company spending tilts toward clean energy

The latest ESFR analysis shows the ratio of clean energy to fossil-fuel enabled capex rose to 0.8 last year from 0.73 at the beginning of 2024. The raising ratio for public-market pooled investment vehicles shows an increasing tilt toward clean energy.

The main driver was a rise in low-carbon capex for portfolio companies, compared to that of fossil-fuels. Spending on power grids accelerated, translating into $36 billion of fund-enabled capex.

Vanguard and BlackRock dominate enabled energy capex in public market funds. The world’s two largest asset managers enabled more than the remaining top 10 largest managers combined. Their ratios both stayed relatively flat over 2025. European and Asian asset managers have higher ratios than their American peers, but they enable considerably less capex.

Tracker funds give managers less influence over where to put money

Most fund capital supporting energy investments sits in large, diversified funds that track broad stock indexes. Funds tracking the S&P 500 represent half of the 10 largest funds by enabled capex. The ratio of S&P 500 fell in 2025 due to changes in companies included in the index. Companies like natural gas producer Expand Energy joined, while renewable energy equipment manufacturer Enphase Energy exited after its market capitalization fell. Managers offering S&P 500 trackers had to reflect those changes. This illustrates the limited influence managers have on ESFRs for passive funds.

Investors have access to funds with high ratios, but they are typically thematic strategies and account for considerably less capital. For portfolio companies, these funds represent a relatively small pool of capital, although fund inflows have picked up since 2025.

 

Credit and private market funds biased toward low-carbon investment

Fixed income funds were more strongly biased toward clean energy investments than equity funds. Credit funds enable $1.2 low-carbon capex for every $1 that went into fossil fuels. Lower-carbon companies typically take on more debt than fossil-fuel companies to pay upfront for assets like wind and solar farms. Equity funds have a lower overall ratio of 0.7.

Private markets remain the area where investors can find the cleanest portfolios. They represent the asset class with the highest ESFRs at just over 1.2. Institutional ESFRs vary widely among large private managers, giving investors a broader variety of options than the leading players in public markets. Newer funds tilt more towards clean energy and have more dry powder available to be invested. This should continue to support higher private market ESFRs relative to other asset classes.

BloombergNEF clients can access the full report here, which includes institution and fund-level analysis. An abridged version of the report is available at this link.

Fund managers are unlocking more money for renewable energy from the companies they invest, closing in on the lead fossil-fuel projects have in raking in cash.
Among the companies held by public market funds, for every $1 of capital expenditures for oil, natural gas and coal projects, 80 cents went to low-carbon energy supply like solar and wind power at the end of 2025, according to analysis by BloombergNEF. That ratio has been rising for the past few years, but it’s still short of the level that would deliver net-zero emissions.
BNEF’s Energy Supply Fund Ratio (ESFR) 2026 report highlights that asset managers are unlocking an increasing amount of capital for clean energy build out. Fixed income and private markets funds typically have higher ratios, but they support less energy spending than listed equity funds.
The ESFR measures the volume of capital expenditures (capex) enabled by funds in low-carbon assets against the proportion going to fossil fuels. The report includes data for more than 85,000 exchange-traded, mutual and private market funds. It is part of BNEF’s suite of Energy Supply Ratios, which track the climate progress of financial institutions.
 
The latest ESFR analysis shows the ratio of clean energy to fossil-fuel enabled capex rose to 0.8 last year from 0.73 at the beginning of 2024. The raising ratio for public-market pooled investment vehicles shows an increasing tilt toward clean energy.
The main driver was a rise in low-carbon capex for portfolio companies, compared to that of fossil-fuels. Spending on power grids accelerated, translating into $36 billion of fund-enabled capex.
Vanguard and BlackRock dominate enabled energy capex in public market funds. The world’s two largest asset managers enabled more than the remaining top 10 largest managers combined. Their ratios both stayed relatively flat over 2025. European and Asian asset managers have higher ratios than their American peers, but they enable considerably less capex.
Most fund capital supporting energy investments sits in large, diversified funds that track broad stock indexes. Funds tracking the S&P 500 represent half of the 10 largest funds by enabled capex. The ratio of S&P 500 fell in 2025 due to changes in companies included in the index. Companies like natural gas producer Expand Energy joined, while renewable energy equipment manufacturer Enphase Energy exited after its market capitalization fell. Managers offering S&P 500 trackers had to reflect those changes. This illustrates the limited influence managers have on ESFRs for passive funds.
Investors have access to funds with high ratios, but they are typically thematic strategies and account for considerably less capital. For portfolio companies, these funds represent a relatively small pool of capital, although fund inflows have picked up since 2025.
 
Fixed income funds were more strongly biased toward clean energy investments than equity funds. Credit funds enable $1.2 low-carbon capex for every $1 that went into fossil fuels. Lower-carbon companies typically take on more debt than fossil-fuel companies to pay upfront for assets like wind and solar farms. Equity funds have a lower overall ratio of 0.7.
Private markets remain the area where investors can find the cleanest portfolios. They represent the asset class with the highest ESFRs at just over 1.2. Institutional ESFRs vary widely among large private managers, giving investors a broader variety of options than the leading players in public markets. Newer funds tilt more towards clean energy and have more dry powder available to be invested. This should continue to support higher private market ESFRs relative to other asset classes.
BloombergNEF clients can access the full report here, which includes institution and fund-level analysis. An abridged version of the report is available at this link.

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“Most end-of-life PV panels continue to be landfilled, stockpiled or illegally dumped.”
Photo Credit: iStock
Australia’s biggest rooftop solar market is facing a fast-growing challenge: what to do with millions of aging solar panels once they reach the end of their useful lives.
New South Wales’ government has begun consulting on a plan that could make it the first place in Australia to require solar manufacturers and importers to help pay to collect and recycle old panels, rather than sending them to landfill.
The state is weighing a mandatory product stewardship model for solar panels that would make manufacturers and importers shoulder part of the cost of handling panels at the end of their lives. As PV Magazine reported, the idea is to recover useful materials from discarded photovoltaic panels and reduce dumping, stockpiling, and landfill disposal.
Submissions are open until 16 November as the government seeks feedback through an issues paper on how NSW can expand panel recycling, remanufacturing, and manufacturing. Under the proposal, regulated PV panels supplied in NSW would be covered, and the funding would support collection, recycling, and resource recovery across the state.
The amount of retiring solar equipment is already significant. NSW has more than 1.18 million rooftop solar systems, and about 15,400 tons (14,000 metric tons) of panel waste is produced each year. That total is projected to climb to 98,100 tons (89,000 metric tons) by 2045 as older systems are phased out and households switch to newer, more efficient technology.
Solar panels reduce emissions while generating power, but the pace of adoption has created a disposal problem that current systems have not caught up with.
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According to the NSW Environment Protection Agency, “Current disposal pathways are insufficient to safely and sustainably manage this growing waste stream.”
The agency added, “Most end-of-life PV panels continue to be landfilled, stockpiled or illegally dumped.”
NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe said the proposal could create value from recovered materials as well.
“NSW has embraced rooftop solar, and now we’re making sure those panels don’t become tomorrow’s landfill problem,” Sharpe said.
Under the proposed rules, the companies that make or import the panels would help finance the collection and processing system.
She added, “Solar panels contain valuable materials that can be recovered and put back to work.”
Business groups say a single state cannot fully solve what is effectively a national waste challenge. Smart Energy Council Chief Executive David McElrea said the draft legislation creates a strong foundation for a circular economy, but argued that federal leadership will be needed to avoid a patchwork of rules across Australia.
“NSW is showing leadership, but unless transitioned into a Commonwealth scheme, over 70% of Australia’s decommissioned solar panels will remain uncaptured outside NSW,” McElrea said. “The federal government has to step up and deliver a national product stewardship framework to provide the scale, consistency, and certainty Australia needs.”
Efforts to deal with retired solar panels are already taking shape in several places.
• In Georgia, Qcells is building a solar panel recycling operation alongside US manufacturing expansion.
• In Odessa, Texas, SolarCycle opened a dedicated recycling facility to process retired photovoltaic modules.
• In China, engineers have found a more efficient way to separate and recycle panel materials.
• In Tennessee, TerrePower plans to recycle over 125,000 solar modules each year.
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Are rural areas prepared for Data Center expansion?  roanoke-chowannewsherald.com
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CONTRIBUTOR’S VIEW – L. Michelle Moore: A Solar Project with Southern Roots in New York City  LaGrange Daily News
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Most users thought the general approach could work, but many said the specific equipment was overpriced.
Photo Credit: iStock
A Reddit user near Atlanta was looking for a modest solar backup plan to keep refrigerated food safe during a blackout, rather than jumping straight to a whole-house setup.
The central question was simple: could a portable power station and a single 400-watt panel realistically cover a refrigerator and maybe a chest freezer too?
On Reddit, the OP, who has accessible south-facing roof space and lives in sunny Atlanta, said they were “toying with the idea” of using an Anker Solix S2000 with a 400-watt panel to back up a fridge and ideally a chest freezer. Most users thought the general approach could work, but many said the specific equipment was overpriced.
One user said, “Look for cheap used solar on fb marketplace. I bought used 3pcs 400w for $60 each.” 
Want to go solar but not sure who to trust? EnergySage has your back with free and transparent quotes from fully vetted providers in your area.
To get started, just answer a few questions about your home — no phone number required. Within a day or two, EnergySage will email you the best options for your needs, and their expert advisers can help you compare quotes and pick a winner.
Others echoed that advice, though several noted that secondhand supply can vary widely by location, making strong deals easier to find in some areas than in others.
Several users said the panel is only one part of the equation, and battery size may matter even more for appliances that cycle on and off throughout the day. Going solar is one of the best ways to save money on home energy. Homeowners curious about what a larger rooftop setup might cost can try EnergySage to get free solar installation estimates and compare quotes.
A 400-watt panel may help recharge a battery station, but whether that setup can keep a fridge and freezer running for long depends on sun exposure, appliance efficiency, battery capacity, and startup power demands.
One user said they use a 2,048-watt-hour power station to “peak shave most of my kitchen on it full time.” Another advised the OP to “consider a larger battery if you have the budget if you have a power hungry fridge/freezer.” Together, those replies suggested that small-scale solar-plus-storage can work when it is matched to actual household usage.
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Want to go solar but not sure who to trust? EnergySage has your back with free and transparent quotes from fully vetted providers that can help you save as much as $10k on installation.
To get started, just answer a few questions about your home — no phone number required. Within a day or two, EnergySage will email you the best local options for your needs, and their expert advisers can help you compare quotes and pick a winner.
Measuring actual electricity use is the first step. A fridge and chest freezer may sound modest, but their power draw can vary significantly, and users urged the OP to compare panel voltage, battery size, and local panel prices before making a purchase.
Adding battery storage to a solar setup is one of the best ways to protect your home during outages, save on energy costs, and go off-grid. It can also make a smaller solar array more useful by storing daytime power for nighttime use. Homeowners can explore EnergySage for information about home battery storage options, including competitive installation estimates.
With EnergySage’s help, the average person can save up to $10,000 on solar purchases and installations. EnergySage’s solar map shows the average cost of a home solar panel system by state, along with solar incentives for each state, which can help homeowners get the best price for rooftop solar panels and access available incentives.
If you’re weighing a small solar backup system, these stories take a closer look at batteries, panels, and what it really takes to keep essentials powered. They cover real-world fridge backup setups, home batteries, utility programs, and homeowner experiences with solar costs.
💡Go deep on the latest news and trends shaping the residential solar landscape
• One household found a backup solar setup could keep a fridge running 24 hours.
• Across U.S. homes, next-gen backup batteries are replacing noisy gas generators.
• VillaGrid said its home energy storage appliance can keep fridges cold through blackouts.
• In Utah, Rocky Mountain Power’s grid-connected home batteries showed promise during outages.
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Premier Energies: Limited has commissioned its 7 GW N-type TOPCon G12R solar cell manufacturing facility at Naidupeta, Andhra Pradesh, and begun trial runs. The new facility takes the company’s total solar cell manufacturing capacity to 10.6 GW, making it India’s largest solar cell manufacturing capacity. Spread across 101 acres, the facility has been developed at a capital expenditure of ₹3,293 crore. Premier Energies said the plant was commissioned on schedule and within the planned budget.
Chiranjeev Saluja, Managing Director, Premier Energies Limited, said, “Commissioning India’s largest solar cell manufacturing facility on time and within budget is an important execution milestone for Premier Energies. We remain positive on the outlook for orders, pricing and demand for high-efficiency solar products. The timing of this 7 GW capacity addition is therefore significant: as the line stabilises and ramps up, it gives us the scale to serve that demand with greater supply reliability and operating efficiency. Together with our planned backward integration into ingots and wafers, this strengthens our strategy of building a fully integrated and globally competitive solar manufacturing platform while supporting India’s clean energy transition.”
The Naidupeta plant is designed for high-throughput manufacturing and can produce approximately 88,000 solar cells per hour. Digital systems and artificial intelligence are being used for predictive performance analysis, process control and precision manufacturing. Automated transport, packing and packaging systems are also designed to improve production efficiency and consistency.
The facility uses N-type TOPCon G12R technology and has been designed to accommodate future upgrades to next-generation TOPCon+ technologies, including poly-finger metallisation and advanced edge-isolation processes. Following stabilisation and ramp-up, the plant is targeting average solar cell efficiency of approximately 25.8%.
Sudhir Reddy, Director & Chief Strategy Officer, Premier Energies Limited, said, “Naidupeta plant is a major step forward in our integrated manufacturing roadmap. The combination of scale, automation and advanced cell technology is designed to improve manufacturing competitiveness, strengthen supply-chain resilience and position Premier Energies to address demand for high-efficiency solar products in India and international markets.”
The plant also incorporates a Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) system designed to maximise water recycling and reuse. The company said the facility will support growing demand for high-efficiency solar products in domestic and international markets. Premier Energies is implementing a ₹12,500 crore capital expenditure programme over three years to more than double its solar manufacturing capacity. The programme also includes backward integration into ingots and wafers and expansion into inverters, transformers and battery energy storage systems. With 30 years of experience in solar manufacturing, Premier Energies has operations spanning solar cells and modules and is expanding its manufacturing and technology capabilities as part of its growth strategy.
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From cooler soil to paid grazing land, farmers in the US are finding that solar panels can do more than generate power.
Traditionally, solar panel farms are quiet — save for the faint hum of the inverter. But on about one in 10 of American solar farms, there’s a new sound reverberating through fields: baaaa. 
Letting sheep roam under solar panels is just one of many forms of a burgeoning strategy called agrivoltaics, where crops grow or livestock graze in tandem with renewable energy infrastructure. 
It’s not only of potential benefit for the animals, which get additional shade. The panels can also protect crops from the elements as well as divert water to them, creating cooler, damper conditions that even boost yields. 
And even the solar panels themselves tend to respond well to this co-existence — as the cooler they are, the more electricity they produce per watt of sunlight. 
“Having concrete or something underneath the solar panels — you’re going to have lower efficiency than having something like plants that are transpiring and cooling off on the land surface,” Carl Bernacchi, professor of plant biology and crop sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told DW. 
While the potential is enormous, especially as climate change puts more and more heat stress on agriculture, the practice is still in its infancy. In Europe, if agrivoltaics were implemented on just 1% of available agricultural land, the continent could exceed its solar energy targets for 2030.   
But uptake has been slow: agrivoltaics represents just 18.4 gigawatts of energy worldwide as of mid-2025, less than 1% of the world’s solar capacity.  
The idea for agrivoltaics dates back to 1981, when two German scientists published an article titled “Kartoffeln unter dem Kollektor” (or “Potatoes beneath the collector”). But the first pilot project didn’t begin until 2004 in Japan, a land-constrained country, where there’s particular concern over balancing solar deployment with the protection of farmland. 
There are three main types of agrivoltaics: horizontal, where panels look directly up at the sky, vertical, where they’re placed in large rows, perpendicular to the ground, and integrated, often installed atop greenhouses. 
Research suggests shade-tolerant crops stand to benefit. That includes berries, grapes and tomatoes — where the panels’ steel framing often doubles as trellises — as well as peaches and peppers. 
The panels can also prevent water from fully evaporating, creating a more humid microclimate that benefits the soil — though humidity is a double-edged sword, sometimes introducing plant disease. 
Sheep have also proven to be a particularly good match. Compared to cattle or goats, they’re generally easier to manage around solar infrastructure, less likely to damage equipment, and small enough to fit comfortably beneath panels. The practice has other sustainability upsides too: sheep manure fertilizes the soil, and sites require less herbicide. 
“If we look at the sheep industry, this has been a real paradigm shift for them, where instead of having to pay to lease land to graze their animals — now they’re actually getting paid to graze,” said Austin Kinzer, an agrivoltaics specialist at the American Farmland Trust conservation movement . “So it completely puts the economics on its head and is a huge opportunity for the sheep industry, which is really struggling in the US pretty much since World War II.” 
Agrivoltaics sit at a rare intersection of climate mitigation (cutting emissions) and adaptation (adjusting to a warming planet). 
“It is both, which is pretty unique as far as climate solutions go,” Kinzer said.  
The practice offers one answer to where solar panels could go, helping to produce cheaper and more efficient energy, while also benefiting crops that might struggle due to rising temperatures or volatile weather. 
And research suggests that climate change will only make regions grow drier, “broadening areas where agrivoltaics can mitigate crop yield penalties (even boosting yield) and improve overall profitability,” writeresearchers in a journal article for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).  
A dual-income stream can also offer farmers some insurance should temperature or weather knock out a season’s plantings. 
“Being able to have that alternate form of income, it’s massive for folks who are depending on weather to make their living that is becoming increasingly more extreme and varied,” Kinzer said. 
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So why has adoption been so slow? 
“In theory, it’s a win-win scenario,” Bernacchi said. “But of course, with any technologies, there are always caveats and issues.” 
One reason is that agrivoltaics don’t work everywhere. In America’s arid West, where heat stress and less available water can threaten crops, yields stayed the same or even rose under panels. In the humid Midwest, on the other hand, panel shading limited photosynthesis and led to reduced yields in maize and soybeans.  
For cash crops, where there’s a very small margin for profit, even a minor reduction in yield is a no-go for many farmers.  
Then there’s the expense. For solar producers, every added inch to mount panels higher means more labor and steel costs. And farmers might need to find new equipment or change methods to adapt to a new system. 
“Farmers want to learn from other farmers,” said Kinzer, who works with farmers across the US to see how agrivoltaics are being adopted. “They want to hear from folks who are doing it. And so there’s a little bit of a chicken-and-the-egg problem for farmers: In most cases, they can’t just go across the street or into the next county over and see a project like this and talk to the farmers doing it.” 
Solar power’s land footprint has made it controversial in certain communities — some farming associations have protested converting farmland into acres of solar panels, arguing their members cease to be farmers and become energy producers instead.  
It’s a tension agrivoltaics helps to address. 
One survey found that more than 80% of Americans would be more likely to support solar development in their community, if it allowed for the co-production of energy and agriculture — about 10% more than those that support solar development in general. 
“There’s this cultural conflict between the farmers who want to farm and the solar companies that want to produce electricity,” Bernacchi said. “And agrivoltaics really does bill itself as sort of a middle ground. You can still farm and still get the electricity from the same land.”  
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Edited by: Tamsin Walker

