Renewable energy installations in Italy returned to growth in the second quarter of 2026, rising 14% year on year after six months of contraction. The rebound was driven almost entirely by solar, which grew 18%, according to renewable energy association ANIE Rinnovabili, citing data from Italian grid operator Terna. Italy connected 83,791 new renewable energy systems in the first half of 2026, totaling 2,918 MW of capacity. Solar accounted for around 90% of the new capacity, with 83,732 systems totaling 2,610.9 MW. Wind followed with 295.2 MW, bioenergy with 7.4 MW and hydropower with 5.4 MW. Solar capacity additions rose 18% year on year, while wind and hydropower declined 22% and 73%, respectively. Bioenergy additions increased 94%, albeit from low and uneven volumes. Performance varied across solar market segments. Residential installations continued to slow for the third consecutive year, falling 22% from the previous quarter and 20% year on year. The commercial and industrial (C&I) segment remained broadly stable, rising 1% quarter on quarter and 8% on a rolling 12-month basis. Utility-scale installations declined 12% from the first quarter. Installations of projects larger than 10 MW, however, surged 197% quarter on quarter, following limited activity in the first quarter, and increased 12% on a rolling 12-month basis. Italy added 1,523 MW of solar in the second quarter, up from 1,395 MW in the first quarter, representing a 9% quarter-on-quarter increase. The additions brought cumulative installed solar capacity to approximately 46.8 GW at the end of June. ANIE Rinnovabili also highlighted significant regional differences. Puglia, Sicily and Lazio remained among Italy’s most active regions, supported by large-scale projects, while deployment in Lombardy and Veneto continued to be driven by small- and medium-sized solar installations. Italy needs to add another 3.3 GW of renewable energy capacity in the second half of 2026 to meet its annual target of 8.3 GW, roughly matching deployment during the first six months of the year. ANIE Rinnovabili said the target remains within reach, but meeting it would exhaust the buffer accumulated between 2021 and 2025. That would leave Italy with little margin as annual deployment requirements rise to 10 GW in 2027, 11 GW in 2028, 13 GW in 2029 and 15 GW in 2030. “The last two years have been a particularly complex period for the renewable energy sector,” said Andrea Cristini, president of ANIE Rinnovabili, citing “profound legislative and regulatory changes” as a source of uncertainty. The association called for measures to address permitting bottlenecks, accelerate environmental assessments for 13 GW of projects awaiting review by the Prime Minister’s Office, and establish a stable and predictable regulatory framework for the next four years. 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]. Comments Please login to comment The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now! Available in print and digital – get your copy today! Martedì, 22 Settembre 2026 11:00 – 12:00 CEST, Roma Monday, October 26, 2026 10:30 am – 11:30 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid Thursday, September 10, 2026 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid Tuesday, September 15, 2026 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid A two-day conference in Austin, Texas, bringing together leaders in US solar manufacturing, equipment specification, and factory execution. Saudi Arabia is accelerating its clean energy transition—join the SunRise Arabia Clean Energy Conference 2026 in Riyadh to explore how solar PV and energy storage are powering its digital economy. pv magazine USA hosts its multi-day virtual event on U.S. solar and energy storage, covering domestic manufacturing, distributed energy and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting AI-driven power demand.
Yellow and green cherry tomatoes growing on a vine beneath a solar panel canopy in an agrivoltaic greenhouse. Agrivoltaics is growing rapidly in the field where solar panels shield crops from the harsh sun and often increase crop yield. It turns out agrivoltaics can work indoors as well. In agrivoltaic controlled environmental agriculture, semi-transparent solar photovoltaic panels are incorporated into greenhouses to provide sustainable energy for operations. For the first time, a new study evaluates the performance of semi-transparent solar photovoltaic panel technologies integrated into tomato greenhouses in southern Ontario through experimental agronomic investigations and three energy, economic, and environmental simulation scenarios: 1) conventional gas-heated, 2) heat pump-based, and 3) agrivoltaic-heat pump-based greenhouses. Agrivoltaic greenhouse Semi-transparent solar photovoltaic panel configurations tested included crystal silicon with 44% and 69% transparency, as well as with luminescent solar concentrators (53% and 69% transparency), and red and blue thin-film (50% transparency). The study found that agrivoltaic systems maintained stable leaf chlorophyll content and comparable growth trends relative to the control, however 69% transparent crystal silicon PV improved yield the best by 38%. EnergyPlus modeling results indicated while heating loads were nearly three times higher than cooling loads, replacing the gas heater with a heat pump fully eliminated fossil fuel consumption, and increased electricity use by only about 1.5 times. Integrating the selected 69% semi-transparent solar photovoltaic panel system with a heat pump enabled fully electrification of an agrivoltaic greenhouse. The agrivoltaic system supplied approximately 13% of the total annual electricity demand. Although this increased costs 5% relative to subsidized gas, the costs were stabilized and the carbon emissions were reduced by 71.7%, outperforming the heat-pump-only retrofit with 67.9% reductions. These results are particularly important for Southern Ontario which is natural gas pipeline constrained from the growth the market could sustain. Overall, the results demonstrated that rooftop agrivoltaic integration combined with heat pump electrification is a technically feasible and environmentally effective pathway toward low-carbon greenhouse operation in northern climates like Canada. This same lesson can be applied at home where not only can agrivoltaics work in your garden but heat pumps can be used to cut emissions and costs for heating your home. This article was originally published on Forbes.com Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband is expected to set out a ‘reset’ of the UK’s relations with the country in a Commons statement on Tuesday. Nearly half of headteachers have reported pupil images being used for harmful acts including blackmail and extortion, new research reveals The inquiry will take place in Edinburgh. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the Government wants to strengthen the UK’s ability to launch satellites. An ‘ongoing cat-and-mouse dynamic between the authorities and smugglers’ could shift where small boats depart from and arrive The Reform UK leader labelled face coverings a ‘menace’ and made clear he would ban religious ones as well. Sarah Jones warned that any protesters stepping ‘from peaceful protest into illegality will face the full force of the law’ The Sussexes stepped down and moved to the US in 2020, before relocating back almost two weeks ago. As police hunt down those who attacked police at the anti-migrant protest in Portsmouth, anti-racism campaigners say the violence was a ‘wake-up call’ amid fears of further disorder Move expected to be announced by foreign secretary on Tuesday set to draw fierce criticism from the US and Israel Trump ousted major arts donor David Rubenstein in 2025 as the president pushed to rename the venue after himself Sarah Jones warned demonstrators who crossed the line from peaceful protest into illegality would face the full force of the law. Balasankar Narayanan, 46 was last seen at 2pm on Thursday when he ran off from staff in South Park The Texas spectacle later this week could prove to be a misstep for the president if he doesn’t get the crowds he wants A trans woman has been jailed after lying about being raped by multiple men. Khloe Simmonds, 26, wasted hundreds of hours of police time on false allegations and several men were detained before later being released. At one point, Simmonds was responsible for 2.5% of all rape and serious sexual assault allegations in Harrow, northwest London. The Eiffel Tower was forced to close on Monday after staff went on strike over the removal of female employees during a private visit by a Hindu religious group. Rachel Bright was suspended from duty back in 2023 and has now been sacked The Miami-based center issued the warning for Kauai and Niihau as Lowell was forecast to pass the islands to the west late Monday and Tuesday while traveling north President repeats baseless claims about Canadian banks as Ottawa’s retaliatory tariffs set to go into effect at midnight on Tuesday The president’s posts come amid an ongoing trade war with Canada
India’s Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has proposed new technical requirements for renewable energy projects, including mandatory grid-forming inverters and co-located energy storage for new ground-mounted solar and onshore wind projects. Under the draft proposal, renewable energy power plants commissioned after July 1, 2027, must have at least 15% of their inverters equipped with grid-forming control. In addition, all power conversion systems (PCS) of battery energy storage systems (BESS) would be required to have grid-forming control to comply with the technical requirements specified under the Central Electricity Authority (Technical Standards for Connectivity to the Grid) Regulations. The draft also proposes that ground-mounted solar power plants and onshore wind power plants commissioned after July 1, 2027, must be equipped with a co-located energy storage system (ESS) with a minimum storage duration of two hours and a power capacity equivalent to at least 10% of the plant’s installed capacity. For example, a 100 MW solar plant would be required to have at least 10 MW of storage for two hours. Ground-mounted solar and onshore wind power plants commissioned from July 1, 2029, through June 30, 2031 would be required to have a co-located ESS with a minimum storage duration of four hours and a power capacity equivalent to at least 10% of the plant’s installed capacity. The proposed requirements form part of the CEA’s draft Central Electricity Authority (Technical Standards for Construction of Electric Plants and Electric Lines) 2nd Amendment Regulations, 2026, notified on Sept. 3. 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]. Comments Please login to comment The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now! Available in print and digital – get your copy today!
Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in Swipe for next article Removed from bookmarks From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging. At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story. The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it. When India’s power demand surged at the height of summer, the country struggled to meet evening needs as air conditioners ran longer amid hotter nights. Despite this demand, some renewable energy providers were told to limit their output because the country had more clean electricity available than its grid could safely handle. In the last 15 months, India curtailed nearly 11 terawatt-hours of solar generation — enough electricity to power about 10 million homes, according to government data and research by energy think tank Ember. That solar power went unused even as extreme heat and poor monsoon rains drove up demand for power in India for cooling and pumping groundwater for agriculture. India, the world’s most populous country and one of the largest emitters of climate-polluting gases, is rapidly adding clean energy, especially solar, to its power mix. However, it can’t use all the clean power it could generate because of insufficient transmission and storage capacity and the technical difficulty of shifting between fossil power and renewables. Energy experts say that contradiction points to the next big challenge for India’s energy transition. Building solar and wind farms is no longer enough. India also needs more transmission lines to move electricity across the country, batteries to store renewable power until it is needed and a more flexible power system that can quickly adjust as wind and solar output rises or falls. “We’re in a stage where some of the biggest hurdles in renewables are starting to hit us,” said Neshwin Rodrigues, an energy analyst at Ember. Clean power gets switched off despite record demand India has more than 300 gigawatts of clean power capacity, more than half its total installed electricity capacity. But coal still produces most of the country’s electricity. Experts said the main reason for this is curtailment — when a wind or solar plant could produce electricity but is ordered to reduce or stop generation as the grid cannot take the power. Rodrigues said that when solar generation surges in the afternoon, it’s difficult for coal units to reduce their output because they are relatively inflexible and cannot ramp down quickly without compromising efficiency, increasing costs or risking operational problems. Trying to make thermal power plants flexible and adapt to increasing supply from clean energy sources “is like asking an elephant to dance,” said Vinay Pabba, CEO of Hyderabad-based renewable energy company Vibrant Energy. Pabba said curtailment results in losses for clean power developers. “We get paid only for what we put on the grid,” he said. The high concentration of renewable generation in western India has also meant that transmission lines in that part of the country get congested quickly. The western states of Gujarat and Rajasthan account for nearly 50% of India’s solar power capacity. “When solar peaks, usually in the afternoon, there is a limited pipe to evacuate it,” said Pabba. Another risk of not building storage quickly is that dirty fuels get used more. “Without enough storage, India risks keeping coal plants running even when cheap renewable power is available,” said Vibhuti Garg, South Asia director at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. While a solar or wind farm can sometimes be completed within two years, building new power lines can take a minimum of three years, according to energy experts. India has achieved only about 80% of its annual transmission construction targets over the past five years, research by Ember has found. Spreading more renewable development across other parts of the country, while adding more wind and smaller local solar projects, could reduce pressure on crowded transmission corridors and make the electricity supply more balanced throughout the day, said Disha Agarwal, an energy analyst at the New Delhi-based Council on Energy, Environment and Water. Agarwal said the challenge is likely to become more difficult as renewable capacity keeps rising. India is aiming for 500 gigawatts of clean electricity capacity by 2030. Also, Indian policymakers expect nearly 70% of India’s installed power capacity to come from nonfossil sources by 2036. Batteries could help save power for when it is needed A study released earlier this month by the India Energy and Climate Center at the University of California, Berkeley, found that renewable power backed by batteries can provide electricity with reliability approaching that of conventional power plants at a price researchers said is lower than the price of power from new coal-fired plants. Batteries make it possible to store solar electricity when it is abundant in the afternoon and discharge it after sunset, when demand remains high. But India’s storage sector remains far smaller than what planners said will eventually be required. “If we try to increase the solar installations without solving for energy storage, it is only going to lead to curtailment,” said Ankit Mittal, CEO of battery storage company Ingro Energy. Mittal said India is trying to transform several parts of its electricity system simultaneously as power demand rises. “Things that were supposed to happen over decades” are now happening at once, he said. The government said in July that it had about 3 gigawatts of battery storage and 7.4 gigawatts of operational pumped-storage capacity. It expects India’s storage needs to reach about 74 gigawatts by 2032. “If high quality energy storage projects are not built, we could be adding an additional layer of risk to grid operations while also decelerating our nation’s ability to achieve our energy transition targets,” said Avinash Rao, CEO of Mahindra Susten, a leading renewable energy company in India. Rodrigues, the energy analyst, said batteries can be built much more quickly than major transmission infrastructure, making them one of the fastest options for easing some immediate constraints. Industry stakeholders said that few, if any, foresaw the incredible increase in demand happening as the country’s transportation and other major sectors electrify and data centers are built. “None of us saw it coming. If we had seen it coming, we would have probably planned our way around it,” said Pabba of Vibrant Energy. ___ Sibi Arasu can be followed on X at @sibi123. Reach him at sarasu@ap.org. ___ The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in
Solar PV module prices broadly fell in Europe in August 2026, as demand dipped below its historic average, according to PV wholesale platform sun.store. According to sun.store’s monthly PV Index report, back contact (BC), full black and monofacial TOPCon module prices all fell to varying degrees in August, while bifacial TOPCon modules increased in price. BC was an average of €0.133/Wp in August, around 1.5% lower than July’s prices; full black fell almost 6% to €0.130/Wp; monofacial TOPCon reached €0.122/Wp, a 4.7% drop. Get Premium Subscription Bifacial TOPCon modules rose by 6% to €0.116/Wp in August, though it still remained the cheapest option, particularly for utility-scale solar projects. “TOPCon bifacial and monofacial are priced apart, which matters for anyone specifying on price alone,” the PV Index report said. Premium BC and full black modules are generally reserved for smaller residential and corporate installations. The gap between premium module types and standard utility-scale TOPCon modules has widened since the early months of 2026, and all prices have risen substantially since late 2025, as shown in the graph below. When it comes to suppliers, major Chinese firms dominate the European landscape. Over the three months to August 2026, the PV Index said Trina Solar was the top supplier, followed by Aiko, JA Solar, JinkoSolar and LONGi. Demand for solar modules in Europe has dipped below historic averages over the last two months, according to PV Index’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI). The index shows that buyer demand for solar modules hit 65 in August. The PMI surveys buyer sentiment in the European PV industry based on future intentions. It has run at an average of 68 since it began. 43% of surveyed buyers planned to buy more modules in September than August, 43% expect no change and 14% plan to buy fewer modules in the coming month. “Premium modules are still setting the pace, but the demand signal has cooled from the spring. Buyers holding out for lower standard-module pricing are being rewarded; those specifying premium categories are not,” the report said. The index also covers solar inverters. String inverters declined in price by over 20% in August, with a slightly greater fall in smaller 1-20kW systems, down to €41.40/kW, than systems larger than 20kW (€24.26/kW). “The easing in the string and on-grid series is mostly a shift in the mix of models trading, rather than a cut to any single product,” the index report said. It said July carried a “heavier weighting of premium three-phase inverters” from European manufacturers such as SMA and Fronius, which are pricier than Chinese and other alternatives, while August saw a move towards “competitively priced and larger commercial-scale models” from companies including GoodWe, Solis and SolarEdge. Hybrid inverter prices diverged between sizes. Smaller 1-20kW systems stayed almost flat, declining by just 1%, while larger systems above 20kW rose by 11.1% month-on-month. The top string inverter suppliers were China’s Huawei and Sungrow, followed by Germany’s SMA, Chinese GoodWe and Israeli SolarEdge. Hybrid inverters were dominated by Chinese suppliers, led by Deye, Solis, Huawei, GoodWe and Sungrow.
Latvia’s Ministry of Climate and Energy has expanded its household renewable energy support program, increasing financial support for eligible households installing technologies including solar PV and battery energy storage systems. For PV, households holding Latvia’s Goda ģimene family card will be eligible for grants covering up to 85% of eligible costs, up from 70%. The card is a government-backed benefit scheme for large families and families caring for a child with a disability. The support program has a total budget of €85 million ($98.7 million), of which around €20 million remains available. Households can receive up to €15,000 per project, depending on the technologies installed and their capacity. For battery storage, the government has increased the minimum eligible nominal capacity from 5 kWh to 10 kWh. The ministry said the change is intended to enable households to store more of their self-generated electricity for later use. As of May 2026, the scheme had supported 15,700 projects, with more than €59.75 million awarded, according to the Latvian government. Solar PV was by far the most popular technology, with the ministry reporting more than 14,000 applications for solar panels, alongside more than 2,000 applications for batteries. Latvia’s solar capacity has reached 1,521 MW, according to statistics released by the Latvian Renewable Energy Alliance (LREA) in August. The figure indicates around 601 MW of solar have been added in the country so far this year, adding to the 920 MW that were installed by the end of the last year. This growth trajectory means 2026 is already the most successful year for solar deployment in Latvia, outpacing the previous calendar record year of 319 MW in 2024.
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]. Comments Please login to comment The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now! Available in print and digital – get your copy today! Martedì, 22 Settembre 2026 11:00 – 12:00 CEST, Roma Monday, October 26, 2026 10:30 am – 11:30 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid Thursday, September 10, 2026 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid Tuesday, September 15, 2026 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid Our special edition for Intersolar South America 2026 is here! Discover the latest insights into the Brazilian solar market – in Portuguese. A two-day conference in Austin, Texas, bringing together leaders in US solar manufacturing, equipment specification, and factory execution. Saudi Arabia is accelerating its clean energy transition—join the SunRise Arabia Clean Energy Conference 2026 in Riyadh to explore how solar PV and energy storage are powering its digital economy. pv magazine USA hosts its multi-day virtual event on U.S. solar and energy storage, covering domestic manufacturing, distributed energy and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting AI-driven power demand.
Sheep graze under solar panels in a renewable energy farm in Germany. Photo from Pexels By Joey Harris | Indianapolis Business Journal For proponents of solar energy, the fields of panels that increasingly dot Indiana landscapes are essentially an expansion of the state’s agricultural production. Instead of harvesting crops for biological energy, the panels are harvesting the sun to meet society’s growing demand for electric energy. Not everyone sees it that way. In fact, the potential for solar panels to compete with crops has been a sticking point for some project opponents in recent years. And those concerns have fed into zoning restrictions, project denials and a few outright bans on solar farms. But the two land uses don’t necessarily need to compete. At least one project in Indiana integrates solar energy and agricultural production alongside each other — a practice referred to as agrivoltaics. Over the past year, a group of Purdue University researchers has been looking into how far the approach could go in Indiana and surrounding states as part of the Midwest Agrivoltaics for Resilient Communities incubator, or MARC. Widespread adoption of agrivoltaics is not necessarily simple, MARC researchers told IBJ. There are a lot of questions about costs, design, what type of agriculture production is compatible with solar and where agrivoltaics could take place. But if the technical and economic questions get worked out, agrivoltaics could help bring more communities on board with solar projects. “The question for us is really whether agrivoltaics could be a solution to help resolve this conflict, and really, there’s a tremendous amount of potential [from solar farms] for growing not only resilience but prosperity across the rural Midwest,” said Dan Chavas, professor of atmospheric science at Purdue and a member of MARC’s leadership team. Sheep shade Despite frequent pushback against projects, Indiana has quickly climbed the ranks of states for solar energy production. The Solar Energy Industries Association reported in June that Indiana has the 11th-highest installed solar capacity in the United States. It was 26th at the same point in 2020. And Indiana ranked No. 3 in the country for the amount of capacity added last year. That growth has been assisted by Doral Renewables’ huge Mammoth Solar project in Starke and Pulaski counties, which will total about 1,300 megawatts upon completion this year. Philadelphia-based Doral is seeking zoning approval for an additional 1,000 megawatts of solar nearby. The project is set to be one of the largest solar farms in the world and is also a proof of concept for agrivoltaics. About 2,500 sheep — along with some pigs and chickens — share 1,200 acres, or 15%, of the farm with the solar panels. They eat the plants that grow along the panels and rest in the panels’ shade. The animal program began as a small pilot. Now, Doral has plans to expand agriculture production across the entire project, said Ed Baptista, the company’s vice president of development and agrivoltaics. In this instance, the sheep perform a job that is typically done by humans at most solar farms: mowing the grass. Solar developers can’t let the grass grow too high; it can block the sun and create a fire hazard. Baptista said the budget otherwise allocated to mowing can be used to help farmers buy the sheep. Raising sheep, he said, “is also producing something.” One factor that has limited expansion: “We don’t have enough sheep yet,” he said. Design adaptations Sheep and some other animals provide a clear path for an agrivoltaic project to work because integrating the animals requires few, if any, changes to a solar farm’s design. But introducing some animals and crops isn’t so easy. Setting cattle to graze among solar panels is tricky; the panels need to be elevated so the cows don’t bump into them. The panels need to be elevated for some crops, too. “[With elevated panels], you have both solar and ag production, which is great, but you also have a huge capital expenditure,” said Juan Sesmero, a Purdue professor of agricultural economics and researcher with MARC. “That will kill the economics of any project,” he added. “It’s just way too expensive.” A project needs to make sense financially for both the energy company and the farmer, said Katie Nelson, executive director of public policy at the Indiana Farm Bureau. “We’re not just going to graze sheep because it looks pretty [and] it makes the land look like it’s still in agriculture,” Nelson said. Doral, for its part, plans to initiate a pilot project with cattle on a relatively small piece of land next year, though the company has a warranty from its supplier for those panels due to the unknowns associated with the larger animals, Baptista said. “Those products are not there yet, commercially,” he said. Sesmero said developers of agrivoltaic projects will likely opt to keep panels mounted closer to the ground because of the steep costs of elevating them. So in order to grow crops alongside solar panels, developers need to consider how the panels are spaced out to allow for the right level of sun to hit the crops and provide enough space for farm equipment to travel through, Sesmero said. The design could be complex even for certain crops that appear especially well-suited for agrivoltaics. Aaron Thompson, Purdue associate professor of horticulture and landscape architecture, pointed to southwestern Indiana’s melon farms, which could use the shade from the panels to prevent scalding. Melon farmers “are really excited about the possibility, but the design is going to have to change quite a bit. … You don’t grow melons on the same field year after year after year,” he said. “So we’ve got to be able to develop a rotation [by growing other crops] and the physical layout that supports that.” Community acceptance In MARC stakeholder meetings across the state, including in central Indiana, farmers and others showed enthusiasm for agrivoltaics, Thompson said. “We don’t have uniform acceptance from the farm community about solar … but we’ve got a lot of creative farmers that are thinking about the future and thinking about ways to bring solar into their operation,” he said. Still, solar’s political problems aren’t likely to disappear. Hoosier communities in recent years have turned down permit requests and passed restrictive zoning ordinances in response to projects. In the grand scheme of land uses, solar energy does not intrude that much on farmland, said Jerome Dumortier, an Indiana University economics professor who recently published a paper on solar’s impact on food prices. The total area needed for the highest estimates of U.S. solar production are about 7 million hectares, or 17 million acres. “It’s a big number, don’t get me wrong, but it’s nothing like the amount of cropland out there in the U.S.,” he said. But solar projects can have an impact locally. That’s why the Indiana Farm Bureau supports local zoning, Nelson said. “It’s hard when it’s your neighbor’s land, and you’ve always lived in a rural community and now you are living next to a solar development,” she said. There have also been instances of direct competition for land, Thompson said. “At a very local level, that can raise the rent costs for leasing farm ground for farmers,” he said. More broadly, some communities say they are sacrificing their local resources for someone else’s energy needs, he said. “The early pushback we heard from rural communities and farmers in particular against solar was, ‘Why are we the place that has to accommodate this new land use if all of the energy is being put into the grid to power Chicago?’” Thompson said. “And that’s a legitimate question in rural areas that suffer from the most frequent power outages. … They want to know what’s in it for them.” The answer is, potentially a lot. The upsides Among the topics the MARC incubator is examining is whether these solar systems could also be the power source for “microgrids” for rural areas that could help keep the lights on when disaster hits. “Basically, it’s a localized system liberating local resources to pick up the local [demands],” said Xiaonan Lu, Purdue associate professor of electrical engineering technology. The benefits of a microgrid are mostly hypothetical for now, but others plusses aren’t. “The farm economy is tough, and dual-use systems — like having agrivoltaics, or even just having a solar lease — helps stabilize farm income during really volatile commodity [price] cycles,” Nelson said. Meanwhile, the surrounding area sees benefits from renewable energy development, too, said Dagney Faulk, director of research at Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research. A recent study by the center found that the Indiana counties with restrictions on solar power saw a combined dip of $204 million in gross domestic product and a net employment loss of more than 8,700 jobs. A lot of that can be explained by where manufacturers are choosing to locate operations, Faulk said. “Often, big users of electricity locate near the source, and they have these power purchasing agreements to buy the electricity,” she said. Dumortier said he doesn’t see agrivoltaics being the norm for solar projects anytime soon. “It’s just going to be in different places,” he said, adding, “land is only a very small proportion of the investment costs.” But for Doral, agrivoltaics “is the future of the industry,” Baptista said. “As the year passes by and people start to understand, some [project opponents] are converting into participating farmers,” he said. “Some of them are now being hired to do some vegetation management.”• Nobody covers Johnson County and the surrounding areas like the Daily Journal. 30 S. Water St., Second floor, Suite A, Franklin, IN 46131
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Three of solar's biggest names traded in completely different directions in 2026, and the one posting the worst losses also happens to be the most profitable of the group. Find out what policy shocks and platform bets separated the winners… Market Movers desk. Editor: David Moadel.