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The average price of photovoltaic systems in Brazil rose by 7% between January and June 2026 for projects up to 300 kW, according to Greener’s “Distributed Energy Solutions” strategic study. Final system prices ranged from BRL 2.02 ($0.38)/W for 30 kW and 50 kW installations to BRL 3.62/W for 2 kW systems.
The survey considers the final price of a PV system, including the equipment kit and integration services. Kit costs are based on price mapping and inquiries with distributors, while final system prices are collected from integrators across Brazil. The difference between the two represents the integration cost, which includes the integrator’s technical and operational margin.
For 2 kW systems, the average price reached BRL 3.62/W in June, up from BRL 3.44/W in January. Based on total installed capacity, this corresponds to a system price of approximately BRL 7,200.
Meanwhile, 30 kW and 50 kW systems recorded the lowest per-watt prices among the system sizes surveyed, at BRL 2.02/W. This corresponds to total system prices of approximately BRL 60,600 and BRL 101,000, respectively.
Larger projects have a lower price per watt but require a higher overall investment. A 300 kW system, for example, had an average price of BRL 2.40/W, equivalent to around BRL 720,000. For a ground-mounted system of the same capacity, the average price reached approximately BRL 834,000.
The increase in final system prices came amid a sharper rise in equipment costs. The average price of PV kits for 4 kW systems rose by 18.3% between January and June 2026, from BRL 1.42/W to BRL 1.68/W.
The increase varied by system size. For 300 kW systems, the average kit price rose from BRL 1.02/W in January to BRL 1.04/W in June, an increase of 2.0%. For 50 kW systems, it climbed from BRL 1.14/W to BRL 1.24/W, up 8.8%.
Greener’s historical data shows that current prices remain well below levels recorded during the earlier stages of Brazil’s distributed solar market. The average price of a 4 kW residential system fell from BRL 7.74/W in January 2017 to BRL 2.91/W in June 2026. For a 50 kW commercial system, the average price declined from BRL 6.06/W to BRL 2.02/W over the same period.
The price trends come as Brazil’s distributed generation market lost momentum in the first half of 2026. New connections fell by 16% compared with the same period in 2025, from 488,000 to 411,000, while the number of new consumer units receiving credits dropped by 43%, from 951,000 to 541,000.
At the same time, residential systems accounted for a growing share of new installations. The residential segment represented 65% of added capacity in the first half of 2026, up from 39% in 2019, while the commercial segment’s share fell to 19%.
The concentration of sales in smaller systems underscores the importance of pricing for residential consumers. In a survey of system integrators, 80% identified residential systems of up to 12 kW as their best-selling category. Commercial systems ranging from 12 kW to 75 kW accounted for 16%, while systems above 75 kW represented 4%.
Financing may also influence purchasing decisions. Only 33% of integrators’ sales involved financing in the first half of 2026, down eight percentage points from 2025 and the lowest share recorded during the period analyzed.
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India added 50.6 GW of solar module and 9.7 GW of cell manufacturing capacity in the first half (1H) of 2026, taking its cumulative solar module manufacturing capacity to 261.7 GW and cell manufacturing capacity to 36.6 GW as of June 2026, according to Mercom India’s recently released report, State of Solar PV Manufacturing in India 1H 2026.
As of the report’s release, cumulative module capacity under the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) List-I stood at 225.5 GW, against nearly 35.5 GW of cumulative cell capacity under ALMM List-II.
“Domestic cell shortages have become the biggest near-term challenge for India’s solar market. Module capacity has expanded rapidly, but cell supply has not kept pace, tightening availability and pushing up prices for compliant modules and sharply slowing project activity. Many module manufacturers are struggling to maintain production because of limited domestic cell availability,” said Raj Prabhu, CEO at Mercom Capital Group.
Prabhu said that the installed cell capacity overstates actual availability, as new lines take months to reach stable commercial production. ALMM List-II has intensified the pressure by increasing dependence on domestic cell supply before enough capacity was commercially available.
TOPCon accounted for 80% of the total ALMM-listed module manufacturing capacity as of June 2026, followed by monocrystalline PERC/TOPCon at 11% and mono PERC at 4%. HJT accounted for 3%, while thin-film technology represented 2% of the total ALMM-listed capacity.
“Until commercially available cell supply catches up with demand, the entire industry will remain under pressure, with manufacturers facing production constraints and developers facing commissioning delays,” added Prabhu.
Gujarat remained the most favorable destination for solar module manufacturing, accounting for nearly 45% of the cumulative capacity as of June 2026. Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu followed with module production capacities of 26.1 GW and 23.4 GW.
Gujarat also held the largest annual solar cell production capacity at 37%. Tamil Nadu and Telangana were other top states, with capacities of 4.3 GW and 4.2 GW, respectively.
In 1H 2026, India’s imports of solar cells and modules increased 18% compared to 1H 2025. Cells accounted for 81% of total imports, while modules accounted for 19%.
The U.S. remained India’s largest solar export destination in 1H 2026, accounting for 92% of total exports.
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Cultivate Power’s Bowes Solar array in Elgin will provide lower cost electric service to 580 low- and moderate-income households, three small businesses, two towns and a church. (Cultivate Power photo) 
A newly opened 22-acre solar farm in Elgin will benefit 580 low- and moderate-income households and other electric customers in the area.  
The ribbon-cutting on Cultivate Power’s sprawling Bowes solar farm was held Thursday. The distributed solar and storage project consists of two installations. Each will generate clean, locally sourced and non-carbon-based electricity that will be distributed over Commonwealth Edison wires. 
Aimed at saving customers 20 percent on energy charges, the project will also benefit several larger customers, including three small businesses, two towns and a church. Cultivate Power officials say that collectively subscribers will save $13.9 million on their ComEd bills during the next 40 years. 
Besides providing lower-cost electric service to some residents, the project will provide donations to several local interests. Cultivate Power says it is contributing $575,000 in financial support to Elgin Community College and Food for Greater Elgin, which is a member agency of the Northern Illinois Food Bank. Other beneficiaries include Friends of the Fox River, We Care Solar, the Evolve Foundation, and Sesenergi Eco Solutions’ workforce training programs. 
The Bowes project site will pay an estimated $2.1 million in property taxes over its 40-year lifetime, directly benefiting School District U-46 and other government units. 
In addition, construction of the facility employed more than 75 individuals, including 49 union laborers. 
There are two ways residential and commercial electric customers can access solar power – installed rooftop photovoltaic panels and distributed solar and storage projects combining small-scale solar panel arrays with battery systems. Such systems, built close to where customers are located, help to lower electric supply costs and ensure better electrical grid reliability. 
Elgin officials expressed satisfaction with the solar project. 
“In Elgin, we are very deliberate about our land use planning and ensuring that our growth fits the nature of the community,” said Marc Mylott, the city’s community development director. “Cultivate Power was willing and able to develop despite the site’s encumbrances, creating a productive use of the land that generates property taxes and local electricity with limited disturbance to the surrounding community.” 
Chicago-based Cultivate Power has been developing distributed solar and storage projects across Illinois since 2022, with 14 projects up and running, and 20 more under construction. 
Cultivate says it “operates on the belief that clean power generation can play a key role in cultivating healthy, economically robust communities.” 
Brian Matthay, Cultivate Power’s managing director and co-founder, said the Bowes Solar project is a “significant milestone” for his company. 
“With this step, we’re cementing our long-term commitment to Illinois and to the goals of (the Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, and Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act) to expand clean energy access and drive local economic growth,” he said. 
There were numerous challenges Cultivate had to overcome in the planning and development of the Bowes project, including adjacent train tracks, high-voltage power lines, an irregular footprint and a corner wetland that had frustrated previous development efforts. The company adapted its design to work within constraints, including using high-density racking technology from Planted Solar to enable a higher megawatt density per acre. 
Dale Player, vice president of engineering and smart grid for ComEd, said efforts like the Bowes project “demonstrate how thoughtful engineering and strong collaboration can unlock new opportunities for clean energy, even on sites with unique development challenges.” 
“By connecting more locally generated energy to the grid, we’re helping expand customer access to affordable renewable energy while continuing to maintain the reliable service our communities depend on,” he said. 
 “Our goal on every project is to ensure clean energy delivers tangible, local value beyond the grid benefits,” said Noah Hyte, Cultivate Power’s other managing director and co-founder. “Whether it’s lowering electricity bills for local families, supporting Elgin schools and nonprofits or creating local construction jobs, Bowes Solar reflects our deep commitment to strengthening the communities where we operate.” 
While CEJA and CRGA cover an array of goals and priorities, the bottom line is eliminating reliance on fossil fuels and natural gas. The Climate and Equitable Jobs Act, passed in 2021, mandates a shift to 100-percent carbon-free energy by 2045, with the retirement of coal-fired generation units by 2030 and natural gas units by 2045. At the same time, it prioritizes “economic equity and workforce development.”  
The Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act, which was signed by Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Jan. 8, and took effect June 1, focuses on energy initiatives, including creating the Geothermal Homes and Businesses Incentive Program, and a Solar Bill of Rights for municipal and cooperative utility customers.  
Cultivate Power has been involved in renewable energy development and financing since 2008. More than 10,000 Illinois households are saving on their ComEd or Ameren electric bills by subscribing to solar projects developed by Cultivate Power. 
 