Britons will be able to buy ‘balcony’ systems they can install themselves from 27 August thanks to rule change Despite this summer bringing hours of sunshine, many Britons have been unable to cash in on free electricity generated by the sun. Rooftop solar panels are usually out of the question if you live in a flat or rent your home, and the cost has made them prohibitive to many more households. However, this could be about to change because next week the first wave of low-cost “plug-in” solar panels will go on sale in Great Britain. Also known as “plug‑and‑play” or “balcony” solar, the clue to what makes them different is in the name: you can fix them to a balcony or garden wall, then plug them in like a toaster. The mini solar systems are a familiar sight on balconies in Spain and in Germany, where they are known as a Balkonkraftwerk (balcony power plant), but until a recent change in the law, they were not permitted in Britain. Matt Parry from the Renewable Energy Association, a trade body for renewable energy, says the kits are a gamechanger. “It democratises solar and gives everyone the chance to get it,” he says. Unlike traditional rooftop solar panels, which require a professional to install, balcony solar kits – which commonly include one or two panels – can be plugged in to a three-prong wall socket. You can fix them on a balcony railing, shed roof or garden wall – anywhere with good sun exposure and safe access. When sunlight hits the solar panels, they generate a direct current. The microinverter then converts this to an alternating current, which flows into your home’s electrical system, reducing the amount you draw from the grid. Previously, rules around the installation of solar were what was holding people back. But last year the government announced it would make it possible for plug-in solar to be used in this country. To make this a reality, it has updated wiring regulations to allow households in Great Britain to connect plug-in solar panels capable of generating up to 800 watts of power into the mains without the need for an electrician. (The rules are different in Northern Ireland.) Big names including B&Q, Currys, Lidl, Wickes and Amazon are lining up to sell plug-in solar. Given the size (and weight) of these devices, it is expected that many will be bought online. Although you may have already come across plug-in solar panels for sale, industry experts suggest waiting until the regulations take effect on 27 August before making a purchase. Electrical Safety First, the consumer safety charity, is urging shoppers to stick to reputable high street retailers and their websites to ensure the device complies with the rules. Luke Osborne, the charity’s technical director, advises people to “avoid buying these devices from third-party sellers on online marketplaces. These platforms are now not legally responsible for the safety of goods sold via their sites, exposing people to substandard versions that may put you and your home at risk.” Andrew Moore, the founder of the British solar panel brand UKSOL, says: “We are working towards making the initial products available from 27 August.” His company will initially sell 460W and 890W kits, starting at £599 and £999 respectively, and it plans to launch another four models in late September, with prices starting from £499. Sizewise, plug-in solar setups are usually smaller than rooftop options, but sizes vary. The UKSOL 460W single panel kit measures 1,762mm x 1,134mm x 30mm and weighs 25.5kg. The 890W kit comprises two panels. The official guidance suggests that it will take about an hour to set up your system. It estimates 15-25% of people will need professional support mounting the panels, and about 15% will need minor electrical works. UKSOL suggests it takes two people to handle and position the panels, as each one weighs 25kg. Osborne says plug-in solar systems should not be connected via extension leads, cable reels, multiway adaptors, travel adaptors or plug-in RCD adaptors. “These accessories can overheat, become overloaded and create additional safety risks,” he says. There is also some other housekeeping. The owner has to tell their distribution network operator that they are using them (there should be a form in the box). You can find out who it is by inputting your postcode on the Energy Networks Association website. You will also be able to consult the ENA’s Connect Direct site for a list of approved devices, which is a good place to start before you buy. Plug-in systems are about a fifth of the size of a typical residential rooftop solar system, which means they will not provide enough energy to power a home on their own – but they could cut your bill. One drawback is that you need to be home to use the power generated because without a battery it is not being stored for later, so flows back to the grid. However, the adoption of balcony solar could, in time, pave the way for plug-in batteries in British homes, too. If paired with a plug-in solar system, households could store their own renewable electricity during the day and use it to run their appliances in the evenings. The government is reportedly considering plans to bulk-buy the devices and distribute them to low-income homes. A basic plug-in solar system costs about £400. Parry says it will “give you back, at worst, £40 a year, and at the best about £110. If it’s the worst-case scenario, it’s going to pay for itself in 10 years, but at the best-case scenario, it’s four. “If you’ve just got 800W, it’s only at its very peak that it will give you that.” He adds: “The slight downside is that plug-in solar is hitting the markets as the summer’s coming to an end. It’s going to be more use in May next year.” Moore says that the level of saving is affected by a number of things, including the system size, location, orientation and actually being home to use the power. He expects the 460W system his company will be selling to save a typical household about £80-£120 a year, “while the 890W system could save more”. He adds: “The greatest savings are achieved when households use appliances during daylight hours, as this increases the proportion of generated electricity used within the home.” You can buy a more expensive 2,000W kit (the inverter will only allow 800W through) to maximise your power-generating capacity, but these are more expensive. Although there is no obligation to do this, before buying a kit, some experts think you should get your home electrics checked by a professional. That is because this is the first time that British residential wiring circuits will take power in via a three-point socket rather than simply being used to distribute electricity. Electrical Safety First is concerned about the impact on residual current devices, or RCDs, which sit in a household electricity box and cut off the power if someone drills through a wire or runs their lawnmower over a power cord. Electricians are concerned they may burn out when plug-in solar panels start adding electricity to the circuit. A Department for Energy Security and Net Zero spokesperson says: “Plug-in solar panels will be available to buy this summer, and stringent verification and registration checks are already in place. They are a transformative technology that can save people hundreds of pounds on their bills.” Plug-in solar should make it easier for tenants to take advantage of renewable energy, as any kit they buy can be moved from place to place. But if you are renting, you should ask permission from your landlord before you invest in any panels. The rules on what you can do with regard to fixing brackets to hold them, for example, may vary depending on what your tenancy agreement says. There’s “no reason” why your landlord should be against the idea, Parry says. “He or she can look at the information and know it’s super, super safe.” Meera Chindooroy, the deputy director of campaigns, public affairs and policy at the National Residential Landlords Association, says that while the organisation supports the “principle of tenants benefiting from plug-in solar panels … landlords would first need to be satisfied that the panels meet all required safety standards”. She adds: “It would not be right for landlords to be held responsible for the safety of equipment they were not asked about in the first place.”
Our Privacy Statement & Cookie Policy By continuing to browse our site you agree to our use of cookies, revised Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. You can change your cookie settings through your browser. CGTN Copied People busy in purchasing solar system for power generation at Saddar Regal Chowk Electronic Market in Karachi, Pakistan, May 13, 2026. /VCG In rural Pakistan, solar panels assembled into home power and storage systems are changing everyday life. The systems not only provide electricity but also support agricultural irrigation, offering farmers a more reliable energy source. In many parts of Pakistan, Chinese-made solar panels have even become a popular wedding gift. Decorated with red cloth and flowers, solar panels are sometimes displayed alongside wedding vehicles as a symbol of a practical household investment. The panels are often described as affordable, durable and capable of meeting regular families’s electricity and storage needs. The growing popularity of such products reflects a broader transformation in Belt and Road cooperation. In the first seven months of 2026, China’s exports of electric vehicles, lithium batteries and photovoltaic products to Belt and Road partner countries reached 482.24 billion yuan (about $71.85 billion), up 59.8% year on year, according to cinic.org.cn From goods trade to technology partnerships After 13 years of development, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is evolving from a network focused on trade connectivity into one centered on technological collaboration and industrial upgrading. Increasingly, Chinese companies are exporting not only products, but also high-value solutions that help partner countries build their own industrial capabilities. On August 28, 2026, an F-class 50-megawatt heavy-duty gas turbine, an advanced turbine used to generate electricity, began its journey from Deyang, southwest China’s Sichuan Province, to Kazakhstan. It marked the first overseas export of a fully domestically manufactured high-end heavy gas turbine from China. Once completed, the project will become Kazakhstan’s first gas-fired combined-cycle power plant and has been listed as a key project by the country’s energy authorities. In Malaysia, traditional rubber processing plants are being upgraded with Chinese artificial intelligence algorithms and industrial robots. The technology has reduced labor costs by 20 to 30% while improving production precision, with each 35-kilogram rubber block now produced with a weight difference of less than 20 grams. Following the launch of the first upgraded production line in January 2025, the factory quickly moved ahead with upgrades for its second and third lines. Beyond physical infrastructure, digital connectivity is becoming a new pillar of the BRI. From smart ports and digital customs systems to cross-border electronic payments, the Digital Silk Road is reshaping how countries trade and interact, reducing transaction costs and improving efficiency. By expanding digital infrastructure and services, the initiative is helping bridge the global digital divide and creating new opportunities for emerging economies to participate in the digital economy. A two-way path toward shared growth The BRI is also dispelling the misconception that cooperation is simply a one-way transfer from China to other countries. Instead, projects increasingly emphasize local participation, skills development and shared economic benefits. Indonesia’s Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway is one example. In the first half of 2026, the railway operated 10,640 train services, achieving an on-time rate of 99.4% and an overall passenger satisfaction score of 95.79. During the project’s operation, Chinese experts trained Indonesian employees through mentorship programs and hands-on practice, enabling local staff to independently handle key positions in passenger services and equipment maintenance. Industrial cooperation zones have also become platforms for local growth. So far the China-Egypt TEDA Suez Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone has attracted more than 200 companies, over $4.7 billion in investment and created more than 10,000 local jobs. Meanwhile, Luban Workshops, a network of vocational training centers launched in BRI partner countries, have expanded skills development opportunities. Since the first workshop opened in 2016, more than 100 professional programs have been launched worldwide, enrolling over 30,000 students and providing more than 160,000 training opportunities in fields including renewable energy, smart manufacturing and automotive repair, according to China’s Ministry of Education. From solar panels in villages to digital networks and advanced manufacturing, the Belt and Road Initiative is moving beyond traditional trade links to build a broader ecosystem of technology, skills and shared development.
We may receive a fee from trusted installers when you request a quote, or a commission when you buy through links on our site. This helps us keep our content independent, well-researched and up to date – Learn more Argos is currently the only retailer selling plug-in solar panels, and you can buy them for as little as £599. Plug-in solar panels became fully legal in the UK on 27th August. They are now fully available, with Argos winning the race to offer them to customers. UKSol is currently the only manufacturer whose plug-in solar panels are available to buy at Argos. The manufacturer is also at this time the only one in the UK licensed to sell plug-in solar panels. These are the plug-in solar panels available to buy at Argos: Because of rising energy bills and the US-Iran war, which caused wholesale gas prices to balloon in price and forced the energy price cap to jump two quarters in a row. The government announced after the war began at the end of February that it would make plug-in solar panels legal, updating electricity safety laws to do so. In doing so it is aiming to replicate the success enjoyed by billpayers in Germany, where energy costs have plummeted since it made it easier for people who live in flats to install them. Last week we reported how Octopus Energy had become the first major energy provider to offer plug-in solar panels; the UK’s biggest energy company now includes them with their Nook battery package. Other big retailers, including B&Q, Tesco, Wickes and others, are also planning to offer plug-in solar panels. Plug-in solar panels can cut energy bills by hundreds of pounds a year, and when they’re combined with conventional rooftop panels and a battery, households can become energy independent.
Luis Reyes Sep 7, at 11:00am ET Solar cells get wired together the way plenty of other electronics do. A machine runs a thin metal ribbon across the front of one cell and the back of the next, heat goes into the joint, the solder melts, and that is your connection. Every conventional panel you have ever seen on a roof was built like that. The trouble is that the two cell types the industry is betting on next cannot take the heat. So a group at Forschungszentrum Jülich in Germany went looking for a way to make the same joint cold, and what they came back with is a roll of tape. Silicon heterojunction cells hold their performance thanks to hydrogen sitting in an extremely thin layer of amorphous silicon on the wafer surface. Warm them much past 392 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius) and the hydrogen starts leaving, taking the passivation with it. Perovskite is fussier still. Jülich keeps its perovskite processing under 230 degrees Fahrenheit (110 degrees Celsius), because the crystal comes apart above that. Standard infrared soldering runs hotter than either ceiling. That is why the industry has spent the past decade on low-temperature bismuth solder, conductive adhesives, coated copper wires and anything else that joins metal without cooking the cell underneath. Conductive tape is not a new invention. It turns up in electromagnetic shielding and inside consumer electronics, where the job is to stick two metal surfaces together and let current cross the bond. Yanxin Liu and his colleagues took three commercial tapes off the shelf and ran them through the abuse a solar module has to survive. Two of the three are anisotropic, and that word is doing a lot of work here. An isotropic tape conducts in every direction at once, which is fine for shielding and bad on a solar cell, where two conductors sitting a millimeter apart are not supposed to talk to each other. An anisotropic tape conducts only through its thickness, top to bottom. Sideways it behaves like an insulator. Metal particles inside the adhesive touch the cell on one face and the ribbon on the other, and the current crosses through the particles rather than through the glue. The thickest of the three is 100 micrometers of woven fabric coated on both sides, and that is the isotropic one. The middle option is a 50-micrometer anisotropic film filled with silver particles. The third is a 10-micrometer anisotropic film filled with nickel, and 10 micrometers works out to four ten-thousandths of an inch, thinner than any hair on your head. Those nickel particles are bigger than the layer carrying them. Liu’s paper puts them at 20 to 50 micrometers across in a 10-micrometer adhesive, so the glue cannot bury them and they stand proud of it on both faces. Electrically that is the entire point. Mechanically it leaves almost no adhesive doing the gripping, and the peel tests said so plainly: the two thicker tapes held on firmly, and the nickel one did not. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Privacy policy (opens in new window) Jülich built single-cell modules with each tape and put them through damp heat, the certification soak that parks a module at 185 degrees Fahrenheit (85 degrees Celsius) and 85 percent humidity for weeks on end. The isotropic tape went first, giving up more than 5 percent of its efficiency in roughly 500 hours as its contact resistance climbed. The two anisotropic tapes stayed in the fight. Across the full run the nickel tape lost around 2.5 percent of its efficiency with a 1 percent drop in fill factor, and the silver tape around 4 percent with a 2 percent drop. Then came thermal cycling, 200 round trips down to minus 40 and back. The silver tape’s contact resistance climbed past the limit the team had set for itself, and its module shed about 2 percent in the first 100 cycles before settling down. The nickel tape’s resistance crept up too and stayed comfortably under the line, and that module finished less than 1 percent down, with its open-circuit voltage and current unchanged. That line is not an arbitrary one. Jülich simulated what a bad joint costs a finished module and drew it at 0.015 ohms per square millimeter, the resistance at which the contact eats a tenth of a percentage point of efficiency. All three tapes started underneath it. One of them was still there at the end of both tests. The tape that behaves best electrically is the one you would least want holding a ribbon in place for 25 years, and the group put that in its own summary: the next job is combining ECT-3’s stability with ECT-2’s peel force. I like that they wrote it down instead of burying it in a supplementary file. Plenty of interconnection papers would have. So you can have the contact or the grip, and apparently not both yet. Why not take the silver tape and live with the resistance? Because that resistance stays in the joint for the life of the panel, turning current into heat, and a module that starts a couple of percent down and then drifts further is the kind of thing that shows up as a warranty claim in year twelve rather than a bad reading on day one. Liu’s group frames the whole exercise around supply, which is the boring half of solar that we tend to skip past on the way to efficiency records. In a multi-terawatt solar industry, its slides put photovoltaics at half the world’s silver supply and a quarter of its bismuth. Bismuth is on that list because low-temperature solder is the current workaround for heat-sensitive cells, so one shortage gets solved by walking straight into another. The market has already started moving without them. Solar manufacturing consumed 186.6 million ounces of silver in 2025, down from 197.5 million the year before, according to the World Silver Survey that the Silver Institute and Metals Focus published on April 15, 2026, and that drop happened while cell production kept rising. Manufacturers are putting less silver in each cell, because silver averaged just over $40 an ounce last year, up 42 percent. Recovery is getting serious too, which is why Georgia hosts a plant that strips old panels back into silver, copper and glass. A tape filled with nickel is that same instinct taken a step further. Jülich laminated single cells in a laboratory. Nobody has certified a full panel built this way, and the group is careful to say its tapes perform comparably to the solder-free methods already in use rather than beating them. What the tape does drop is the curing step, because there is no wet adhesive to bake afterward. The tape itself goes on cold. The module still gets laminated after that, and lamination is a hot press, so none of this turns panel assembly into a room-temperature process from end to end. A tape whose particles are bigger than its own glue also strikes me as an interesting conversation to have with a production engineer running a stringer at full speed. Certification is the other wall. Any perovskite-silicon module needs 1,000 hours of damp heat and 200 cold cycles before a bank will finance a field of them, which is exactly the exam a Qcells tandem panel sat in July, and this tape has not faced that at module scale. The American end of tandem manufacturing has the same gap, which is why the California line printing perovskite onto cover glass is still waiting on somebody outside the building to certify its numbers. Solar RRL published the study on September 1, 2026, with Yanxin Liu as first author and Kaining Ding’s group at Jülich behind it, and Liu had already walked through the reliability data at the Metallization and Interconnection Workshop. Peel force on that nickel tape is the number that decides whether any of it leaves the lab. What do you think? Luis Reyes · Aug 9, 2026 Dave McQuilling · Aug 17, 2026 Luis Reyes · Aug 12, 2026 Olivia Richman · Aug 24, 2026 Luis Reyes · Aug 20, 2026 Olivia Richman · Aug 21, 2026 Luis Reyes · Sep 7, 2026 Chema Bonilla Díaz · Sep 7, 2026 Luis Reyes · Sep 7, 2026 Chema Bonilla Díaz · Sep 6, 2026 Luis Reyes · Sep 6, 2026 Autonotion is the English-language automotive editorial by Autonocion.com — car news, reviews, and industry analysis for American readers. Other links Company Subscribe Get the latest car news in your inbox: By submitting your email you allow autonocion.com to send you news or promotions. More info
Coal power has a huge role still to play in the American energy mix—by turning over its substantial grid infrastructure to renewable energy projects. Energy investment firm Panamint is putting up $1.7 billion to build Big Rooter Power, an enormous solar-storage power complex in Robertson, Texas that will add 1.2 gigawatts of solar power to the local grid. It’s strategic placement next to the Twin Oaks coal-fired plant will allow it to leverage tens of million of dollars worth of existing infrastructure to deliver electricity from the Sun to millions of Texans. “We believe deploying new capacity at existing energy sites is the clearest way to benefit communities, ratepayers, and the environment alike,” said Apolka Totth, CEO of Panamint. It replicates a growing movement across the nation to build solar and wind energy resources on brownfields sites like mines that are no longer in operation. Brownfields refers to land that’s already been converted for extractive, industrial, or productive uses, and is much cheaper than developing “greenfields” or undeveloped land. Canary Media recently published a roundup of such projects, including in Illinois, Kentucky, and Louisiana, all of which went up or are being built on reclaimed mine land. Planning Big Rooter near the Twin Oaks coal plant was done “with the express intention of leveraging the site’s existing characteristics to massively and rapidly expand generating capability at the lowest possible cost,” Totth told Canary Media by email. For clean energy purists, however, the news might raise an eyebrow or two, since Panamint which backed by the national investment fund KKR, not only has no intention of closing the Twin Oaks plant and mine, but is in fact investigating the expansion of them both, part of Panamint’s strategy of squeezing the most out of aged fossil fuel projects while simultaneously constructing massive solar and wind infrastructure. And Big Rooter will indeed by massive: one of the largest solar projects in the country, and that’s saying a lot because Texas has already gone big—as is her wont—on renewable energy. AMERICAN ENERGY: USA’s Largest Renewable Project Comes Online–With More Power Than the Hoover Dam Texas accounts for 30% of national wind energy production—thrice as much as its nearest competitor and neighbor Oklahoma, and 8-times as much as the left-wing stronghold of California, which while leading the nation in solar power with 55 installed gigawatts, only sits a hair above the Lone Star State. Big Rooter, as is often the case with exceedingly large infrastructure projects like mines, power plants, or railways, will take place in stages. The first stage is already under construction and will see 491 megawatts of solar panels come online in August 2028. ALSO CHECK OUT: Right to Build Offshore Wind Power Upheld by US Judge for 5th Time Since Attempted White House Ban The second stage, slated for ground-breaking that December, will seek to have the remaining 658 MW available in August of 2029. These will be delivered with 1.6 GW of battery storage, and 20 miles of new, high-transmission power lines. Taking advantage of previous tax incentives, long lead-time items like transformers and circuit breakers have already been ordered, and the project is believed to qualify for a Federal investment tax credit worth 50% of the project’s costs. SHARE This Enormous Solar Expansion With Your Friends On Social Media… You must be logged in to post a comment.
Energies Media Solar panels and crops can share land — a new model shows both come out ahead Solar farms are expanding fast — and so is the pressure on agricultural land. The two needs have long seemed to be in direct competition. Agrivoltaics, the practice of growing crops beneath or alongside solar panels, has been proposed as a way to ease that tension. But most research has examined only one piece of the puzzle at a time. Now, a new computational model simulates how panels, plants, soil, air, and even farmworkers interact as a single system — and the findings suggest the trade-offs may be smaller than assumed. Photovoltaic energy is projected to become a dominant global energy source by 2050, and solar farm construction is accelerating to match that ambition. That growth comes at a cost: solar installations frequently occupy land that could otherwise produce food. With a growing global population and rising energy demand, the competition between these two land uses is getting harder to ignore. Agrivoltaics offers a straightforward answer — grow crops around or beneath solar panels on the same plot of land. Early research was encouraging. Panels shaded certain crops, retained soil moisture, and supported agricultural output alongside clean energy production. But those studies tended to isolate individual variables, looking at light availability or crop yield without accounting for how all the moving parts interact at once. The new simulation changes that. Developed by Hosseini and colleagues, it tracks how energy, momentum, mass, and carbon dioxide move through an agrivoltaic system simultaneously — capturing the interplay between solar panels, crops, soil, air, water movement, and CO₂ uptake in a single framework. That integration is what sets it apart from earlier approaches, which treated each variable in isolation. This model treats the agrivoltaic system as what it actually is: a set of interdependent processes that continuously influence one another. The researchers validated it against real-world measurements — leaf temperature data collected in Davis, California, and soil temperature readings from Chicago City, Minnesota. The model also incorporates something largely absent from prior research: an estimate of heat stress experienced by farmworkers during working hours. To test the model in a realistic scenario, the researchers applied it to a hypothetical tomato farm using weather data from a hot, humid day in Princeton, New Jersey. The mid-Atlantic location was chosen deliberately — it represents a densely populated region where both food production and energy generation face significant pressure. The results were notable. Tomato leaves growing beneath solar panels were 1.84°C cooler on average during the day compared to those in an open field. During peak afternoon heat, that difference reached 7.56°C — a meaningful buffer against the temperature spikes that damage crops. The shade came with an expected downside: crops under the panels received 47% less sunlight. Carbon uptake, though, fell by only 31% — not the 47% you might predict. That gap suggests reduced heat stress allowed plants to photosynthesize more efficiently than they otherwise would have. Water loss through evapotranspiration also dropped by 22.4%, a real gain in water-use efficiency for a sector that accounts for the majority of global freshwater consumption. The benefits didn’t flow only to the crops. Solar panels positioned above the tomato plants ran 5.6°C cooler during the day than panels installed over bare soil — and that matters, because heat is one of the primary factors that degrades solar panel performance. The cooler operating temperatures allowed the panels to recover approximately 15% of the efficiency typically lost to heat. A gain in energy output that comes essentially for free. The model also flagged an occupational health dimension that rarely appears in agrivoltaic research. Average perceived temperatures for farmworkers dropped by 4.46°C during working hours. Heat-related illness is a serious and underreported risk in agricultural labor, so that finding points to a benefit extending well beyond crop yields and kilowatt-hours. The researchers designed the model to be adaptable across different climates, crop varieties, and panel configurations — making it a practical planning tool before any physical installation takes place. That flexibility matters. The benefits of agrivoltaics are highly context-dependent; what works well for tomatoes in New Jersey may not translate to wheat in Kansas or lettuce in California. Future versions could go further, incorporating economic variables, regional water availability, and a broader range of crops and geographic settings. As agrivoltaic installations grow in number and scale, simulation tools like this one may become essential for optimizing designs that work for both the farm and the grid. You can check the complete study in this source: Hosseini, E., Katul, G. G., Najm, M. A., Daccache, A., Ravi, S., Heroux, K. M., et al. (2026). Food, energy, and health implications of agrivoltaic farms. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 18, e2025MS005588. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025MS005588 Daniel García is an Editor-in-Chief with strong expertise in structural work and engineering principles. He combines this technical foundation with deep knowledge of energy, spatial design, and emerging technologies, bringing a forward-thinking and analytical approach to editorial leadership. Daniel García is an Editor-in-Chief with strong expertise in structural work and engineering principles. He combines this technical foundation with deep knowledge of energy, spatial design, and emerging technologies, bringing a forward-thinking and analytical approach to editorial leadership. Daniel García is an Editor-in-Chief with strong expertise in structural work and engineering principles. He combines this technical foundation with deep knowledge of energy, spatial design, and emerging technologies, bringing a forward-thinking and analytical approach to editorial leadership.