 

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The transformation of EL POLI by meii estudio gives La Unión’s municipal sports center in Murcia, Spain, a new architectural and energetic identity. The intervention at La Unión’s municipal sports center, locally known as EL POLI, is structured around two complementary elements that redefine a beloved local landmark, with a primary focus on both energy production and consumption. 
 
A vivid lime-green entrance creates a clear and welcoming gateway to the complex, while a folded photovoltaic canopy rises above the stands, its geometry shaped by the sun. Together, these two interventions generate renewable energy, improve comfort, and establish a bold new presence within La Unión’s distinctive mining landscape.
 
Serving as a welcoming gateway between the city and the sports complex, the renovated entrance building unifies essential programs, like changing rooms, offices, and the cafeteria, under a strong horizontal identity. Clad in a ventilated ceramic facade of vivid lime-green ribbed tiles, it contrasts with the local mining landscape. A fully foldable metal facade at its entrance dissolves the boundary between the town and the facilities, creating a versatile public threshold. The design team at meii estudio refers to these two elements as EL POLI Y LA PERGOLA.

all images ©meii estudio
 
 
 
The centrepiece of the project transforms a pure energy infrastructure into a striking architectural element. Designed by Murcia-based architectural practice meii estudio, to maximise solar energy production, its form is driven entirely by function: the optimal south-facing orientation and inclination of the photovoltaic panels, calculated precisely to the latitude of La Unión, generate a sequence of folded planes with a distinctive sawtooth profile.
 
Constructed using a robust three-dimensional steel structure and clad in blue metal sheeting, LA PÉRGOLA constantly shifts in appearance as natural light evolves. This creates a vibrant visual dialogue with the green ceramic entrance building while providing essential shade for the existing football stands.
 
Together, the lime-green entrance and the dynamic blue solar canopy succeed on multiple levels: they supply clean, renewable energy to the complex, improve user comfort, and forge a powerful new architectural identity for La Unión.

EL POLI is La Unión’s municipal sports center in Murcia, Spain

lime-green ribbed ceramic tiles clad the entrance building’s ventilated facade
the green ceramic facade contrasts with La Unión’s mining landscape

LA PÉRGOLA rises above the existing football stands as a photovoltaic canopy

the canopy’s folded geometry is shaped by the optimal orientation of its solar panels

blue metal sheeting gives LA PÉRGOLA its changing visual character
a sequence of folded planes creates LA PÉRGOLA’s distinctive sawtooth profile

a three-dimensional steel structure supports the photovoltaic canopy

LA PÉRGOLA provides shade for the existing football stands

the project combines energy production with improvements to user comfort
 
project info:
 
name: EL POLI Y LA PERGOLA
architect: meii estudio | @meii_estudio
location: Murcia, Spain
 
 
designboom has received this project from our DIY submissions feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. See more project submissions from our readers here.
 