The Minns Labor Government is leading the way on urban renewables and sustainability with the government owned International Convention Centre (ICC) Sydney set to become home to the largest solar farm in any Central Business District in the Southern Hemisphere. ICC Sydney has today revealed plans to expand its rooftop solar network across the Convention Centre, Exhibition Centre and Entertainment Centre. Once installed the urban solar farm will be more than 18 400 square metres and able to generate 2.6 gigawatt hours (GWh) annually or enough energy to power around 300 to 400 average Australian homes for an entire year. The extra power will enable ICC Sydney to be powered by 100 per cent renewable electricity obtained through a combination of the rooftop solar and renewable energy procurement. This project will place ICC Sydney among an elite group of convention centres worldwide leading the use of renewable energy. Based on annual solar generation, ICC Sydney will become the fourth-largest solar-powered convention centre in the world and the largest outside the United States. The extra renewable generation will help the ICC reduce emissions, cutting approximately 1,800 to 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year, which is equivalent to the annual carbon absorption capacity of around 100,000 mature trees. This is a great example of sustainable leadership from the Minns Labor Government showing how we can unlock greater renewable energy generation and use in urban areas by taking advantage of building rooftops. This project will give ICC Sydney a business advantage as global event organisers place greater emphasis on reducing the carbon footprint of major events. The ICC Sydney is already positioned as a global leader in sustainable events and venue operations and this project reinforced that, giving it a significant competitive edge in the global business events market. The investment in rooftop solar for the ICC compliments the work being undertaken by the Minns Government to roll-out Australia’s first urban renewable energy zone in the Illawarra. Minister for Planning and Public Spaces Paul Scully said: “This is a great example of how we can unlock greater renewable energy generation and use in urban areas and power a vibrant city by taking advantage of building rooftops. “Hosting the largest solar farm of any CBD in the Southern Hemisphere will help the ICC to reduce emissions and energy costs while also strengthening Sydney’s competitiveness in attracting major international conventions and events. “This is another example of the Minns Labor Government’s commitment to powering a more sustainable future for all of NSW.” ICC Sydney Chief Executive Officer Adam Mather-Brown said: “This investment represents another important milestone in ICC Sydney’s sustainability journey and reflects our commitment to leading environmental performance across the global convention and exhibition sector. “The expanded solar network will allow us to generate significant renewable energy on-site while supporting our clients’ sustainability goals and helping reduce the carbon footprint of events hosted at ICC Sydney. “As international event organisers increasingly prioritise sustainability in venue selection, this project further strengthens ICC Sydney’s position as one of the world’s leading sustainable convention, exhibition and entertainment centres.” We pay respect to the Traditional Custodians and First Peoples of NSW, and acknowledge their continued connection to their country and culture.
News Flow Something on a mast reads the air and decides. Above a basin of dark water, a long run of panels starts to move as one piece toward the far end. Nothing is being unbolted. Nothing is coming down on a truck. They gather at one end the way a curtain gathers, and the water lies open again. Underneath, a steel span rides the length of the basin on rails, scraping settled sludge one way and floating scum the other, and it has to reach every foot of that surface. Which is why nothing normally sits over a tank like this, and why this one has under a minute. There is no frame. That is the part that makes the rest possible. The modules hang from steel cables strung between slim masts at the edges of the basin, and each row rides those cables on a carriage. Pull the rows toward one end and they concertina into a stack. Push them back out and the surface is covered again. Because the load path is a cable rather than a truss, the masts can stand far apart and the basin stays clear of columns. Nothing is planted in the water, and nothing crosses the rails the scraper bridge runs on. A weather algorithm does the deciding. Strong wind, hail or snowfall, and the drive pulls the whole run in without anyone asking. The site is a single primary settling basin at the main treatment plant on the eastern edge of Vienna. The roof covers about 18,800 square feet of it with 504 modules, and the assembly weighs roughly 63 tons on the cables. Clearance underneath is 14 feet. The top of the structure sits at about 21 feet, which keeps it below the plant skyline and clear of everything moving across the tanks. Then there is the air. What rises off an open settling basin is hydrogen sulfide and other foul gases, and that atmosphere finds any weakness in a cable, a fitting or a module frame. Every part up there has to be chosen for corrosion first and for solar second. The array is rated at 262 kilowatts and is expected to produce about 260 megawatt hours a year. That is roughly what 25 American homes get through, a modest figure for a structure this size. The hardware is not experimental. The same folding system runs at a Swiss plant on Lake Thun, where 3.6 megawatts across more than 5.7 acres of basin deliver close to 3 gigawatt hours a year. A second one covers stormwater basins at a plant in southern Dusseldorf at 1.37 megawatts and 2,640 modules. Retraction takes about 30 seconds, and roughly 60 at the German site. Those stowing periods are already inside the yield figure, which is the honest way to publish it and not the usual way. The plant is run by Ebswien for the city, the folding hardware comes from a Swiss supplier, and completion is set for June 2027. Here is the part that reframes the whole project. The plant is already a net exporter. Running on gas from its own sludge, it covered 110 percent of its electricity demand and 173 percent of its heat demand last year. So this roof is not keeping the lights on. It is covering water against a bill that has not arrived yet. New European water quality rules will force an additional treatment stage onto plants like this one, and that stage eats electricity. The surplus is going to shrink. Vienna is also not first in Austria. A larger folding roof at about 1.85 megawatts went up over basins in Styria earlier this year, which makes the capital the second mover and the visible one. It is more expensive than putting the same panels in a field. Cables, carriages, drives, sensors and corrosion grade materials all sit on top of the module price, and none of it buys a single extra kilowatt hour. What it buys is permission to use a surface that was otherwise unusable. It also adds a failure mode a fixed array does not have. Anything that must move before weather arrives can fail to move, as three Texas farms found when one motor stayed put and the hail did the rest. Shade brings side effects worth having. Less light slows algae, less exposed surface means less evaporation, and a cover holds down some of the odor. And none of this exists yet. What stands today is one basin picked out of roughly 11.4 acres of tank surface at the same plant, described in trade coverage that has the figures but not the winters. If it holds up in that air for a few of them, the rest of the water becomes the real question, and if it does not, the answer arrives on the cables first. Hugo Rojas is an editor and science writer who turns complex research into clear, engaging stories. With a sharp eye for detail and a love for the natural world, energy, and technology, he brings big ideas down to earth for every reader.
India’s state-owned Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has launched a tender for 700MW of interstate transmission system (ISTS)-connected solar PV projects, with the electricity to be supplied to a commercial and industrial (C&I) consumer in Odisha. Under the request for selection (RfS), SECI is seeking developers for solar PV projects under the build-own-operate (BOO) model. Successful bidders will sign 25-year power purchase agreements (PPAs) with SECI. Get Premium Subscription The electricity will be sold to an export-oriented unit (EOU) of a C&I buying entity in Odisha. SECI will act as an intermediary nodal agency, procuring power from selected developers and selling it to the buying entity on a back-to-back basis. The identities of the buying entities will be disclosed at a later stage, according to the tender documents. The projects must be located within special economic zones (SEZs) or areas designated as EOUs in India and supply power to the buying entity’s EOU in Odisha. This arrangement is intended to enable the projects to qualify for an exemption from India’s Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) requirements. India’s ALMM system is designed to favour PV hardware produced by domestic Indian manufacturers. Developers will be responsible for securing land, developing the projects and obtaining grid connectivity. They must also construct the transmission network from the project up to the interconnection or delivery point. SECI will select projects through an e-bidding process followed by an e-reverse auction. Bidders can offer a minimum contracted capacity of 50MW and a maximum of 700MW. A single project may be developed across multiple locations, with different delivery points, according to the tender. Online bidding is open until 5 October and offline bidding until 7 October 2026. The 700MW procurement adds to India’s efforts to facilitate renewable power procurement for C&I consumers, while the SEZ/EOU requirement provides a route for projects to operate under the applicable ALMM exemption framework. Last month, SECI awarded the full 1GW capacity under its Round-the-Clock Thermal Mimic (RTC-TM) tender to seven bidders, at tariffs of INR 5.25/kWh to INR 5.26/kWh (US$0.055/kWh). Issued in March 2026, the tender sought firm and dispatchable renewable energy (FDRE) matching the reliability profile of conventional thermal generation. Five bidders secured capacity at INR 5.25/kWh and two at INR 5.26/kWh.
Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) recorded a combined 3,893GWh of solar generation in August 2026, comprising 1,628GWh from utility-scale assets and 2,265GWh from rooftop systems. The combined figure represents a 17.3% increase from July 2026’s 3,320GWh total and a 16.6% rise year-on-year from August 2025’s 3,338GWh. The result extends the recovery that began in July, when combined solar generation rebounded 37% from June’s winter trough, and marks the strongest August in the three-year dataset, surpassing both August 2024’s 2,954GWh and last year’s total. Get Premium Subscription Analysis of data sourced from Open Electricity (formerly OpenNEM) shows that utility-scale solar at 1,628GWh rose 12.4% from July’s 1,448GWh and was 25.6% above August 2025’s 1,296GWh, the widest year-on-year growth margin recorded for the segment since the winter recovery began. The total is the highest monthly figure recorded since April 2026’s 1,693GWh, continuing the pattern of steady month-on-month gains that has now persisted since the June trough of 1,092GWh, when combined generation fell 21% amid an end-of-month pricing spike. Rooftop solar at 2,265GWh climbed 21.0% from July’s 1,872GWh and was 10.9% higher than August 2025’s 2,042GWh. The total is the highest recorded since April 2026’s 2,163GWh, with the segment now three months into a recovery that followed May’s contraction, when generation fell 21% amid a mid-month pricing spike that reached AU$225.88/MWh. The narrower year-on-year growth margin for rooftop compared with utility-scale is consistent with the segment’s more mature deployment base, though the underlying trend remains upward across the dataset. Daily generation data for August show a pattern broadly consistent with the strengthening trend observed in the second half of July, interrupted by a distinct dip around mid-month, followed by a pronounced rally into the final week. Output through the first week held relatively steady, with utility-scale generation ranging from 46GWh to 60GWh and rooftop generation from 65GWh to 81GWh. Conditions then deteriorated sharply on days nine and ten, when utility-scale output fell to 27.3GWh and 28.5GWh respectively, and rooftop generation dropped to 44GWh and 49GWh, the two weakest days of the month for both segments, consistent with a period of overcast conditions moving through the NEM. Generation recovered through the remainder of the month, with utility-scale output climbing back above 50GWh by day 15 and holding in the 45-62GWh range through the third week, punctuated by a second, shallower dip to 35GWh on day 25. From day 26 onwards, output strengthened consistently into month-end, with the final week producing the four highest utility-scale readings of August: 61GWh, 73GWh, 69GWh, 66GWh, 66GWh and 73GWh across days 26 to 31, with days 27 and 31 tied for the month’s peak. Rooftop generation followed the same trajectory, closing the month with its four strongest days in succession, from 89GWh on day 28 to 98GWh on day 31, the highest single-day rooftop total recorded across the month. The closing-week strength in both segments points to the same lengthening-day dynamic flagged in the July Spotlight, in which improving solar resource through late winter and into early spring compounds with the continued addition of utility-scale and rooftop capacity across the NEM. Pricing across August was generally more subdued than the volatility recorded earlier in the year, though it lacked the sustained mid-month calm that characterised July. Utility-scale prices averaged approximately AU$34.90/MWh (US$24.55/MWh) across the month on a simple daily basis, with rooftop averaging around AU$31.70/MWh, both below the elevated levels recorded during May’s mid-month spike and the sustained above-AU$100/MWh run recorded across the final week of June. The highest pricing of the month came on the sixth, when utility-scale averaged AU$75.27/MWh against a comparatively subdued 46GWh of generation, and on days 25 and 26, when utility-scale prices reached AU$73.62/MWh and AU$65.19/MWh respectively, coinciding with the month’s second generation dip. Rooftop prices on day 26 reached AU$67.53/MWh, extending a period in which reduced output across both segments supported firmer pricing. The lowest pricing of the month occurred on day two, when utility-scale averaged AU$11.88/MWh and rooftop recorded a negative average of AU$0.67/MWh, the first negative pricing event of the winter dataset and a reversal of the pattern noted in the July Spotlight, which found negative pricing absent for the month and anticipated its return “from August onwards as solar resource improves and the risk of midday surpluses returns to the generation profile.” Day 30 recorded the second-lowest pricing of the month, with utility-scale averaging AU$7.36/MWh and rooftop AU$2.18/MWh, despite that day ranking among the strongest for generation in both segments. Unlike the pattern observed through much of the June and July datasets, in which rooftop solar frequently commanded a premium over utility-scale pricing during periods of grid stress, August saw utility-scale average prices exceed rooftop on the majority of days, with rooftop trading at a discount on 22 of the month’s 31 days. The reversal is consistent with rooftop’s generation profile becoming increasingly concentrated around midday as daylight hours lengthen, a period in which oversupply conditions typically depress prices for all technologies but affect rooftop’s generation-weighted average more directly, given its narrower generation window relative to utility-scale assets. The broader pricing environment across August continues to reflect the dynamic described in the Australian Energy Regulator’s recent finding that renewables growth is easing pressure in the NEM, with increasing solar and battery storage capacity moderating the scarcity-driven price spikes that characterised earlier points in the dataset, even as isolated periods of reduced generation continue to produce short-lived pricing peaks. You can explore previous solar generation performance in our NEM Data Spotlight series, with all entries available to PV Tech Premium subscribers.
Energies Media Africa officially added about 4.5 GW of solar last year. It imported roughly 18 GW of modules in the same period. That gap isn’t a rounding error or a paperwork delay. Panels arriving at port aren’t the same as operating power systems — but a fourfold discrepancy demands an explanation. Somewhere on the continent, mines, malls, factories, and warehouses have been quietly covering their rooftops with hardware that no government registry is counting. A parallel energy economy appears to be taking shape, largely out of sight of the statistics meant to track it. The numbers are striking on their own. Africa officially recorded roughly 4.5 GW of new solar capacity in 2025, while importing approximately 18.2 GW of solar modules — a fourfold difference. By mid-2026, another 12.53 GW of Chinese modules had already shipped to African markets, deepening the discrepancy further. Warehouse stock and port delays account for some of that lag. Hardware moves from ship to storage before it moves to rooftop. But not at this scale — a four-to-one ratio isn’t a logistics footnote. The central question isn’t whether the official figures are incomplete. It’s where all that hardware is actually going. The panels exist. They cleared customs. Someone bought them. That gap between import volumes and registered capacity points toward a deployment story that official statistics simply aren’t designed to tell. The economics were already in place before the import surge became visible. Chinese module prices fell sharply in recent years, making self-financed solar attractive to a wide range of buyers — not just large utilities with government backing, but individual businesses running their own numbers. Diesel is expensive across much of the continent. Grid power, where it exists, is often unreliable. That combination gives mines, factories, telecom operators, farms, and commercial warehouses a direct financial incentive to generate their own electricity rather than depend on a utility that may not deliver. Batteries are getting cheaper too, reinforcing the case for behind-the-meter systems that can store daytime solar and discharge it when the grid fails or prices spike. These are customer-driven purchases. No government target triggered them. A business owner, a facilities manager, or a mine operator ran the numbers and wrote a check — which is exactly why these systems don’t appear in the registries that conventional statistics rely on. Some of this invisible deployment is now becoming visible from above. DataDesk and The Outlier analyzed satellite imagery covering 209 shopping malls in Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni and found rooftop solar on 76% of them — a striking share. Malls fit the ideal early-adopter profile for reasons that aren’t hard to see. Large, unobstructed roofs. Electricity demand that peaks during daylight hours, matching solar output well. Owners who can finance equipment purchases and who feel the cost of grid unreliability more acutely than households do. A solar-covered shopping center doesn’t appear in any government capacity registry. Someone simply decided to install it. Aerial evidence has real limits, though. Small homes, rural installations, telecom towers, irrigation pumps, and panels hidden beneath tree cover are far harder to detect than commercial rooftops. A panel visible from above also doesn’t confirm that the inverter and battery system behind it is operational. Satellite imagery adds a measurement layer — it doesn’t replace installation data. Pakistan offers an instructive comparison. Following its own surge in Chinese module imports, Pakistan experienced a massive and highly visible residential rooftop boom — panels spreading across neighborhoods in ways that were legible from above and traceable through import records. Africa’s pattern looks structurally different. The evidence so far is concentrated in commercial, industrial, and institutional sites, not in residential neighborhoods blanketed in panels the way Pakistani cities became. The primary movers appear to be businesses protecting themselves against outages, diesel costs, and poor power quality. That distinction matters beyond mere categorization. It shapes which customer segments lead the transition, how quickly the economics spread to other users, and what the aggregate effect on grid demand and diesel consumption actually looks like. Africa may be building a solar economy from the commercial and industrial layer inward, rather than from the household up. Official statistics are built around utility-scale projects. They’re weakest precisely where Africa’s boom appears to be happening: behind-the-meter systems, off-grid installations, and distributed commercial deployments that never touch a government registry. That’s not just a data problem. Large commercial and industrial customers adding solar and batteries reshape grid demand, reduce diesel consumption, affect utility revenues, and alter industrial competitiveness. If that shift is already underway at scale, policy responses calibrated to official figures will be working from an incomplete map — one that may be missing the most dynamic part of the story. Independent signals are converging. Customs data, satellite imagery, and market-structure analysis all point in the same direction. The burden of proof has shifted — the question is no longer whether official figures are missing something significant, but how much of Africa’s hidden solar layer is already quietly operating while the statistics catch up. That gap deserves serious attention. An energy transition that outpaces its own measurement systems is one that planners, investors, and policymakers may be systematically underestimating, with consequences that compound the longer the blind spot persists. Carlos is an engineer with strong expertise in technical and industrial topics. He previously worked at international companies such as Siemens and is multilingual. Carlos is an engineer with strong expertise in technical and industrial topics. He previously worked at international companies such as Siemens and is multilingual. Carlos is an engineer with strong expertise in technical and industrial topics. He previously worked at international companies such as Siemens and is multilingual.
SAEL currently has 3,625 megawatt (MW) of TOPCon module manufacturing capacity, the company stated, and its modules appear on the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Approved List of Models and Manufacturers, a prerequisite for deployment in government and government-assisted projects. The manufacturing capacity supports the firm’s efforts to integrate module production with project development. This positioning is intended to strengthen SAEL’s ability to fulfil large supply contracts and pursue utility-scale generation opportunities. As of 30 September 2025, SAEL reported a portfolio of 8,299 MWp of contracted and awarded solar and storage capacity together with 164.90 MW of agri waste-to-energy capacity. The company’s operations span utility-scale solar power generation, solar PV module manufacturing and agri waste-to-energy, reflecting a diversified renewable energy strategy. SAEL said the latest orders add momentum to its module supply business while contributing to its project pipeline. SAEL is constructing an integrated manufacturing facility in Greater Noida, Jewar, comprising a five gigawatt (GW) solar cell unit and a five GW solar module line, and the project is under construction according to the company. The planned expansion is expected to bolster its integrated manufacturing capabilities and support future module deliveries. The new orders therefore arrive as SAEL scales both manufacturing footprint and renewable generation activities. SAEL Industries has secured one gigawatt-peak (GWp) of solar photovoltaic module orders over the past six months, with the NTPC Renewable Energy-led Chitrakoot project accounting for 585.8 megawatt-peak (MWp), representing more than half of the order pipeline. The orders mark a significant expansion of SAEL’s module business across domestic and international markets. SAEL Solar P6 Pvt. Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary, will supply N-type TOPCon solar modules for the contracted projects. The company stated the supplies will serve utility-scale projects in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and overseas. SAEL currently has 3,625 megawatt (MW) of TOPCon module manufacturing capacity, the company stated, and its modules appear on the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Approved List of Models and Manufacturers, a prerequisite for deployment in government and government-assisted projects. The manufacturing capacity supports the firm’s efforts to integrate module production with project development. This positioning is intended to strengthen SAEL’s ability to fulfil large supply contracts and pursue utility-scale generation opportunities. As of 30 September 2025, SAEL reported a portfolio of 8,299 MWp of contracted and awarded solar and storage capacity together with 164.90 MW of agri waste-to-energy capacity. The company’s operations span utility-scale solar power generation, solar PV module manufacturing and agri waste-to-energy, reflecting a diversified renewable energy strategy. SAEL said the latest orders add momentum to its module supply business while contributing to its project pipeline. SAEL is constructing an integrated manufacturing facility in Greater Noida, Jewar, comprising a five gigawatt (GW) solar cell unit and a five GW solar module line, and the project is under construction according to the company. The planned expansion is expected to bolster its integrated manufacturing capabilities and support future module deliveries. The new orders therefore arrive as SAEL scales both manufacturing footprint and renewable generation activities. TransIndia Group has recently launched ‘The World View Collection’ at TransIndia Meridian, its residential development in Mumbai’s Sion-Matunga Corridor. The campaign introduces residences located on the 22nd floor and above, offering expansive views of the cityscape, Eastern Bay and the sea.The collection positions elevation as an integral part of the living experience, with the higher-floor homes designed around openness, changing skylines and wider city views. Rather than focusing only on floor height, the campaign highlights how elevated residences can offer a different perspective o.. Furniture designer Yuvraj Vohra has recently launched the new Villaro Design Studio on MG Road, Delhi, introducing a furniture brand built around an architectural approach to design, materiality and craftsmanship.Trained as an architect, Vohra approaches furniture as an integral part of the spatial experience rather than as standalone objects. Villaro’s design philosophy focuses on proportion, material expression and the relationship between furniture and its surrounding architecture.The collection explores combinations of stone, marble, wood, metal and upholstery, with materials treated as st.. India-Belgium economic relations are gaining renewed momentum following Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever’s three-day official visit to India from September 2–4, 2026. The visit, the first by a Belgian Prime Minister to India in two decades, focused on strengthening cooperation across trade, investment, defence, technology, connectivity and logistics.Belgium is an important European investment and trading partner for India, with cumulative foreign direct investment inflows of around $4.25 billion between April 2000 and March 2026. The country is a major European manufacturing, trade and.. Get daily newsletters around different themes from Construction world. 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Hitachi Global Life Solutions, a unit of Japanese technology conglomerate Hitachi, has announced a new series of residential EcoCute heat pump water heaters for the Japanese market, with sales set to begin progressively in November 2026. The new Y series uses natural refrigerant carbon dioxide (CO2) and is available in several configurations. At the top of the range are the BHP-FV37YD and BHP-FV46YD, two fully automatic models featuring direct mains-pressure hot-water delivery. They have storage capacities of 370 liters and 460 liters, respectively. The 370-liter model is designed for households of around three to five people, while the 460-liter unit is aimed at households of four to six people. Hitachi has not yet disclosed full efficiency specifications for the two new models. Their predecessors, the BHP-FV37WD and BHP-FV46WD, have annual hot-water and heat-retention efficiency ratings under Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS) of 4.2 and 4.1, respectively. The 370-liter predecessor uses a BHP-HAV45W heat pump unit, while the 460-liter version uses a BHP-HAV60W unit. The manufacturer has not indicated whether the Y-series models feature a new compressor, refrigerant circuit or heat-exchanger architecture. Based on the specifications disclosed to date, the products appear to be an upgrade of Hitachi’s existing EcoCute platform rather than a new heat pump design. One of the main changes in the Y series is expanded compatibility with Japanese electricity tariffs that encourage consumers to shift electricity consumption to daytime hours. Some Japanese utilities have introduced tariffs designed to encourage daytime water heating as growing volumes of solar generation enter the grid. Hitachi said Y-series owners will be able to select supported electricity contracts through the water heater’s remote controller, while other tariffs can be configured manually. The company said the new tariff-setting functionality is intended for electricity plans that encourage daytime consumption, including tariffs designed for households with PV systems. The Y series also supports Hitachi’s home energy management system (HEMS) through a HEMS connection adapter and wireless LAN adapter. HEMS connectivity is not new to Hitachi’s high-efficiency EcoCute products. The preceding BHP-FV37WD and BHP-FV46WD models already supported connected energy-management functions, including Echonet Lite compatibility and solar-powered water-heating operation. The main energy-management change in the Y series therefore appears to be expanded support for utility tariff structures rather than the introduction of HEMS connectivity itself. Hitachi is also introducing a five-year manufacturer warranty for the Y series. The warranty covers the heat pump unit, hot-water storage unit, specified consumable components, remote controller, wireless LAN adapter and HEMS adapter.