edited by: Christina Vergopoulou | designboom

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Commercial use of green hydrogen cautiously gets under way in Czechia, with new project in Napajedla showing potential
Czechia’s first electrolyser producing green, or zero-emission, hydrogen has been built and will be used in domestic industry and transport. Environmentally produced hydrogen is set to play an important role in decarbonising Czech industry and the economy.
The electrolyser, which produces hydrogen using energy from the sun and partly from wind, was launched on Monday by Solar Global in Napajedla in the Zlín region, making the company a pioneer of this technology in Czechia. The company, a leading domestic producer of photovoltaic power plants, produces green hydrogen using photovoltaics installed on the roof and wall of its headquarters, supported by a wind turbine.
Hydrogen produced by water electrolysis using electricity from renewable energy sources is referred to as green. The electrolyser in Napajedla, complemented by battery storage, will produce 8000 kilograms of zero-emission hydrogen annually. According to the company, a hydrogen-powered passenger car, currently produced by companies such as Toyota or Hyundai, could travel 800 thousand kilometres on this amount, while a hydrogen bus could travel 80 thousand kilometres.
Although the market for green hydrogen is still in its infancy, according to Solar Global owner Vítězslav Skopal, it is being sought by companies with decarbonisation targets that want to use it to replace fossil fuels. Skopal also believes that hydrogen buses will one day refuel at his site. “Cities are interested in them, but they will not buy them until they have somewhere to refuel,” Skopal explains, adding that a hydrogen refuelling station for passenger cars and trucks should be built at the site within two years.
However, Solar Global primarily wants to use green hydrogen for energy storage. The associated pressurised storage tank can hold 400 kilograms of the gas, equivalent to a large-scale battery storage facility with a capacity of 13 MWh. The total potential for storing photovoltaic energy is 246 MWh annually. In addition to hydrogen, the electrolyser will also produce zero-emission oxygen that can be used in industry, food processing or healthcare.
The company financed the investment, worth 35 million koruna, partly through a bank loan, with nine million coming from a grant. According to Vítězslav Skopal, payback remains out of sight, as the technology is at a very early stage and the market for it is only just being built.
He believes,
The payback is not ideal right now, but it is only a matter of time.
”And someone simply has to start. We hope to learn how to produce green hydrogen through this project and that it will give us a competitive advantage in the future,”
According to him, the company is already preparing another project in Kolín, where it wants to build a 9 MW photovoltaic power plant to supply an electrolyser with a capacity of one MW, a project four times larger than the one in Napajedla.
Hydrogen is set to become key to decarbonising Czech energy and the economy. Besides providing long-term storage for energy from clean sources, it is also meant to help replace some imported fossil fuels and decarbonise industrial sectors that cannot be electrified and where reducing the carbon footprint is problematic.
Martin Sedlák, Programme Director of the Modern Energy Association, said:
This primarily concerns the chemical or metallurgical industry, or heavy freight transport.
”Until now, this fuel of the future has only been produced in Czechia in small pilot projects, but the energy complex in Napajedla is proof that we can produce green hydrogen in Czechia on an industrial scale,”
According to Environment Minister Petr Hladík, the recently approved Czech National Energy and Climate Plan envisages around 30 thousand tonnes of green hydrogen being produced domestically by 2030, with a similar amount to be imported. However, this represents only a few percent of the Czech energy mix.
Hladík said, adding that more similar projects are now being prepared in Czechia,
However, according to calculations, green hydrogen should replace natural gas as such between 2030 and 2040, and we expect it to grow massively in both industry and transport,
The European Union plans to produce ten million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030 and import another ten million tonnes as part of its decarbonisation target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by 2030.
‍READ the latest news shaping the hydrogen market at Hydrogen Central
Commercial use of green hydrogen cautiously gets under way in Czechia, with new project in Napajedla showing potential, source
Poland – TAURON H2 and PKM Tychy want to cooperate to develop hydrogen-powered public transport TAURON H2 and the Tychy Municipal Transport Company have signed a letter of intent expressing their willingness to…
Provaris Energy advances hydrogen tank commercialisation through Himile manufacturing collaboration Provaris Energy Ltd (ASX:PV1, OTC:GBBLF, FRA:WS90) has moved its compressed hydrogen technology closer to commercial…
Creos Deutschland officially started construction work on the first hydrogen pipeline of the cross-border mosaHYc project On Friday 28 August 2026, Lex Delles, Minister of the Economy, SMEs, Energy and Tourism took part…
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Smoother perovskite films lift three-layer solar cell efficiency to 30.1%  Tech Xplore
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Low Carbon Proposes 500 MW Solar and Battery Storage Project in West Oxfordshire  SolarQuarter
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September 26, 2026 | 04:31 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Traditionally, solar panel farms are quiet — save for the faint hum of the inverter. But on about one in 10 American solar farms, there’s a new sound reverberating through fields: baaaa. 
Letting sheep roam under solar panels is just one of many forms of a burgeoning strategy called agrivoltaics, where crops grow or livestock graze in tandem with renewable energy infrastructure. 
It’s not only of potential benefit for the animals, which get additional shade. The panels can also protect crops from the elements as well as divert water to them, creating cooler, damper conditions that even boost yields. 
And even the solar panels themselves tend to respond well to this co-existence — as the cooler they are, the more electricity they produce per watt of sunlight. 
“Having concrete or something underneath the solar panels — you’re going to have lower efficiency than having something like plants that are transpiring and cooling off on the land surface,” Carl Bernacchi, professor of plant biology and crop sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told DW. 
While the potential is enormous, especially as climate change puts more and more heat stress on agriculture, the practice is still in its infancy. In Europe, if agrivoltaics were implemented on just 1 percent of available agricultural land, the continent could exceed its solar energy targets for 2030.   
But uptake has been slow: agrivoltaics represents just 18.4 gigawatts of energy worldwide as of mid-2025, less than 1 percent of the world’s solar capacity.  
The idea for agrivoltaics dates back to 1981, when two German scientists published an article titled “Kartoffeln unter dem Kollektor” (or “Potatoes beneath the collector”). But the first pilot project didn’t begin until 2004 in Japan, a land-constrained country, where there’s particular concern over balancing solar deployment with the protection of farmland. 
There are three main types of agrivoltaics: horizontal, where panels look directly up at the sky, vertical, where they’re placed in large rows, perpendicular to the ground, and integrated, often installed atop greenhouses. 
Research suggests shade-tolerant crops stand to benefit. That includes berries, grapes and tomatoes — where the panels’ steel framing often doubles as trellises — as well as peaches and peppers. 
The panels can also prevent water from fully evaporating, creating a more humid microclimate that benefits the soil — though humidity is a double-edged sword, sometimes introducing plant disease. 
Sheep have also proven to be a particularly good match. Compared to cattle or goats, they’re generally easier to manage around solar infrastructure, less likely to damage equipment, and small enough to fit comfortably beneath panels. The practice has other sustainability upsides too: sheep manure fertilizes the soil, and sites require less herbicide. 
“If we look at the sheep industry, this has been a real paradigm shift for them, where instead of having to pay to lease land to graze their animals — now they’re actually getting paid to graze,” said Austin Kinzer, an agrivoltaics specialist at the American Farmland Trust conservation movement . “So it completely puts the economics on its head and is a huge opportunity for the sheep industry, which is really struggling in the U.S. pretty much since World War II.” 
Agrivoltaics sit at a rare intersection of climate mitigation (cutting emissions) and adaptation (adjusting to a warming planet). 
“It is both, which is pretty unique as far as climate solutions go,” Kinzer said.  
The practice offers one answer to where solar panels could go, helping to produce cheaper and more efficient energy, while also benefiting crops that might struggle due to rising temperatures or volatile weather. 
And research suggests that climate change will only make regions grow drier, “broadening areas where agrivoltaics can mitigate crop yield penalties (even boosting yield) and improve overall profitability,” write researchers in a journal article for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).  
A dual-income stream can also offer farmers some insurance should temperature or weather knock out a season’s plantings. 
“Being able to have that alternate form of income, it’s massive for folks who are depending on weather to make their living that is becoming increasingly more extreme and varied,” Kinzer said. 
So why has adoption been so slow? 
“In theory, it’s a win-win scenario,” Bernacchi said. “But of course, with any technologies, there are always caveats and issues.” 
One reason is that agrivoltaics don’t work everywhere. In America’s arid West, where heat stress and less available water can threaten crops, yields stayed the same or even rose under panels. In the humid Midwest, on the other hand, panel shading limited photosynthesis and led to reduced yields in maize and soybeans.  
For cash crops, where there’s a very small margin for profit, even a minor reduction in yield is a no-go for many farmers.  
Then there’s the expense. For solar producers, every added inch to mount panels higher means more labor and steel costs. And farmers might need to find new equipment or change methods to adapt to a new system. 
“Farmers want to learn from other farmers,” said Kinzer, who works with farmers across the US to see how agrivoltaics are being adopted. “They want to hear from folks who are doing it. And so there’s a little bit of a chicken-and-the-egg problem for farmers: In most cases, they can’t just go across the street or into the next county over and see a project like this and talk to the farmers doing it.” 
Solar power’s land footprint has made it controversial in certain communities — some farming associations have protested converting farmland into acres of solar panels, arguing their members cease to be farmers and become energy producers instead.  
It’s a tension agrivoltaics helps to address. 
One survey found that more than 80 percent of Americans would be more likely to support solar development in their community if it allowed for the co-production of energy and agriculture — about 10 percent more than those that support solar development in general. 
“There’s this cultural conflict between the farmers who want to farm and the solar companies that want to produce electricity,” Bernacchi said. “And agrivoltaics really does bill itself as sort of a middle ground. You can still farm and still get the electricity from the same land.”  
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Crisifield, Md. — Clean energy company ECA Solar and Madison Energy Infrastructure held a ribbon cutting ceremony Wednesday to commemorate the completion of the Crisfield Energy Initiative, a 2.2-megawatt facility that will supply energy to Delmarva Power and Light customers.
Jack Rowland, director of development at ECA Solar, said the facility is mechanically complete, but it won’t have the switch flipped to begin power generation until October.
He added that the project was built on previously unusable land in Crisfield and was completed with removing any trees or impacting farmland.
“This property, it was land that was not used for as long as most people in the city can remember. It was essentially used as a dump site. It’s full of invasive plants, trash, debris, garbage, and really just land that couldn’t be used for anything else. And now it’s a local energy source,” Rowland said.
Rowland said the facility will be a consistent source of tax revenue for the city over the next 35 years. He added that residents using Delmarva Power are able to sign up for a community solar program and get a guaranteed discount on their electrical bills.
“If they’re (Delmarva Power customers) interested in signing up for community solar, I am aware that the City of Crisfield has a program, I believe, with, Solar Simplified, where you can sign up for a community solar project, receive guaranteed, savings on your bill,” Rowland said. “I would reach out if you’re resident of Crisfield, reach out to the city directly for that referral link soon.” 
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Queens, New York, has implemented an innovative solar energy project featuring vertical bifacial panels on a green roof. This 100-kilowatt system is designed to generate about 120,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. The approach allows for sunlight and rain to nourish the vegetation underneath. Additionally, the vertical design helps maintain stormwater retention while generating renewable energy. The project exemplifies how cities can integrate solar solutions with green spaces effectively.
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A 15% Section 232 tariff on polysilicon imports, administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce, is scheduled to begin on December 4, giving solar and energy storage developers a shrinking opportunity to obtain cheaper supply, according to pv magazine.
Anza, which provides data and analytics for solar and energy storage, suggests developers give priority to stock already held in the United States and determine which further shipments can pass customs before the December 4 cutoff. The company also recommends securing domestic-content supply, including weighing whether mixing domestic and imported goods might cut total capital expenditure.
Anza further advises developers to examine how their contracts distribute exposure to retroactive tariffs and stockpiling risks, and, when feasible, to obtain written assurances from suppliers that those risks will be absorbed.
Set to start roughly ten weeks after the source publication date, the tariff will push up prices for polysilicon along with solar ingots, wafers, cells and modules. According to Anza, the median price of imported modules stood at $0.27 per watt before the August 7 proclamation and has reached $0.38 per watt for delivery after December 4 among suppliers that have adjusted prices, a rise exceeding 40%.
The tariff stems from a determination by the Secretary of Commerce in a Section 232 investigation that the volumes and conditions of polysilicon imports pose a threat to U.S. national security.
Anza says developers face the difficulty of acting swiftly to lock in lower costs before minimum pricing starts. The choices it outlines are obtaining modules already in the United States, speeding up imports, or changing procurement approaches to protect project economics.
Anza reports that by September 9, 55% of active suppliers on its platform had pricing that included Section 232, accounting for 65% of modules on the platform. The company says it can access lower-cost supply available before the deadline, though it calls the window shrinking. For quotes where Anza can match the same SKU and contract terms, prices have risen by roughly 15%.
The Solar Energy Industries Association reports that the United States now has 75.3 GW of module manufacturing capacity, which it says is sufficient to meet current market demand. Higher up the supply chain, present capacity is smaller, and the association projects a surge in ingot and cell manufacturing within the next year and in polysilicon and wafer by 2028.
Aaron Hall, president of Anza, said in a statement that developers currently in procurement are entering the most critical procurement window. He added that developers cannot delay until December 4 to decide on procurement, since modules require time to ship and clear U.S. customs before the deadline.
Hall also said developers must grasp what is available now, at what price and under what terms, and act quickly on the strategy best suited to their project.
Interactive table based on the Store Companies dataset for this report.
This report is an independent strategic market study that provides a structured, commercially grounded analysis of the market for Polysilicon in the United States. It is designed for component manufacturers, system suppliers, OEM and ODM teams, distributors, investors, and strategic entrants that need a clear view of end-use demand, design-in dynamics, manufacturing exposure, qualification burden, pricing architecture, and competitive positioning.
The analytical framework is designed to work both for a single specialized component class and for a broader electronic materials / semiconductor feedstock, where market structure is shaped by product architecture, performance requirements, standards compliance, design-in cycles, component dependencies, lead times, and channel control rather than by one narrow customs heading alone. It defines Polysilicon as High-purity polycrystalline silicon, a foundational raw material for manufacturing semiconductor wafers and photovoltaic cells and examines the market through end-use demand, BOM and subsystem logic, fabrication and assembly stages, qualification and reliability requirements, procurement pathways, pricing layers, and country capability differences. Historical analysis typically covers 2012 to 2025, with forward-looking scenarios through 2035.
This report is designed to answer the questions that matter most to decision-makers evaluating an electronics, electrical, component, interconnect, or power-system market.
At its core, this report explains how the market for Polysilicon actually functions. It identifies where demand originates, how supply is organized, which technological and regulatory barriers influence adoption, and how value is distributed across the value chain. Rather than describing the market only in broad terms, the study breaks it into analytically meaningful layers: product scope, segmentation, end uses, customer types, production economics, outsourcing structure, country roles, and company archetypes.
The report is particularly useful in markets where buyers are highly specialized, suppliers differ significantly in technical depth and regulatory readiness, and the commercial landscape cannot be understood only through top-line market size figures. In this context, the study is designed not only to estimate the size of the market, but to explain why the market has that size, what drives its growth, which subsegments are the most attractive, and what it takes to compete successfully within it.
The report is based on an independent analytical methodology that combines deep secondary research, structured evidence review, market reconstruction, and multi-level triangulation. The methodology is designed to support products for which there is no single clean official dataset capturing the full market in a directly usable form.
The study typically uses the following evidence hierarchy:
The analytical framework is built around several linked layers.
First, a scope model defines what is included in the market and what is excluded, ensuring that adjacent products, downstream finished goods, unrelated instruments, or broader chemical categories do not distort the market boundary.
Second, a demand model reconstructs the market from the perspective of consuming sectors, workflow stages, and applications. Depending on the product, this may include Semiconductor wafer substrate, Photovoltaic cell absorber layer, and Power electronics substrate across Semiconductor & IC Manufacturing, Solar PV Module Manufacturing, Consumer Electronics, Automotive (EV/Power), and Industrial Electronics and Feedstock Sourcing & Qualification, Crystal Growth (CZ/FZ) Ingot, Wafer Slicing & Polishing, and Cell/Device Fabrication. Demand is then allocated across end users, development stages, and geographic markets.
Third, a supply model evaluates how the market is served. This includes Metallurgical Grade Silicon (MG-Si), Trichlorosilane (TCS) / Silane, High-purity graphite components, Significant electrical power, and Specialty chemical gases, manufacturing technologies such as Siemens Process (TCS-based), Fluidized Bed Reactor (FBR) Process, Upgraded Metallurgical Silicon (UMG) refining, and Monocrystalline vs. Multicrystalline growth, quality control requirements, outsourcing and contract-manufacturing participation, distribution structure, and supply-chain concentration risks.
Fourth, a country capability model maps where the market is consumed, where production is materially feasible, where manufacturing capability is limited or emerging, and which countries function primarily as innovation hubs, supply nodes, demand centers, or import-reliant markets.
Fifth, a pricing and economics layer evaluates price corridors, cost drivers, complexity premiums, outsourcing logic, margin structure, and switching barriers. This is especially relevant in markets where product grade, purity, customization, regulatory burden, or service model materially influence economics.
Finally, a competitive intelligence layer profiles the leading company types active in the market and explains how strategic roles differ across upstream material and component suppliers, OEM and ODM partners, contract manufacturers, integrated platform players, distributors, and engineering-support providers.
This report covers the market for Polysilicon in its commercially relevant and technologically meaningful form. The scope typically includes the product itself, its major product configurations or variants, the critical technologies used to produce or deliver it, the core input categories required for manufacturing, and the services directly associated with its commercial supply, quality control, or integration into end-user workflows.
Included within scope are the product forms, use cases, inputs, and services that are necessary to understand the actual addressable market around Polysilicon. This usually includes:
Excluded from scope are categories that may be technologically adjacent but do not belong to the core economic market being measured. These usually include:
The exact inclusion and exclusion logic is always a critical part of the study, because the quality of the market estimate depends directly on disciplined scope boundaries.
The report provides focused coverage of the United States market and positions United States within the wider global electronics and electrical industry structure.
The geographic analysis explains local demand conditions, domestic capability, import dependence, standards burden, distributor reach, and the country’s strategic role in the wider market.
This study is designed for strategic, commercial, operations, and investment users, including:
In many high-technology, electronics, electrical, industrial, and component-driven markets, official trade and production statistics are not sufficient on their own to describe the true market. Product boundaries may cut across multiple tariff codes, several product categories may be bundled into the same official classification, and a meaningful share of activity may take place through customized services, captive supply, platform relationships, or technically specialized channels that are not directly visible in standard statistical datasets.
For this reason, the report is designed as a modeled strategic market study. It uses official and public evidence wherever it is reliable and scope-compatible, but it does not force the market into a purely statistical framework when doing so would reduce analytical quality. Instead, it reconstructs the market through the logic of demand, supply, technology, country roles, and company behavior.
This makes the report particularly well suited to products that are innovation-intensive, technically differentiated, capacity-constrained, platform-dependent, or commercially structured around specialized buyer-supplier relationships rather than standardized commodity trade.
The report typically includes:
The result is a structured, publication-grade market intelligence document that combines quantitative modeling with commercial, technical, and strategic interpretation.
Electronics-Market Structure and Company Archetypes
Major U.S. producer, joint venture of Dow Corning
Operates one of the largest U.S. polysilicon plants
Subsidiary of Wacker Chemie, U.S. headquarters
U.S. subsidiary of Mitsubishi Materials
Bankrupt but legacy U.S. producer, still relevant in market history
Norwegian parent, but U.S. HQ for North American ops
Parent of Hemlock Semiconductor
Equipment supplier, not direct producer
Niche processor in U.S. market
Produces silicon feedstock for polysilicon
Separate entity from Hemlock Semiconductor, same location
Subsidiary of REC Silicon
U.S. subsidiary of South Korean OCI
U.S. office of Chinese GCL-Poly
U.S. subsidiary of Chinese LDK
U.S. trading arm of Chinese company
U.S. subsidiary of Trina Solar
U.S. office of Chinese manufacturer
U.S. subsidiary of Canadian Solar
Major U.S. solar manufacturer, uses polysilicon indirectly
U.S. solar company, significant polysilicon demand
Indirectly involved via solar supply chain
U.S. subsidiary of German SolarWorld, now defunct
U.S. division of Japanese conglomerate
U.S. subsidiary of Sharp Corporation
U.S. division of Panasonic
U.S. subsidiary of LG
U.S. subsidiary of Hanwha Group
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Over 1 million readers this year!
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Cap City News
Cheyenne, Wyoming Community News Stream.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The Belvoir Ranch has long been identified as a potential site of energy developments, and its owner, the City of Cheyenne, appears to be nearing a deal to make another possible. Prospective developer Hanwha Renewables has identified an area on the ranch for a potential solar development and wants to secure an agreement to get the project started.
The Belvoir Ranch is an 18,800-acre property west of town that has slowly been built for recreation, energy development, water storage and more. It fits loosely between the Union Pacific Railroad and Interstate 80, with a portion of the area known as The Big Hole stretching down as far as the Wyoming–Colorado border.
Since the city began planning out the ranch’s future in earnest in 2008, a large chunk of the property’s area has been dedicated to wind energy. A 2024 master plan update reaffirmed the city’s commitment to using large chunks of the land for energy, highlighting solar specifically as a potential use.
Hanwha Renewables, the renewable energy branch of the massive Korean corporation Hanwha, has recently taken action to realize the city’s goals. The company is the same developer as the South Cheyenne Solar Project, a 150-megawatt solar project in south Laramie County that opened in 2024.
Hanwha Renewables representatives have returned to the county, now with their eyes on Belvoir. One employee, associate development manager Tyler Nokelby, said the company is looking to develop a 140-megawatt generation facility and pair it with a 140-megawatt battery energy storage system. Its name is Project Wrangler.
Nokelby came to Cheyenne from California on Sept. 24–25 to pitch the project to Laramie County residents and later the Cheyenne City Council itself, some members of which have spoken with Hanwha before as it scoped out the property.
According to Nokelby, the project is shaping up to be a $300 million investment. As the project’s developer, Hanwha Renewables will take the reigns in the earliest stages of development.
By the time the project nears construction, Hanwha Renewables will sell the asset to a company like Southern Power, which it did for the South Cheyenne Solar Project. The owner will then sell the power generated once the farm is built to an off-taker, Black Hills Energy, which will distribute the energy to commercial, industrial and residential consumers.
Hanwha Renewables’ primary responsibilities include siting, structuring financial agreements to use the property, permitting and site planning. Nokelby said that the company takes those jobs seriously. Months of work go into wildlife and environmental stewardship, which he said the company stressed during South Cheyenne Solar’s development.
“In 2024, we were awarded by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department with the 2023 Industrial Wildlife Stewardship Award and it was because we went above and beyond to reduce environmental impact and facilitate wildlife movement across the landscape,” Nokelby said. “Really what we did was we went far beyond the kind of recommended measures to make sure all sorts of different habitats were mitigated. Specifically pronghorn movement was something we were really concerned about.”
As an example, Nokelby said that if the company contracts an environmental survey and discovers that an incredibly rare species of butterfly lived only in that area, Hanwha would take action to prevent harm to its habitat or would abandon the site. He said Project Wrangler would incorporate fencing to allow small animals to pass through, employ biologists to monitor construction and incorporate new panel types that can follow the contours of hills so that they don’t have to be graded. They have strict decommissioning procedures in place and are even hoping to use the roads that neighboring wind projects have already built to keep natural disturbances to a minimum.
“We did not get into the sustainable energy industry to destroy the environment,” Nokelby said. “These projects are obviously very large and impactful. We do everything we can to mitigate those impacts.”
The prospective site of the Wrangler Energy Park, made up of rolling hills and water-cut gullies, won’t make fulfilling those obligations very easy. While the development should only take up 1,200–1,400 acres of the ranch, the company is hoping to initially secure rights to a 3,300-acre parcel on the ranch’s far-east side to find areas where it can least disturb wildlife, soils and natural waterways, as well as avoid areas too hilly for its panels’ contour-matching design. The whole of the 3,300 acres won’t be used.
“It’s not that the entire area is completely going to be covered and unusable, just maybe a portion of that. In the grand scheme of things, the ranch is 18,000 acres. This is about 3,300,” Nokelby said. “The solar panels are about 1,200 — less than 10%.”
He also stressed that, even if the company did want to keep the remaining land, clauses included in the draft lease strictly prohibit uses not pertaining to solar energy, including data centers.
The development should also avoid disturbing humans. The proposed site is far away from the publicly accessible portions of the ranch, which opened a trail system for biking and trail running in June, and utilizes land around wind turbines that are already there. Unlike those wind turbines, however, the solar project won’t be visible from Interstate 80. It would likely be visible if accessed by Otto Road.
Hanwha said it’s first interested in a four-year option to lease, which grants it the exclusive right to development while it scopes the area out and conducts studies. Even if it chooses to move on from the area, the city would still rake in around $1 million from option fee payments.
If Hanwha does like what it sees and is clear to develop, representatives would structure a long-term operating lease, which starts at 30 years and offers four five-year extension options. That would make the maximum life of the lease 50 years. In that time, just from lease revenue, the City of Cheyenne would generate between $30 million and $60 million, Nokelby said.
“$30 million is probably worst-case scenario. We can’t make any promises right now; we’ll know a lot more as we progress,” Nokelby said. “Great for the city. If you average that out, that’s a little over a million a year, I think.”
Despite being city-owned, the Belvoir Ranch is not in the City of Cheyenne, so Laramie County would be collecting the development’s property taxes. If the City Council decided to annex the area, however, that would mean even more revenue for the city.
Project Wrangler will not spring up overnight. Like the South Cheyenne Solar Project, site planning alone can take years. Nokelby said that, upon the approval of an initial agreement, it would probably take around two or three years to get through site studies, environmental reviews, design and permitting. Groundbreaking would occur around the end of 2027 or in early 2028, and the site would be operational sometime in 2030.
The City of Cheyenne would not have oversight over much of the process after it approves the lease. Permits would come through the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, while site planning approval would come from the Laramie County government.
That means that, unless the city decides to annex the property in the future, the next few weeks will be the primary time for city councilors and Cheyenne residents to publicly speak on the project. Consideration of the lease, which will begin with the four-year option, will be first made Oct. 7. It will be immediately referred to the Finance Committee and will return to the council for a final vote in mid- to late October.
Although the city would only enter the four-year option with Hanwha Renewables if the agreement is approved next month, updating it to enter the full 30-year operational lease would be handled administratively and would not require another public vote.
More about the project from Nokelby or Hanwha Renewables representatives themselves are available in the video recording of the Cheyenne City Council’s Sept. 25 work session on YouTube.
Community Reporter More by Garrett Grochowski