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]. Comments Please login to comment The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now! Available in print and digital – get your copy today! Martedì, 22 Settembre 2026 11:00 – 12:00 CEST, Roma Monday, October 26, 2026 10:30 am – 11:30 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid Thursday, September 10, 2026 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid Tuesday, September 15, 2026 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid Our special edition for Intersolar South America 2026 is here! Discover the latest insights into the Brazilian solar market – in Portuguese. A two-day conference in Austin, Texas, bringing together leaders in US solar manufacturing, equipment specification, and factory execution. Saudi Arabia is accelerating its clean energy transition—join the SunRise Arabia Clean Energy Conference 2026 in Riyadh to explore how solar PV and energy storage are powering its digital economy. pv magazine USA hosts its multi-day virtual event on U.S. solar and energy storage, covering domestic manufacturing, distributed energy and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting AI-driven power demand.
Solar Energy Corp. of India (SECI) has invited bids to develop 700 MW of interstate transmission system (ISTS)-connected solar PV projects under the build-own-operate (BOO) model, with the power intended for commercial and industrial (C&I) consumption in Odisha. Under the request for selection (RfS), SECI will sign 25-year power purchase agreements (PPAs) with successful bidders. The electricity procured from the projects is planned to be sold to an export-oriented unit (EOU) of a C&I buying entity located in Odisha. SECI will act as an intermediary nodal agency, procuring electricity from selected solar power developers and selling it to the buying entity on a back-to-back basis. The details of buying entities will be intimated at a later date, according to the tender documents. The tender requires the solar projects to be established within special economic zones (SEZs) or areas designated as export oriented units (EOUs) in India, to supply solar power to the buying entity having EOU in Odisha. The arrangement is intended to allow the projects to qualify for an exemption from the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) requirements in accordance with a May 2024 circular issued by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), as amended from time to time. Developers will be responsible for land acquisition, project development, as well as obtaining grid connectivity and constructing the transmission network up to the interconnection or delivery point. Selection of solar PV projects for a total capacity of 700 MW will be carried out through e-bidding followed by e-Reverse auction process. Bids can be made for a minimum contracted capacity of 50 MW and a maximum quantum of 700 MW. A single project can be set up at multiple locations with different delivery points. 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]. Comments Please login to comment The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now! Available in print and digital – get your copy today!
For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser. Sectors Published by Abby Butler, Editorial Assistant Energy Global, MTerra Solar Phase 1 has officially declared commercial operations for 600 MWac mid-merit capacity under its power supply agreement (PSA) with Meralco, marking a major milestone for one of the world’s largest and most important energy infrastructure projects. The declaration of commercial operations follows from the issuance of the Final Certificate of Approval to Connect (FCATC) by the National Grid Corp. of the Philippines (NGCP), confirming that the facility has met the necessary requirements to safely and reliably connect and operate 950 MWac of solar capacity and 825 MW of battery energy storage systems (BESS) within the national grid. The teams carried out the required tests in the past weeks, paving the way for the project’s grid approval and Phase 1 commercial operations. Manuel V. Pangilinan, Chairman of Meralco and Meralco PowerGen Corp. (MGEN), commented: “This is a significant step towards the future of energy in the Philippines. By combining solar power with battery storage at an unprecedented scale, we’re demonstrating how renewable energy can strengthen energy security, support economic growth, and build a more resilient and sustainable power system for our country.” The start of commercial operations follows the inauguration of MTerra Solar Phase 1 in July 2026, which celebrated the energisation of 1373 MWac of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity and 825 MW (equivalent to 3300 MWh) of BESS, making it at that time, the world’s largest integrated solar PV and BESS facility on a single site. The facility’s Phase 1 progression from groundbreaking in November 2024 to the inauguration in July 2026, and now to its commercial operations, spanning less than two years, represents one of the most significant renewable energy achievements in the country. Another 250 MWac capacity to be fulfilled under the same PSA is set to be brought into commercial operations in the upcoming months. Dennis B. Jordan, President and CEO of MGEN Renewables and MTerra Solar, noted: “MTerra Solar is proof that renewable energy can be developed at unprecedented scale while meeting the rigorous requirements necessary to operate safely and reliably within the grid. The issuance of the FCATC reflects the hard work of our people, the trust of our investors, most especially Actis, and our strong partnership with NGCP under the guidance and support of our regulators – the DOE and the ERC. The close co-ordination among the agencies, system operator, and project teams was critical in delivering this achievement.” MTerra Solar, a joint investment of MGEN and Actis, combines vast solar generation capacity with the world’s largest BESS. Unlike a conventional solar facility, MTerra Solar can store a significant portion of the electricity it produces. This enables the project to provide more consistent and dependable power while helping support the stability of the national grid, making it possible for large scale renewable energy to meet the Philippines’ growing demand for reliable, affordable, and sustainable electricity. Emmanuel V. Rubio, President and CEO of MGEN, shared: “MTerra Solar is no longer simply a vision or a project under construction – it is now delivering power to the Filipino people. Reaching commercial operations reflects the determination, discipline, and exceptional work of thousands of people who helped bring this landmark facility to life. It also demonstrates what can be achieved when government and the private sector work together towards a shared national purpose.” Rahul Agrawal, Managing Director and Head of SEA Energy, Actis, concluded: “Given the scale of the project, taking it from groundbreaking to commercial power for Phase 1 in under two years is a huge achievement and testament to the operational capabilities of MGEN and Actis. With MTerra Solar’s commercial operations underway, we see renewables increasingly taking centre stage in the Philippines, providing clean, domestic, and secure power as energy demand rises.” MTerra Solar forms a key part of MGEN’s growing renewable energy portfolio and its commitment to supporting the Philippines’ energy transition. The project is expected to deliver 3500 MWp of solar PV capacity paired with 4500 MWh of BESS, further strengthening the country’s renewable energy capacity. Actis, a leading growth market infrastructure investor has worked together with MGEN, to jointly develop MTerra Solar. The US$600 million investment made by Actis represents the Philippines’ largest foreign direct investment for a greenfield infrastructure project to date. Its scale will make it a cornerstone of MGEN’s renewable energy portfolio and a major contributor to the Philippines’ transition towards a cleaner and more secure energy future. As one of the country’s largest private infrastructure investments, MTerra Solar supports the Philippine Energy Plan and the government’s goal of increasing renewable energy’s share in the country’s power generation mix to 35% by 2030 and 50% by 2040. More than a renewable energy project, MTerra Solar represents the scale of investment and innovation required to power the country’s continued economic development. The start of its commercial operations brings the Philippines closer to an energy system that is more diversified, resilient, sustainable, and prepared for the future.
Pick the engineering stories that matter and get them in your inbox. Access expert insights, exclusive content, and a deeper dive into engineering and innovation all with fewer ads or a completely ad-free experience. All Rights Reserved, IE Media, Inc. Follow Us On Access expert insights, exclusive content, and a deeper dive into engineering and innovation all with fewer ads or a completely ad-free experience. All Rights Reserved, IE Media, Inc. The technique helped achieve a 30.3 percent efficiency rating using solvent-free co-evaporation. Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB) in Germany has revealed a simple way to boost the performance and commercial viability of high-efficiency “tandem” solar cells, which layer light-sensitive perovskite on top of silicon. Particularly, researchers improved monolithic perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells by adding an ultra-thin seed layer of cesium chloride between the sub-cells. The technique helped achieve a 30.3 percent efficiency rating using solvent-free co-evaporation. Standard silicon layers feature a nanostructured surface to optimize light absorption. But this rough terrain makes it difficult for organic self-assembling monolayers (SAM) to form uniformly. SAM is mostly used as hole transport layers. Scientists at HZB used advanced infrared and X-ray tools at the BESSY II synchrotron facility to zoom in on the interface. What they saw explained years of manufacturing frustration. The organic SAM molecules were pooling inside the valleys of the textured silicon, leaving peak areas virtually bare. When researchers tried to vapor-deposit the top perovskite layer, the uneven surface triggered a chemical failure: unwanted lead iodide formed at the gaps, crippling the cell’s energy output. The introduction of the cesium chloride seed layer changes the microscopic terrain. It acts as a chemical foundation, evening out the underlying imperfections of the SAM layer and encouraging the perovskite crystal to grow smoothly across the textured silicon. According to lead author Dr. Viktor Škorjanc, this seed layer compensates for surface unevenness, promoting uniform co-evaporated perovskite growth on textured silicon. It also prevents defect formation caused by patchy hole-transport coverage. As a result of this enhanced layer quality, a fabricated tandem solar cells reached a 30.3 percent efficiency. As per the press release, it is “an outstanding value for evaporation-based perovskites.” This method uses vacuum co-evaporation, which is a solvent-free process already widely utilized across commercial manufacturing industries. Removing chemical solvents from the process targets a major barrier to commercializing perovskite solar cells: long-term material degradation and instability. Solvent-free manufacturing protects the underlying layers from degradation, producing far more durable tandem cells. It could support commercial manufacturing by providing a viable foundation for mass-producing high-efficiency solar panels. Most record-breaking perovskite cells in labs rely on spin-coating or wet-chemical solution processing, which doesn’t scale well to large, textured industrial silicon wafers. Vacuum co-evaporation is already the standard process used to make OLED screens and microelectronics, making factory adoption far easier. “This represents a real step forward in translating record efficiencies from the laboratory into reliable, industrially manufacturable tandem solar technologies,” said Dr Marcel Roß, team leader of evaporated perovskite solar cells at HZB. The HZB team may have finally given industrial solar manufacturing the key to affordable, next-generation solar panels. Perovskite-silicon tandem solar cells produce much more power per square foot than silicon, making them ideal for space-constrained urban rooftops and energy-intensive industrial facilities looking to maximize clean energy generation. Moreover, perovskites are lightweight and can be engineered to be semi-transparent, enabling Building-Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV). This allows energy-harvesting technology to be integrated directly into architectural elements, such as skyscraper facades, glass windows, and skylights. The findings were published in the journal Joule. Mrigakshi is a science journalist who enjoys writing about space exploration, biology, and technological innovations. Her work has been featured in well-known publications including Nature India, Supercluster, The Weather Channel and Astronomy magazine. If you have pitches in mind, please do not hesitate to email her. Premium Follow
Mongolia’s National Dispatching Centre, its state-owned electricity system operator, has signed power purchase agreements with the winning bidders from the country’s first competitive renewable energy auction. The auction awarded 220 MW of solar PV capacity and 135 MW/440 MWh of battery energy storage systems (BESS) across five provinces. The five individual lots consisted of four 50 MW solar plus 30 MW/100 MWh BESS projects in the provinces of Bulgan, Uvurkhangai, Govisumber and Dundgovi, and a 20 MW solar plus 15 MW/40 MWh BESS in the province of Khentii. The auction took place earlier this year, attracting interest from 115 domestic and international companies. There were a total 19 qualified bidders following technical evaluations, with five selected to carry out the projects. Winning tariffs ranged from $0.0485/kWh in Dundgovi to $0.078/kWh in Khentii. According to a recent post published by the Mongolian government, each of the projects is expected to be operational before peak winter demand season. Mongolia’s Prime Minister, Nyam-Osoryn Uchral, added that the auction results reflect growing investor confidence in Mongolia and demonstrates the government’s commitment to opening the energy sector to greater competition and private investment. The country’s Ministry of Energy has announced a second renewable energy auction will take place on September 11. An invitation to participate explains that the ministry is seeking an independent power producer to develop renewable energy projects with a stabilisation solution capable of supplying Mongolia’s Gobi region with electricity at 99.5% reliability. The invitation states two specified connection points, a 220/110/35 kV substation and distribution facility and a 220 kV open switchgear facility, both within the province of Ömnögovi. The auction does not state a targeted procurement capacity. The auction is open to both domestic and international developers, although foreign companies must establish a consortium with a Mongolian-registered national company that sees the Mongolian company holding the majority share. A bid bond of $5,000 per MW of renewable capacity has been set. The ministry explicitly states no bid is required for the stabilisation solution or for the power and capacity of any BESS. Analysis published by pv magazine earlier this year explained Mongolia’s growing renewable energy sector is driven by efforts to diversify its coal-based energy mix and tap export opportunities in neighboring China. Mongolia’s cumulative solar capacity stood at 129 MW at the end of last year, according to figures published by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), down on the 143 MW reported at the end of the year prior. 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]. Comments Please login to comment The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now! Available in print and digital – get your copy today! Martedì, 22 Settembre 2026 11:00 – 12:00 CEST, Roma Monday, October 26, 2026 10:30 am – 11:30 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid Thursday, September 10, 2026 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid Tuesday, September 15, 2026 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid Our special edition for Intersolar South America 2026 is here! Discover the latest insights into the Brazilian solar market – in Portuguese. A two-day conference in Austin, Texas, bringing together leaders in US solar manufacturing, equipment specification, and factory execution. Saudi Arabia is accelerating its clean energy transition—join the SunRise Arabia Clean Energy Conference 2026 in Riyadh to explore how solar PV and energy storage are powering its digital economy. pv magazine USA hosts its multi-day virtual event on U.S. solar and energy storage, covering domestic manufacturing, distributed energy and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting AI-driven power demand.