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The average cost of photovoltaic systems in Brazil increased by 7% between January and June 2026 for projects of up to 300 kW, according to a strategic study by Greeners on distributed energy solutions. The study examined final system prices, which combine the equipment kit with integration services, drawing kit costs from price mapping and distributor inquiries while collecting final system prices from integrators across the country.
For 2 kW systems, the average price reached BRL 3.62 per watt in June, compared with BRL 3.44 per watt in January, corresponding to a total system price of roughly BRL 7,200. The lowest per-watt prices among the surveyed sizes were recorded for 30 kW and 50 kW systems at BRL 2.02 per watt, equivalent to total system prices of approximately BRL 60,600 and BRL 101,000 respectively.
Larger projects carried a lower price per watt but demanded a higher overall investment. A 300 kW system averaged BRL 2.40 per watt, or around BRL 720,000, while a ground-mounted system of the same capacity averaged approximately BRL 834,000.
The rise in final system prices occurred alongside a sharper increase in equipment costs. Average kit prices for 4 kW systems climbed 18.3% between January and June 2026, from BRL 1.42 per watt to BRL 1.68 per watt. The increase varied by system size: 300 kW kits rose 2.0%, from BRL 1.02 per watt to BRL 1.04 per watt, and 50 kW kits rose 8.8%, from BRL 1.14 per watt to BRL 1.24 per watt.
Historical data from Greeners indicates that current prices remain well below levels seen in the earlier stages of Brazil’s distributed solar market. The average price of a 4 kW residential system declined from BRL 7.74 per watt in January 2017 to BRL 2.91 per watt in June 2026, while a 50 kW commercial system fell from BRL 6.06 per watt to BRL 2.02 per watt over the same period.
The price trends emerged as Brazil’s distributed generation market slowed in the first half of 2026. New connections declined 16% year on year, from 488,000 to 411,000, and the number of new consumer units receiving credits dropped 43%, from 951,000 to 541,000.
Residential systems meanwhile accounted for a growing share of new installations, representing 65% of added capacity in the first half of 2026, up from 39% in 2019, while the commercial segment’s share fell to 19%.
The concentration of sales in smaller systems highlights the importance of pricing for residential consumers. In a survey of system integrators, 80% identified residential systems of up to 12 kW as their best-selling category. Commercial systems from 12 kW to 75 kW accounted for 16%, while systems above 75 kW represented 4%.
Financing may also influence purchasing decisions. Only 33% of integrators’ sales involved financing in the first half of 2026, down eight percentage points from 2025 and the lowest share recorded during the period analyzed.
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Queens, New York, has implemented an innovative solar energy project featuring vertical bifacial panels on a green roof. This 100-kilowatt system is designed to generate about 120,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. The approach allows for sunlight and rain to nourish the vegetation underneath. Additionally, the vertical design helps maintain stormwater retention while generating renewable energy. The project exemplifies how cities can integrate solar solutions with green spaces effectively.
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Stephan Land, Stellar Renewables vice president of development, answers a question about the Henderson County Solar project at a May public information meeting at the Henderson County Public Library. (Hendersonian Photo/Vince Tweddell)
With legal costs mounting and a federal judge’s request to find a solution, the two parties involved in litigation over the solar development near Ky. 425 have come to an agreement that will allow construction to begin.
Henderson County Fiscal Court on Friday afternoon unanimously approved a resolution that will involve, among other agreements, county officials issuing a building permit on Stellar Renewables’ 421-acre project, an installation that is expected to eventually produce 20% of Henderson Municipal Power & Light’s annual energy.
Mac Johns, an attorney who specializes in renewable energy issues that the county hired for representation in such cases, said that at a hearing in federal court in Owensboro in early September, the judge presiding over the case told the legal teams representing the Henderson County Government and representing Stellar that if he issues a ruling one side will be very displeased.
“Get this done,” Judge Benjamin Beamer told the parties about coming to an agreement, according to Johns.
With money racking up from a $16,000 per day for failure to issue a building permit—which Stellar had sought in the lawsuit—and the possibility of paying opposing legal fees, Johns took Beamer’s request to heart.
Johns said the per diem total in damages that Stellar was seeking at the time of the early September federal court hearing was $1.6 million. The possibility of paying the other side’s legal fees pushed the total to more than $2 million, with an ever-increasing number if the litigation wore on, he said.
It was his opinion to not expose the Henderson community to millions of dollars in damages, Johns said.
With the resolution, there will be no legal fees or per diem to pay, and the community and surrounding landowners will get more protective terms which the project must abide by, he said.
The original site plan was approved in 2021 under the regulations set forth in the county’s solar energy systems ordinance first adopted in 2019. In 2023, the fiscal court amended the SES ordinance, putting in place more restrictive regulations.
But because the first site plan had been approved under the old ordinance and then subsequent extensions had been granted, the project had been slated to be regulated by the older, less restrictive ordinance.
According to the resolution, Stellar must abide by some of the provisions in the more restrictive 2023 ordinance. Some of them are:
Additionally, Stellar will deposit an additional $692,200 to comply with a higher bonding percentage in the 2023 ordinance.
“It makes them do more to protect neighbors,” Henderson County Judge-Executive Brad Schneider said.
The project’s site plan was first approved in 2021 and had progressed through a change of ownership and two site plan extensions, one in 2024 and another in summer of 2025 both approved by the Henderson City-County Planning Commission.
Thrown into all those moving parts was a solar energy systems moratorium, which went into effect in February 2025. (Furthermore, a proposal to cap the number of acres on which solar panels can be placed in the county is currently with the planning commission and should come to the fiscal court for a vote of approval before the end of the year.)
A building permit was not issued by Henderson County Codes Administrator Randy Tasa in June ahead of the proposed June 15 construction start date. According to Schneider, Tasa did not deny or approve a building permit then, but in fact county officials were trying to determine if the moratorium applied and were working through the legalities when the lawsuit was filed by Stellar.
Before the lawsuit, local officials were determining if the project—and its site plan approval—constituted an existing use—as in already in use—which Johns said exempts an installation from the moratorium.
With the planning commission’s approvals of site plan extensions for the project, planning commission officials and other officials had termed the project “grandfathered in” and exempt from the moratorium, Johns said. Talk about that language at the federal court hearing and emails that showed the use of “grandfathered in” led Johns to believe it would be a sticking point if the suit continued.
Another piece of the litigation involved a petition filed in Henderson Circuit Court by Henderson County Government and other bodies connected asking if the project is subject to the 2023 SES ordinance and 2025 moratorium. That action was removed from the local court to the U.S. District Court, and it is also moot with the resolution.
In addition to Stellar receiving a building permit, the developers will also not need to get the land rezoned to heavy industrial, which is required in the 2023 zoning ordinance. The construction can occur on the land as it is currently zoned as agricultural, per the resolution.
HMP&L General Manager Brad Bickett said “it was good to hear” that the agreement had been made.
HMP&L is contracted with Stellar, which will build the installation called Henderson County Solar and oversee its operations for the 20-year contract. The energy it gathers will be transmitted directly to HMP&L’s local system for use by the utility’s customers.
Bickett said he had not spoken with any Stellar representatives since the Friday afternoon fiscal court resolution approval, so he didn’t have a start date on the construction. He said he expects it will take about 12 months to build.
HMP&L had hoped that Henderson County Solar would be operational in early 2027. But with the delay caused by litigation, HMP&L was forced to sign contracts to buy energy off the market for the next two fiscal years, Bickett said.
Once Henderson County Solar is operational, HMP&L will have more power than it needs for two years, until the recent energy contracts the utility purchased expire, said Bickett. The excess energy will be sold back to the market, he said.
A message was left with a Stellar representative Friday afternoon, but he did not return the call before this article was posted on Friday night.
Vince Tweddell is the founder, publisher and editor of the Hendersonian.
© 2026 The Hendersonian • Henderson, KY 42420
© 2026 The Hendersonian • Henderson, KY 42420

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Stephan Land, Stellar Renewables vice president of development, answers a question about the Henderson County Solar project at a May public information meeting at the Henderson County Public Library. (Hendersonian Photo/Vince Tweddell)
With legal costs mounting and a federal judge’s request to find a solution, the two parties involved in litigation over the solar development near Ky. 425 have come to an agreement that will allow construction to begin.
Henderson County Fiscal Court on Friday afternoon unanimously approved a resolution that will involve, among other agreements, county officials issuing a building permit on Stellar Renewables’ 421-acre project, an installation that is expected to eventually produce 20% of Henderson Municipal Power & Light’s annual energy.
Mac Johns, an attorney who specializes in renewable energy issues that the county hired for representation in such cases, said that at a hearing in federal court in Owensboro in early September, the judge presiding over the case told the legal teams representing the Henderson County Government and representing Stellar that if he issues a ruling one side will be very displeased.
“Get this done,” Judge Benjamin Beamer told the parties about coming to an agreement, according to Johns.
With money racking up from a $16,000 per day for failure to issue a building permit—which Stellar had sought in the lawsuit—and the possibility of paying opposing legal fees, Johns took Beamer’s request to heart.
Johns said the per diem total in damages that Stellar was seeking at the time of the early September federal court hearing was $1.6 million. The possibility of paying the other side’s legal fees pushed the total to more than $2 million, with an ever-increasing number if the litigation wore on, he said.
It was his opinion to not expose the Henderson community to millions of dollars in damages, Johns said.
With the resolution, there will be no legal fees or per diem to pay, and the community and surrounding landowners will get more protective terms which the project must abide by, he said.
The original site plan was approved in 2021 under the regulations set forth in the county’s solar energy systems ordinance first adopted in 2019. In 2023, the fiscal court amended the SES ordinance, putting in place more restrictive regulations.
But because the first site plan had been approved under the old ordinance and then subsequent extensions had been granted, the project had been slated to be regulated by the older, less restrictive ordinance.
According to the resolution, Stellar must abide by some of the provisions in the more restrictive 2023 ordinance. Some of them are:
Additionally, Stellar will deposit an additional $692,200 to comply with a higher bonding percentage in the 2023 ordinance.
“It makes them do more to protect neighbors,” Henderson County Judge-Executive Brad Schneider said.
The project’s site plan was first approved in 2021 and had progressed through a change of ownership and two site plan extensions, one in 2024 and another in summer of 2025 both approved by the Henderson City-County Planning Commission.
Thrown into all those moving parts was a solar energy systems moratorium, which went into effect in February 2025. (Furthermore, a proposal to cap the number of acres on which solar panels can be placed in the county is currently with the planning commission and should come to the fiscal court for a vote of approval before the end of the year.)
A building permit was not issued by Henderson County Codes Administrator Randy Tasa in June ahead of the proposed June 15 construction start date. According to Schneider, Tasa did not deny or approve a building permit then, but in fact county officials were trying to determine if the moratorium applied and were working through the legalities when the lawsuit was filed by Stellar.
Before the lawsuit, local officials were determining if the project—and its site plan approval—constituted an existing use—as in already in use—which Johns said exempts an installation from the moratorium.
With the planning commission’s approvals of site plan extensions for the project, planning commission officials and other officials had termed the project “grandfathered in” and exempt from the moratorium, Johns said. Talk about that language at the federal court hearing and emails that showed the use of “grandfathered in” led Johns to believe it would be a sticking point if the suit continued.
Another piece of the litigation involved a petition filed in Henderson Circuit Court by Henderson County Government and other bodies connected asking if the project is subject to the 2023 SES ordinance and 2025 moratorium. That action was removed from the local court to the U.S. District Court, and it is also moot with the resolution.
In addition to Stellar receiving a building permit, the developers will also not need to get the land rezoned to heavy industrial, which is required in the 2023 zoning ordinance. The construction can occur on the land as it is currently zoned as agricultural, per the resolution.
HMP&L General Manager Brad Bickett said “it was good to hear” that the agreement had been made.
HMP&L is contracted with Stellar, which will build the installation called Henderson County Solar and oversee its operations for the 20-year contract. The energy it gathers will be transmitted directly to HMP&L’s local system for use by the utility’s customers.
Bickett said he had not spoken with any Stellar representatives since the Friday afternoon fiscal court resolution approval, so he didn’t have a start date on the construction. He said he expects it will take about 12 months to build.
HMP&L had hoped that Henderson County Solar would be operational in early 2027. But with the delay caused by litigation, HMP&L was forced to sign contracts to buy energy off the market for the next two fiscal years, Bickett said.
Once Henderson County Solar is operational, HMP&L will have more power than it needs for two years, until the recent energy contracts the utility purchased expire, said Bickett. The excess energy will be sold back to the market, he said.
A message was left with a Stellar representative Friday afternoon, but he did not return the call before this article was posted on Friday night.
Vince Tweddell is the founder, publisher and editor of the Hendersonian.
© 2026 The Hendersonian • Henderson, KY 42420
© 2026 The Hendersonian • Henderson, KY 42420

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India’s cumulative solar module manufacturing capacity reached 261.7 GW by June 2026, while cell capacity stood at 36.6 GW, says Mercom
Gujarat accounted for nearly 45% of India’s module manufacturing capacity in June 2026
Solar cell and module imports rose 18% YoY in H1 2026, with cells making up 81% of imports
India added 50.6 GW of solar PV module manufacturing capacity and 9.7 GW of cell capacity in H1 2026, as domestic solar manufacturing continued to expand. However, cell availability remained a constraint despite the growth in installed capacity, according to Mercom India Research. 
In its report titled State of Solar PV Manufacturing in India 1H 2026, Mercom counts cumulative module manufacturing capacity of the country having reached 261.7 GW by June 2026, while cell manufacturing capacity stood at 36.6 GW.
However, the capacity listed under the government’s Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) was lower. While ALMM List-I module capacity reached 225.5 GW, ALMM List-II cell capacity stood at nearly 35.5 GW as of the report’s release, says Mercom.
In terms of technology, TOPCon accounted for the largest share of ALMM-listed module manufacturing capacity as of June 2026, with an 80% share. Monocrystalline PERC/TOPCon accounted for 11%, followed by mono PERC at 4%. Heterojunction (HJT) represented 3%, while thin-film technology accounted for the remaining 2%, according to the report.
The concentration of manufacturing capacity is also significant, as the report specifies that the top 10 manufacturers accounted for 60% of India’s module manufacturing capacity.
Gujarat remained the largest location for module manufacturing, accounting for nearly 45% of capacity at the end of June 2026. Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu followed, with module manufacturing capacities of 26.1 GW and 23.4 GW, respectively.
Gujarat also had the largest share of India’s annual solar cell production capacity at 37%. Tamil Nadu and Telangana followed with 4.3 GW and 4.2 GW, respectively.
Mercom Capital Group CEO Raj Prabhu said domestic cell shortages had become a near-term challenge for India’s solar market. “Module capacity has expanded rapidly, but cell supply has not kept pace,” Prabhu said. He added that limited domestic cell availability was tightening supply and increasing prices for compliant modules.
According to Prabhu, installed solar cell capacity does not necessarily represent commercially available supply because new manufacturing lines can take months to reach stable production. Additionally, the introduction of ALMM List-II has increased dependence on domestic cells before sufficient capacity became commercially available.
The supply constraint is affecting manufacturers and project developers. Prabhu added, “Many module manufacturers are struggling to maintain production because of limited domestic cell availability.” On the other hand, developers are experiencing commissioning delays until commercially available cell supply catches up with demand.
India’s imports of solar cells and modules increased 18% in H1 2026 compared with the same period in 2025. Cells accounted for 81% of total imports, while modules made up the remaining 19%.
On the export side, the US remained India’s largest destination during the period, accounting for 92% of total solar cell and module exports.
The complete report can be purchased from Mercom’s website.  
TaiyangNews 2024

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A fence surrounded by landscaping shields hundreds of low-profile, flat-mounted solar panels at Cultivate Power’s Bowes Road facility.
Bowes Road is Elgin’s first solar farm, and it’s now fully operational.
City and company officials gathered Thursday for a ribbon-cutting event for the 30-acre enterprise at Bowes and Nolan roads.
“This is the first site we are both developing and operating. We’re really excited about the project,” said Kiera Gavin, director of development for Cultivate Power, based in Chicago.
The solar development company has been active in the state for four years. It’s been involved in close to 30 projects, said Noah Hyte, co-founder and managing director.
Bowes Road solar farm produces 11.2 megawatts of power to 500 commercial and residential customers. A solar farm captures sunlight, converts it to power and distributes the energy to the grid.
Customers subscribe to the farm to get electricity, which can save 10% to 20% over standard electricity rates, according to Gatby, a company that helps residents and business owners find ways to save on energy costs.
Bowes Road will provide “resilience to the local grid. If you have a big storm outage or other grid issues, this will continue to generate and provide power to the local area,” Hyte said.
The project started in 2022, but Cultivate Power took over a few years later. It’s the same footprint as originally planned, but they were able to add more capacity, he said.
“We were able to find the right approach,” Hyte said. “We found there were opportunities to directly engage and hear concerns and incorporate those in the design.”
Mayor Dave Kaptain, who attended the ribbon-cutting, said neighbors seem happy with the results.
There had been attempts to develop the property over the last two decades, including a residential subdivision. But a wetland area at the back of the site made it a challenging project.
“This is a good use of the land,” Kaptain said.
Elgin has been a leader in bringing solar to the community, with the city being among the first to have a community solar program, the mayor said. The program allows residents and small businesses to subscribe to local solar farms without the need for rooftop panels.
The city’s Sustainability Commission also has initiatives to encourage solar power usage.
“This is all starting to bear fruit,” Kaptain said.
As more people embrace solar power, he believes its use will grow, especially as the cost of electricity goes up, he said.
“Hopefully, Elgin will continue to be a leader,” Kaptain said.
Hyte said the farm “provides more than power and grid resilience; it provides support to communities.”
Its impact on the local community includes $575,000 in direct community investments, a fivefold increase in property tax revenues from the property and 75 construction jobs, company officials said.
The city will collect $64,000 in property taxes in the farm’s first year of operations, compared to the $12,000 collected in 2025.
Cultivate Power is also investing in the community through Elgin Community College, Food for Greater Elgin, Friends of the Fox River, Evolve Foundation and Sesenergy, which provides workforce training.
It also has a STEM program for local schools, Gavin said. Teachers have already visited the site and learned about the curriculum available surrounding solar power, she said.
“We are very focused on investing in local communities alongside the projects we develop,” Gavin said.
Gloria Casas is a freelance reporter for The (Elgin) Courier-News.