Pakistan’s National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has approved plans to require bidders in a renewable energy auction to include energy storage. In a decision dated 4 September, NEPRA issued its determination regarding a Wheeling Auction Process submitted by the Independent System and Market Operator of Pakistan (ISMO), a proposed framework for procuring 800MW of aggregated renewable energy capacity. ISMO submitted three proposed amendments to the Auction Process, including a mandatory requirement for co-location of a battery energy storage system (BESS) with wind and/or solar PV generation participating in the auction; a month-long extension to the submission deadline; and formation of a committee to address grievances of auction participants. A stakeholder engagement process drew comments from the public and invited stakeholders, including heads of regional electricity companies. Get Premium Subscription The proposal requires at least 10% equivalent battery storage output to generation capacity. For an initial 400MW auction, therefore, a 10% BESS requirement would correspond to around 40MW/160MWh of energy storage. BESS would charge during high daytime variable renewable energy (VRE) hours and discharge during higher net-demand hours. This would reduce the evening ramp and recover curtailed energy. ISMO said its modelling of IRRs from solar, wind and co-located renewables with 10%, 20% and 25% BESS showed projects remain feasible and competitive. The first auction tranche had been planned for 200MW, but a doubling of target capacity was approved by the Ministry of Energy’s Power Division in July. Mandatory BESS is “prudent and proportionate,” according to ISMO, because the increasing share of VRE is already creating duck curve, ramping and curtailment challenges for the grid. Power sector expert Rehan Javed, among the stakeholders invited to comment, supported the mandatory co-location of BESS with wind and solar project bids, but suggested a higher threshold of 15% to 20% may be more effective in meeting the auction’s aims. The National Energy Academic Network (NEAN) also questioned why the ambition was not higher, given that consultation responses appeared to support a 20% threshold. The ISMO responded that the 10% threshold is an initial minimum “to secure a substantial part of the modelled benefit without imposing the higher cost and implementation risk associated with a larger requirement.” Its financial model used for calculation would be published as requested by numerous stakeholders, ISMO said, and the threshold may be reviewed at a later date. The NEPRA determination can be seen here (PDF). India’s Central Electricity Authority (CEA), a statutory body under the Ministry of Power, has proposed mandatory grid-forming inverter capability and co-located energy storage for new renewable energy projects, with the requirements applying to projects commissioned from 1 July 2027. Under the draft Central Electricity Authority (Technical Standards for Construction of Electric Plants and Electric Lines) 2nd Amendment Regulations, 2026, renewable energy power plants commissioned after that time would be required to have at least 15% of their inverters equipped with grid-forming control. The draft also proposes that all power conversion systems (PCS) of battery energy storage systems (BESS) have grid-forming control to meet the technical requirements specified under the CEA’s grid connectivity regulations. For ground-mounted solar and onshore wind projects commissioned after 1 July 2027, the CEA has proposed mandatory co-located energy storage systems (ESS) with a minimum storage duration of two hours and capacity equivalent to at least 10% of the plant’s installed capacity. A 100MW solar or wind project, for example, would therefore require at least 10MW of co-located ESS with two hours of storage, equivalent to 20MWh. India story by Shreeyashi Ojha. To read the full version of the India story, visit PV Tech.
Solar Energy Corp. of India (SECI) has invited bids to develop 700 MW of interstate transmission system (ISTS)-connected solar PV projects under the build-own-operate (BOO) model, with the power intended for commercial and industrial (C&I) consumption in Odisha. Under the request for selection (RfS), SECI will sign 25-year power purchase agreements (PPAs) with successful bidders. The electricity procured from the projects is planned to be sold to an export-oriented unit (EOU) of a C&I buying entity located in Odisha. SECI will act as an intermediary nodal agency, procuring electricity from selected solar power developers and selling it to the buying entity on a back-to-back basis. The details of buying entities will be intimated at a later date, according to the tender documents. The tender requires the solar projects to be established within special economic zones (SEZs) or areas designated as export oriented units (EOUs) in India, to supply solar power to the buying entity having EOU in Odisha. The arrangement is intended to allow the projects to qualify for an exemption from the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) requirements in accordance with a May 2024 circular issued by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), as amended from time to time. Developers will be responsible for land acquisition, project development, as well as obtaining grid connectivity and constructing the transmission network up to the interconnection or delivery point. Selection of solar PV projects for a total capacity of 700 MW will be carried out through e-bidding followed by e-Reverse auction process. Bids can be made for a minimum contracted capacity of 50 MW and a maximum quantum of 700 MW. A single project can be set up at multiple locations with different delivery points. 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]. Comments Please login to comment The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now! Available in print and digital – get your copy today! Martedì, 22 Settembre 2026 11:00 – 12:00 CEST, Roma Monday, October 26, 2026 10:30 am – 11:30 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid Thursday, September 10, 2026 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid Tuesday, September 15, 2026 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid Our special edition for Intersolar South America 2026 is here! Discover the latest insights into the Brazilian solar market – in Portuguese. A two-day conference in Austin, Texas, bringing together leaders in US solar manufacturing, equipment specification, and factory execution. Saudi Arabia is accelerating its clean energy transition—join the SunRise Arabia Clean Energy Conference 2026 in Riyadh to explore how solar PV and energy storage are powering its digital economy. pv magazine USA hosts its multi-day virtual event on U.S. solar and energy storage, covering domestic manufacturing, distributed energy and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting AI-driven power demand.
Hubei Energy Group has signed a cooperation agreement with the government of Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, under which the company plans to invest approximately RMB 8 billion in clean energy and related upstream and downstream industries in the region between 2026 and 2030. The investment will cover wind, solar, hydropower, energy storage, and integrated energy projects. Hubei Energy aims to plan and develop 1 GW of new energy projects during China’s 2026-2030 15th Five-Year Plan period. Priority projects include the Hefeng integrated hydropower, wind, solar, and energy storage project; the Jiannan Fengzhuba wind project in Lichuan; and the Qiyueshan wind-storage and computing-power/electricity coordination project, also in Lichuan. The investment plan also includes the 185.2 MW Linxihe hydropower project, as well as integrated energy projects involving distributed solar, wind power, energy storage, EV charging, and battery-swapping facilities linked to infrastructure including the airport, airport economic zone, and high-speed railway. EV and energy storage battery manufacturer Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL) has signed strategic cooperation agreements with Xi’an Taijin New Energy & Materials (TJNE), HKC Corporation Limited, and other partners to expand its upstream lithium-ion battery copper foil supply chain. CATL and TJNE will establish unified standards for copper foil equipment and a centralized procurement mechanism. Meanwhile, CATL, Shenzhen Huike New Materials, and another partner will jointly build 400,000 metric tons of lithium-ion battery copper foil production capacity over the next three years. The cooperation will also cover long-term supply arrangements, processing-fee mechanisms, advance payments, joint R&D, and the use of renewable electricity. Copper foil is a key current collector material for the anode in lithium-ion batteries used in both EV and energy storage applications. CATL said the agreements move the copper foil industry from conventional buyer-supplier procurement toward a model based on joint development and governance. Last month, CATL announced plans to invest RMB 4.1 billion in Zhonhen Technology Investment for a 49% stake (see China Solar PV News Snippets). PV diamond wire manufacturer Metron has commissioned a new tungsten core wire facility in Shanxi, China, adding 6 million km/month of capacity with a total investment of RMB 230 million. Tungsten core wire is the key substrate for producing tungsten-core diamond wire. The plant increases Metron’s designed tungsten core wire capacity from 1 million km/month to 7 million km/month, equivalent to approximately 84 million km annually. Metron reported H1 2026 revenue of RMB 1.162 billion, up 15.31% year-on-year, while net profit attributable to shareholders rose 265.67% to RMB 310 million. Net profit excluding non-recurring items increased 363.59% to RMB 275 million. Diamond wire revenue fell 14.36% to RMB 731 million, while revenue from waste tungsten recycling surged 161.92% to RMB 348 million. The company said continued waste tungsten generation from diamond wire use supports its recycling business, whose growth drove the year-on-year increase in net profit. Inverter and energy storage product manufacturer Ginlong Technologies (Solis) reported H1 2026 revenue of RMB 3.882 billion, up 2.32% YoY, while net profit attributable to shareholders fell 29.74% to RMB 423 million. Net profit excluding non-recurring items declined 24.90% to RMB 412 million. The company had previously forecast its net profit excluding non-recurring items for H1 2026 to decline 16.73%-25.84% (see China Solar PV News Snippets). Solis attributed the decline mainly to higher foreign-exchange losses, share-based compensation expenses, and a YoY decline in generation hours in its renewable power generation and residential PV system businesses. The company said growth in energy storage inverters and high-power grid-connected inverters partly offset these pressures. Energy storage inverter revenue more than doubled to RMB 1.64 billion, up 106.70%, accounting for 42.24% of total revenue. Grid-connected inverter revenue fell 41.99% to RMB 1.056 billion, while energy storage system (ESS) revenue surged 3,025.90% to RMB 160 million. PV encapsulation film manufacturer HIUV New Material reported H1 2026 revenue of RMB 611 million, down 3.51% YoY. Net loss attributable to shareholders narrowed to RMB 47.56 million from RMB 133.16 million a year earlier, while net loss excluding non-recurring items narrowed to RMB 57.06 million from RMB 134.88 million. The company attributed the improvement mainly to a higher gross margin in its PV encapsulation film business and lower financial expenses. The segment recorded a gross margin of 6.26%, up roughly 9 percentage points YoY, indicating a partial recovery in profitability. PV encapsulation film revenue rose approximately 1.7% to RMB 559 million, accounting for about 96% of main business revenue, while shipments increased 4.42% to 119 million m². Management expects shipments to increase further in the second half of the year. Beyond PV, HIUV is developing non-PV new material businesses, including automotive switchable films. The company said its PDCLC switchable film is now being supplied in volume and has secured nominations for 5 new vehicle programs in 2026. TaiyangNews 2024
Runergy has received an award for comprehensive PV module reliability from TÜV Rheinland at its 2026 “All Quality Matters” Solar & Storage event in Suzhou, China. The award recognizes the strong performance of the company’s modules in a comprehensive range of stringent reliability tests, highlighting their long-term stability and ability to perform across diverse operating environments. “All Quality Matters” award – a rigorous benchmark for PV module reliability The “All Quality Matters” program has now been established for 12 years and has become one of the leading quality-focused evaluation programs in the solar and energy storage industry. Rather than relying solely on conventional standards-based testing, the program evaluates PV modules through a comprehensive series of enhanced reliability tests, including accelerated aging, environmental durability, mechanical load, potential-induced degradation (PID) and ultraviolet (UV) aging. The Runergy modules successfully completed the full suite of TÜV Rheinland’s evaluations and delivered strong results across multiple test categories, including thermal cycling, damp heat, mechanical load, degradation and UV resistance. The modules demonstrated excellent control of power degradation, validating the performance of materials, encapsulation processes and manufacturing quality control systems. The results further demonstrate the modules’ suitability for a wide range of applications, from utility-scale solar power plants and commercial and industrial distributed PV systems to projects located in regions with challenging climatic conditions. As a leading global manufacturer of PV cells and modules, Runergy is committed to a “Technology First, Quality First” approach, the company having established a dedicated PV research institute and operating a TÜV Rheinland-qualified witness laboratory, while continuing to strengthen its investment in R&D and quality management. GM Dr. Longzhong Tao commented: “Receiving TÜV Rheinland’s ‘All Quality Matters’ award for comprehensive PV module reliability is a strong recognition of Runergy’s commitment to product quality and an endorsement of our R&D and manufacturing capabilities. Reliability is fundamental to the long-term value of photovoltaic products. Looking ahead, Runergy will continue to advance technological innovation and quality improvement, delivering PV products that combine high performance with long-term reliability. We are committed to supporting the high-quality growth of the global clean energy industry and advancing our mission to be a‘global partner in renewable energy’.”
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