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Northwestern and southern India and Pakistan saw above-average solar irradiance during the 2026 summer monsoon, while August tropical depressions reduced irradiance in eastern and central India, according to analysis using the Solcast API. Fortunately, the majority of India’s utility-scale PV capacity is in the regions with favourable conditions. After late-August flood damage in Nepal, India began exporting electricity there, supported in part by Indian PV generation.
The monsoon arrived slowly in June and rainfall has been below average in the sunnier regions. Early June–September analysis, using forecasts out to the end of September, puts irradiance around 5% above the long-term average in those areas, whilst August saw up to 10% above average. The weaker monsoon is consistent with the strong El Niño that has developed throughout 2027. These effects are also influenced by a marginal positive Indian Ocean Dipole, an Indian Ocean temperature pattern that can counteract El Niño’s influence.
Accumulated irradiance at Jodhpur, near Rajasthan’s PV-producing areas, is provisionally tracking as the second-highest year since 2007. Bahawalpur, near solar installations in Pakistan’s Punjab province, is tracking at the top of its comparison years since 2007.
Eastern and central India followed a different course. Several tropical depressions, or low-pressure systems formed over the Bay of Bengal in August and moved northwest across land, carrying cloud and heavy rain. August irradiance in the affected areas was 20–30% below the monthly average. The provisional June–September estimate is around 10% below average across Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, eastern Madhya Pradesh and
Maharashtra.
Spot analysis of time-series data in impacted locations demonstrates the impact this has for local solar production, revealing the impacts of the onset of the monsoon. Seen below, Nagpur started above average after the late monsoon onset, but August rain pushed its seasonal total below average. Abikapur, in Chhattisgarh, is tracking toward its lowest accumulated summer-monsoon irradiance in the comparison record after an average start.
Less PV capacity is deployed in these eastern areas than in India’s main solar-producing regions in the northwest. The sharp local irradiance decline therefore had a more limited bearing on national PV production potential than the August irradiance data alone might suggest.
Late-August floods in Nepal and Tibet, attributed glacial collapse, damaged 12 hydropower plants, PV facilities and transmission lines. Nepal’s generating capacity fell by 10%. Normally an exporter of hydropower to India during the summer monsoon, Nepal instead began importing electricity from India after the damage. Indian PV generation supported those exports, alongside the favourable irradiance across India’s main solar-producing
regions.
Solcast produces these figures by tracking clouds and aerosols at 1-2km resolution globally, using satellite data and proprietary AI/ML algorithms. This data is used to drive irradiance models, enabling Solcast to calculate irradiance at high resolution, with typical bias of less than 2%, and also cloud-tracking forecasts. This data is used by more than 350 companies managing over 350 GW of solar assets globally.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those held by pv magazine.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: [email protected].
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DW (Deutsche Welle)
September 26, 2026 | 04:31 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Traditionally, solar panel farms are quiet — save for the faint hum of the inverter. But on about one in 10 American solar farms, there’s a new sound reverberating through fields: baaaa. 
Letting sheep roam under solar panels is just one of many forms of a burgeoning strategy called agrivoltaics, where crops grow or livestock graze in tandem with renewable energy infrastructure. 
It’s not only of potential benefit for the animals, which get additional shade. The panels can also protect crops from the elements as well as divert water to them, creating cooler, damper conditions that even boost yields. 
And even the solar panels themselves tend to respond well to this co-existence — as the cooler they are, the more electricity they produce per watt of sunlight. 
“Having concrete or something underneath the solar panels — you’re going to have lower efficiency than having something like plants that are transpiring and cooling off on the land surface,” Carl Bernacchi, professor of plant biology and crop sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, told DW. 
While the potential is enormous, especially as climate change puts more and more heat stress on agriculture, the practice is still in its infancy. In Europe, if agrivoltaics were implemented on just 1 percent of available agricultural land, the continent could exceed its solar energy targets for 2030.   
But uptake has been slow: agrivoltaics represents just 18.4 gigawatts of energy worldwide as of mid-2025, less than 1 percent of the world’s solar capacity.  
The idea for agrivoltaics dates back to 1981, when two German scientists published an article titled “Kartoffeln unter dem Kollektor” (or “Potatoes beneath the collector”). But the first pilot project didn’t begin until 2004 in Japan, a land-constrained country, where there’s particular concern over balancing solar deployment with the protection of farmland. 
There are three main types of agrivoltaics: horizontal, where panels look directly up at the sky, vertical, where they’re placed in large rows, perpendicular to the ground, and integrated, often installed atop greenhouses. 
Research suggests shade-tolerant crops stand to benefit. That includes berries, grapes and tomatoes — where the panels’ steel framing often doubles as trellises — as well as peaches and peppers. 
The panels can also prevent water from fully evaporating, creating a more humid microclimate that benefits the soil — though humidity is a double-edged sword, sometimes introducing plant disease. 
Sheep have also proven to be a particularly good match. Compared to cattle or goats, they’re generally easier to manage around solar infrastructure, less likely to damage equipment, and small enough to fit comfortably beneath panels. The practice has other sustainability upsides too: sheep manure fertilizes the soil, and sites require less herbicide. 
“If we look at the sheep industry, this has been a real paradigm shift for them, where instead of having to pay to lease land to graze their animals — now they’re actually getting paid to graze,” said Austin Kinzer, an agrivoltaics specialist at the American Farmland Trust conservation movement . “So it completely puts the economics on its head and is a huge opportunity for the sheep industry, which is really struggling in the U.S. pretty much since World War II.” 
Agrivoltaics sit at a rare intersection of climate mitigation (cutting emissions) and adaptation (adjusting to a warming planet). 
“It is both, which is pretty unique as far as climate solutions go,” Kinzer said.  
The practice offers one answer to where solar panels could go, helping to produce cheaper and more efficient energy, while also benefiting crops that might struggle due to rising temperatures or volatile weather. 
And research suggests that climate change will only make regions grow drier, “broadening areas where agrivoltaics can mitigate crop yield penalties (even boosting yield) and improve overall profitability,” write researchers in a journal article for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).  
A dual-income stream can also offer farmers some insurance should temperature or weather knock out a season’s plantings. 
“Being able to have that alternate form of income, it’s massive for folks who are depending on weather to make their living that is becoming increasingly more extreme and varied,” Kinzer said. 
So why has adoption been so slow? 
“In theory, it’s a win-win scenario,” Bernacchi said. “But of course, with any technologies, there are always caveats and issues.” 
One reason is that agrivoltaics don’t work everywhere. In America’s arid West, where heat stress and less available water can threaten crops, yields stayed the same or even rose under panels. In the humid Midwest, on the other hand, panel shading limited photosynthesis and led to reduced yields in maize and soybeans.  
For cash crops, where there’s a very small margin for profit, even a minor reduction in yield is a no-go for many farmers.  
Then there’s the expense. For solar producers, every added inch to mount panels higher means more labor and steel costs. And farmers might need to find new equipment or change methods to adapt to a new system. 
“Farmers want to learn from other farmers,” said Kinzer, who works with farmers across the US to see how agrivoltaics are being adopted. “They want to hear from folks who are doing it. And so there’s a little bit of a chicken-and-the-egg problem for farmers: In most cases, they can’t just go across the street or into the next county over and see a project like this and talk to the farmers doing it.” 
Solar power’s land footprint has made it controversial in certain communities — some farming associations have protested converting farmland into acres of solar panels, arguing their members cease to be farmers and become energy producers instead.  
It’s a tension agrivoltaics helps to address. 
One survey found that more than 80 percent of Americans would be more likely to support solar development in their community if it allowed for the co-production of energy and agriculture — about 10 percent more than those that support solar development in general. 
“There’s this cultural conflict between the farmers who want to farm and the solar companies that want to produce electricity,” Bernacchi said. “And agrivoltaics really does bill itself as sort of a middle ground. You can still farm and still get the electricity from the same land.”  
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Sembcorp Floating Solar Singapore, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sembcorp Industries, developed the Sembcorp Tengeh Floating Solar Farm at Tengeh Reservoir in Singapore. The Sembcorp Tengeh Floating Solar Farm covers about 45 hectares of Tengeh Reservoir and contains more than 122,000 solar panels across 10 floating islands. The installation has a generation capacity of 60 MWp and supplies electricity sufficient to power Singapore’s five local water-treatment plants. The solar farm covers about one-third of the reservoir, while two-thirds remains open. Gaps between the floating panels allow sunlight and airflow to reach the water, while aerators help maintain dissolved oxygen levels. The installation was preceded by extensive engineering and environmental studies examining its compatibility with Singapore’s water infrastructure and surrounding ecosystem. The project is estimated to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 32,000 tons annually. Continuous monitoring of water quality is also part of the installation’s operation. 
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Here are the latest planning applications submitted to Vale of Glamorgan Council for Barry.
Solar panels
A planning application has been submitted for the installation of a solar photovoltaic (PV) system at a residential property on Baruc Way.
The proposal includes 13 all-black solar panels, each rated at 465 watts, with a total capacity of 6.04 kW.
The panels will be mounted on the rear roof of the detached house to minimise visual impact.
They will not exceed the roof ridgeline and will project no more than 200mm from the roof surface.
The installation also includes an external battery system and gateway, which will be housed in a covered enclosure and connected via a discreet trunking system along the side of the property.
No structural alterations, extensions, or changes to access are proposed.
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Italian delegation departs for Cuba. X/@CGCuba_Milan.

September 25, 2026 Hour: 12:15 pm
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On Thursday, an Italian solidarity caravan in Cuba reported raising US$426,700 for the installation of solar panels at health, cultural, and food production centers in Havana and several eastern provinces.
RELATED:
Italian Organizations Sign Unity Pact in Defense of Cuba
The initiative was spearheaded by organizations such as the Italian Cultural and Recreational Association (ARCI), the Italian National Confederation of Labor, and the Italy-Cuba National Friendship Association, along with social and labor groups.
The funds will bring photovoltaic energy to institutions in Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Granma, and Havana, amid the country’s ongoing energy crisis. According to the organizers, the projects will directly and indirectly benefit some 800,000 people, especially in sectors related to health.
Solar panels have become a key alternative for numerous Cuban institutions due to fuel shortages. The delegation will remain in Cuba until September 30 and also plans to deliver medicines, school supplies, and other resources to community organizations.
Meanwhile, representatives of the “Energy for Life. Let’s Light Up Cuba” movement were received at the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), where they met with local authorities and organizations.

Anti-fascist youth in Italy are showing solidarity with Cuba. pic.twitter.com/cl6j6ltwOn

ARCI President Walter Massa affirmed that the campaign will continue and noted that participants will share their experiences regarding the economic and energy situation facing the island with Italy.
During a meeting with the delegation, President Miguel Diaz-Canel highlighted the historic ties of friendship between Cuba and Italy and expressed his gratitude for the support provided by Italian civil society organizations.
The president noted that the benefits of the campaign can already be seen in health centers, cultural facilities, and production entities. The visit includes members of the European Parliament, national parliamentarians, and representatives of Italian associations.
The delegation advocated for continued solidarity and cooperation between the two nations and expressed its intention to promote new support initiatives related to energy, health, and community development.

#FromTheSouth News Bits | The Union Cuba-Petroleo oilfields completed extracting 2.5 million barrels of oil equivalent, despite the country's difficulties in securing its energy supply. pic.twitter.com/jrek25SDo4
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The average price of photovoltaic systems in Brazil rose by 7% between January and June 2026 for projects up to 300 kW, according to Greener’s “Distributed Energy Solutions” strategic study. Final system prices ranged from BRL 2.02 ($0.38)/W for 30 kW and 50 kW installations to BRL 3.62/W for 2 kW systems.
The survey considers the final price of a PV system, including the equipment kit and integration services. Kit costs are based on price mapping and inquiries with distributors, while final system prices are collected from integrators across Brazil. The difference between the two represents the integration cost, which includes the integrator’s technical and operational margin.
For 2 kW systems, the average price reached BRL 3.62/W in June, up from BRL 3.44/W in January. Based on total installed capacity, this corresponds to a system price of approximately BRL 7,200.
Meanwhile, 30 kW and 50 kW systems recorded the lowest per-watt prices among the system sizes surveyed, at BRL 2.02/W. This corresponds to total system prices of approximately BRL 60,600 and BRL 101,000, respectively.
Larger projects have a lower price per watt but require a higher overall investment. A 300 kW system, for example, had an average price of BRL 2.40/W, equivalent to around BRL 720,000. For a ground-mounted system of the same capacity, the average price reached approximately BRL 834,000.
The increase in final system prices came amid a sharper rise in equipment costs. The average price of PV kits for 4 kW systems rose by 18.3% between January and June 2026, from BRL 1.42/W to BRL 1.68/W.
The increase varied by system size. For 300 kW systems, the average kit price rose from BRL 1.02/W in January to BRL 1.04/W in June, an increase of 2.0%. For 50 kW systems, it climbed from BRL 1.14/W to BRL 1.24/W, up 8.8%.
Greener’s historical data shows that current prices remain well below levels recorded during the earlier stages of Brazil’s distributed solar market. The average price of a 4 kW residential system fell from BRL 7.74/W in January 2017 to BRL 2.91/W in June 2026. For a 50 kW commercial system, the average price declined from BRL 6.06/W to BRL 2.02/W over the same period.
The price trends come as Brazil’s distributed generation market lost momentum in the first half of 2026. New connections fell by 16% compared with the same period in 2025, from 488,000 to 411,000, while the number of new consumer units receiving credits dropped by 43%, from 951,000 to 541,000.
At the same time, residential systems accounted for a growing share of new installations. The residential segment represented 65% of added capacity in the first half of 2026, up from 39% in 2019, while the commercial segment’s share fell to 19%.
The concentration of sales in smaller systems underscores the importance of pricing for residential consumers. In a survey of system integrators, 80% identified residential systems of up to 12 kW as their best-selling category. Commercial systems ranging from 12 kW to 75 kW accounted for 16%, while systems above 75 kW represented 4%.
Financing may also influence purchasing decisions. Only 33% of integrators’ sales involved financing in the first half of 2026, down eight percentage points from 2025 and the lowest share recorded during the period analyzed.
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A ribbon cutting ceremony was held at the community solar project on Monegan Road last Wednesday. (Julie Engler/Whitefish Pilot)
Whitefish CIty Manager Dana Meeker and Stacey Schnebel, president of the board of trustees of Flathead Electric Cooperative cut the ribbon at the new community solar project on Monegan Road. (Julie Engle/Whitefish PIlot)
The sun understood the assignment and shone brightly over Monegan Road on Sept. 16 as Flathead Electric Cooperative, Bonneville Environmental Foundation, U.S. Department of Agriculture, the city of Whitefish and several citizens celebrated the completion of a new solar project.
“This is an exciting day for us because it reflects the kind of community-driven project that this board wants to support — one shaped by local ideas, strong partnerships and meaningful benefits for our members,” said Stacey Schnebel, Flathead Electric Cooperative board president. 
The solar array, built on city land near the wastewater treatment plant, consists of 448 solar panels, each generating about 700 kWh per year. The project is expected to generate enough power for 21 average homes. An on-site battery system stores energy for peak demand. 
People may purchase a panel’s power generation for $700 per panel, which will reduce their power bill by about $43 per year per panel. 
The solar array in Whitefish is the third community solar project Flathead Electric Co-op has built. The first was built in 2015 off Whitefish Stage Road and the second, in 2018, in Kalispell. 
“This project came online earlier this year and also marks an important first for the cooperative,” Schnebel said. “This is our first community solar project that is paired with a utility-scale battery [that] allows us to store electricity and release it when it can provide better value to our electrical system, including during those periods of higher demand.”  
The energy generated by approximately 80 of the panels will offset the bills of low-income families in the area, thanks to a $50,000 grant from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation and a $5,000 donation from YeTI Photovoltaic, Inc. 
The U.S. Department of Agriculture provided a $463,307 Rural Energy for America Program grant, known as a REAP grant.   
“Partnerships are really how we get things done in Whitefish,” Whitefish Public Works Director Craig Workman said. 
Whitefish worked with Climate Smart Glacier Country in 2018 to develop the Climate Action Plan, which has central themes like using energy more efficiently, conserving water, and producing more of the things we need locally,” he said, adding that creating a community solar project was an objective of the plan. 
“We wanted to help create a facility that could produce energy that is shared among many households and allow property owners to obtain solar power without having to bear the expense and the land burden to install the equipment on their own property,” Workman said. “This expands access to solar power for residents, business owners, commercial property and institutional property owners.”
• • •
Reporter Julie Engler can be reached at 406-862-3505 or [email protected].
    Whitefish City Manager Dana Meeker and Stacey Schnebel, president of the board of trustees of Flathead Electric Cooperative, cut the ribbon at the new community solar project on Monegan Road. (Julie Engle/Whitefish Pilot)
  

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Saturday, September 26, 2026
One of Australia’s leading solar experts has called for at least some of the cost of a mandatory national panel recycling scheme to be paid by end-users, including rooftop solar households, in a bid to prevent PV modules from being discarded well before their use-by date.
Dr Rong Deng, a senior lecturer at the School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering at UNSW was one of the first experts to appear before a federal Parliamentary Inquiry that launched this week to nut out how best to design a national solar stewardship scheme.
The establishment of mandatory scheme governing the reuse and recycling of solar in Australia is well overdue, despite the best efforts of industry groups like the Smart Energy Council (SEC) and despite a growing level of urgency to manage a growing pile of potentially highly valuable waste.
The inquiry was supposed to run alongside a $25.7 million pilot that the federal government had intended to start in July, but that, too, has been delayed – much to the SEC’s and industry’s dismay – after a legal complaint was made about the process to appoint a scheme administrator. 
This leaves the inquiry and a newly announced state-based push from New South Wales as the best hopes for establishing a mandatory solar stewardship scheme anytime soon.
But as Deng told the Inquiry on Thursday, the preferred national approach that the NSW government is currently consulting on – to charge retailers and project developers with a mandatory recycling fee at the point of panel installation – might not be the best way to go.
“I have a different view from what the NSW government is proposing,” Deng told the standing committee members, which includes “teal” independent MPs Zali Steggall and Nicolette Boele.
“My view is that a small, transparent end-of-life charge should sit at the point where the retirement decision is made. 
“We are seeing perfectly functional residential panels coming off the roof and, from my personal experience, we’ve seen panels as young as only two years old. 
“Those panels are designed to last 25, 30 years, and because currently there is no charge to recycle and get rid of them, that really encourage lots of early retirement.
“So a small price signal … may discourage unnecessary early retirement and keep working panels on roofs for longer,” Deng said. 
What to do with discarded solar panels that still have plenty of useful life left in them is just one of the puzzles within the puzzle that is solar stewardship. An SEC-led pilot conducted in Queensland put the average age of decommissioned panels at just 8 years, with most able to operate for another 10–15 years.
Reuse is the obvious solution, but this is not easy. It requires discarded panels to be handled with the utmost care during decommissioning and transportation, so that they are not damaged, and then it requires electrical testing and sing-off, so that consumers can be confident they are safe to use.
As the SEC’s executive general manager of sustainability, Darren Johannesen has told Renew Economy, these sort of early life panels appear so prominently in the waste stream because people are choosing to upgrade their rooftop systems as technology costs fall and as households electrify.
And the SEC has warned that this practice is likely to balloon under the federal home battery rebate, as households replace old rooftop modules with newer much bigger systems to go with their discounted and plus-sized storage systems.
“The good news is we’re going to get lots of batteries and expanded systems, the bad news is it’s going to create decommissioning … somewhere between an additional 7.5 million to 15-20 million [modules a year],” Johannesen told Solar Insiders last year. 
“So it’s a lot of modules that will be de-installed and this is why, getting back to pilots, why pilots are important. And critically, it’s why we need action on a national scheme.”
But while the SEC favours a set-up where the mandatory stewardship fee is charged to installers and developers, and then passed on to consumers through slightly higher system costs, Rong Deng argues that it is “reasonable” to put a modest cost at the other end of the panel life-cycle.
“When a system generally reaches …[the] end of its useful life after delivering value for 20, 30 years, the household has already received value from that asset. They’ve recovered all the value and they’ve received additional value from that asset, and [so] a modest cost to responsibly manage that at the end of life, to me, is reasonable,” she told the inquiry. 
“There is also a cost question: if a recycling cost is imposed upstream on brand owners or manufacturers, that cost, or some of that cost, will eventually pass on to the customer, and it is not just that one cost … all the overheads associated with managing the cost flow will eventually be passed on to the customer,” Deng says. 
“So if it’s eventually passed on the customer, if it’s eventually the customer who pays, then a small direct, transparent charge at the point where the retirement decision is made is probably the lowest-cost option to fund the scheme, and the lowest cost option to these customers,” she said. “That’s my opinion.”
Deng says she will also put this argument in a submission to the NSW consultation on a scheme.
“We’ve seen too many… panels retire way too early, and they’re perfectly fine,” she told the inquiry. “And you will probably hear from other people how difficult [it is] to reuse – even if [the panels are] perfectly fine.
“It’s so hard to find a reuse market. So the best option is just to keep those panels on the roof and let them keep generating electricity.
“If there is a small charge … when the retirement decision is made, people may want to keep the panels there for longer, and we eliminate the waste problem from the beginning. I mean, we don’t eliminate all the waste problem, but we eliminate some waste problem, which shouldn’t really exist, at the beginning.
“And the second point is on the cost,” she says.
“When the customer pays …for end of life after the asset retires, they’ve recovered their value from this asset. But now we’re asking them to pay for even more upfront.
“If the customer has to fund the scheme, then why don’t we let the customer fund it with a least cost … lowest cost option,” Deng says.
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Sophie is editor of Renew Economy and editor of its sister site, One Step Off The Grid . She is the co-host of the Solar Insiders Podcast. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
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German company Tegrona has introduced Tegrona Lite, free software for planning the layout of photovoltaic systems directly on a photograph of a roof. The tool is aimed at installers and project planners who need to estimate during an initial site visit how many modules can be installed on a roof without using CAD tools or taking on-site measurements.
The software accepts drone photographs, images taken from the ground, and roof plans. Using the image, the user outlines the roof surface with three or four points and defines exclusion zones for obstacles such as chimneys, dormers, skylights and ventilation ducts.
One of Tegrona Lite’s technical features is perspective correction for photographs taken from the ground. In such images, eaves and ridgelines may appear distorted, while rows of roof tiles converge toward vanishing points.
The software uses the tiles themselves as a geometric reference. Because rows and columns of tiles are parallel on the roof, their lines can be used to identify vanishing points and calculate the transformation required to rectify the image.
The procedure also allows users to work with trapezoidal or triangular roof surfaces, for which a correction based solely on four corners would not accurately reproduce the surface geometry. Once the image has been rectified, the eave appears horizontal and the module rows can be aligned with it.
Tegrona Lite uses the known dimensions of the roofing material to convert the image into a scaled representation. The user selects the type of roof tile, and the software identifies and counts the tiles visible in the image to calculate the relationship between pixels and actual dimensions.
The application includes tile profiles such as Frankfurter Pfanne and Hohlfalzziegel and allows users to enter other tile types based on their coverage dimensions. A single known measurement, such as the dimensions of a roof window, can also be used to establish the scale.
Once the geometry and scale have been defined, the algorithm distributes modules across the roof surface according to the specified module dimensions and power rating. Modules can be placed in portrait or landscape orientation, or the two orientations can be combined when this makes better use of the available space.
On roof surfaces that narrow toward the ridge, rows can be shifted laterally and modules rotated to make use of remaining spaces. Users can also specify minimum distances from roof edges and create exclusion zones around obstacles.
With each modification, the program updates the module count, total installed capacity, occupied area, and the number of mid and end clamps required.
The resulting layout can be exported as a technical sheet in PDF or PNG format, showing the module arrangement overlaid on the original photograph.
All calculations are performed locally on the user’s device. In the web version, processing takes place within the browser, and photographs are not uploaded to a server. According to Tegrona, this approach also avoids transferring geolocation metadata that may be embedded in photographs taken by drones.
Tegrona Lite does not include energy yield simulations, shading analysis, string design or structural checks. These functions are outside the scope of the tool and require dedicated PV design software.
The tool does not require registration or an internet connection for processing. Desktop applications are available for macOS 14 and later and Windows 10 and later, while the web version runs on a range of operating systems and devices. The web version is available in 11 languages, including Spanish.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: [email protected].
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: [email protected].
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The new ESS News magazine is here!
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Available in print and digital – get your copy today!
Saudi Arabia is accelerating its clean energy transition—join the SunRise Arabia Clean Energy Conference 2026 in Riyadh to explore how solar PV and energy storage are powering its digital economy.
pv magazine USA hosts its multi-day virtual event on U.S. solar and energy storage, covering domestic manufacturing, distributed energy and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting AI-driven power demand.
Monday, October 26, 2026
10:30 am – 11:30 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Giovedì, 1 ottobre 2026
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