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New Delhi [India], October 21 (ANI): China’s proposed export restrictions on 12 solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing technologies may accelerate India’s push to develop domestic capabilities in solar wafers, cells and ingots, according to a report by JM Financial.
China’s Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology proposed adding 12 solar PV manufacturing technologies to its Catalogue of Technologies Prohibited or Restricted from Export on October 16. 
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The proposal covers technologies used in manufacturing polysilicon, silicon wafers and solar cells, along with critical and core equipment incorporating these technologies.
The proposal divides the technologies into prohibited and restricted categories, with stakeholders invited to submit feedback until November 15, 2026.
Also Read | CJP’s Saurav Das, Ashutosh Ranka Withdraw Delhi HC Plea After Judge Flags Alternative Remedy.
The JM Financial report said the development could strengthen the case for India to expand domestic solar manufacturing, particularly in areas further up the production chain. However, it cautioned against assuming that all TOPCon production lines, Chinese machinery or technology transfers would automatically be prohibited.
It said, “We view it as structurally positive for Indian solar manufacturing (may accelerate backward integration) with short-term disruption”
India remains dependent on China for several inputs required by solar manufacturers, including specialised production equipment, industrial gases and chemicals, spare parts, process software and skilled engineers. 
This dependence could make the proposed restrictions a risk to near-term capacity expansion, even as they increase the importance of developing domestic manufacturing capabilities.
“The greatest opportunity lies in moving upstream, but that is where the technological and execution barriers are the highest,” JM Financial added in its report.
The report also highlighted that potential beneficiaries may not necessarily be India’s largest solar cell and module manufacturers. Companies that can move quickly from module assembly into the production of solar cells, wafers and ingots could be better positioned to benefit from the changing trade environment.
The development could also affect the cost of setting up new solar manufacturing facilities. Delays in equipment supplies or the need to procure more expensive equipment from European vendors could push up manufacturing costs. This, in turn, could lead to higher domestic solar cell and module prices.
If domestic prices rise significantly, India may further relax the ALMM-II mandate beyond December 2026, the report said. At the same time, Chinese exporters could become more aggressive in pricing finished solar products, including cells and modules, potentially making them more attractive to Indian developers. (ANI)
(The above story is verified and authored by ANI staff, ANI is South Asia’s leading multimedia news agency with over 100 bureaus in India, South Asia and across the globe. ANI brings the latest news on Politics and Current Affairs in India & around the World, Sports, Health, Fitness, Entertainment, & News. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)
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Vikram Solar Limited, a prominent name in India’s solar manufacturing sector, has announced that its state-of-the-art 9 Gigawatt (GW) N-type TOPCon solar cell manufacturing plant at SIPCOT Industrial Park in Gangaikondan, Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu, will commence production in December 2026. This development marks a significant milestone in India’s solar manufacturing capabilities, with the facility on track to produce its first batch of solar cells as scheduled.
The development of this facility is seen as a critical step towards reducing India’s dependency on imported solar cells, which are essential components of solar modules. At full capacity, the Gangaikondan facility will not only support Vikram Solar’s module production but also benefit domestic programmes such as utility-scale projects, rooftop installations, PM Surya Ghar, and PM-KUSUM initiatives by adhering to domestic content requirements. Furthermore, it will cater to international customers looking to diversify their solar component supply chains.
The Gangaikondan plant represents the second phase of Vikram Solar’s integration strategy, following the inauguration of a 6 GW module plant on the same site in August 2026 by the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. The company is also planning to establish a 9 GW ingot and wafer facility, which has received board approval and is targeted for completion by the fiscal year 2029. Future expansions to increase cell production capacity to 12 GW are also on the agenda.
Spanning nearly 200 acres, the Gangaikondan site is poised to become one of the few integrated solar manufacturing campuses in India, producing ingots, wafers, cells, and modules. The development is being executed by VSL Green Power Private Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary, and is expected to create over 2,000 direct and indirect jobs. This co-location strategy promises enhanced quality control and reduced logistics costs.
Gyanesh Chaudhary, Chairman and Managing Director of Vikram Solar, elaborated on the importance of this venture, stating, “Indian module makers, including us, have built their businesses around imported cells. Gangaikondan ends that for Vikram Solar. Cells are where the value, the technology, and the risk in a module sit, and in December we start making them here. It is the most important step in our integration journey, and not the last: our roadmap runs from wafer to module, on Indian soil.”
About Vikram Solar Limited: Established as a key player in photovoltaics, Vikram Solar Limited has made its mark internationally and holds a strong manufacturing footprint in India. The company is recognised for its efficient photovoltaic module manufacturing across 39 countries, and maintains a vast distribution network within India. Vikram Solar has consistently been featured in PVEL’s PV Module Reliability scorecard and Bloomberg NEF’s Tier 1 solar PV modules manufacturer list.
For media inquiries, please contact Srabani Sen at +91 7349661300 or [email protected].
Disclaimer: This article is based on a regulatory filing submitted to the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE).
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(ABC 6 News) — Minnesota is approaching a big milestone as the 400th school in the state is set to become solar powered.
The Minnesota Department of Commerce is spearheading the project as they plan to have the solar array up and running by the end of the year.
Officials from the department visited an elementary school in Maplewood on Thursday morning, to highlight new investments in solar energy.
“When we invest in Minnesota schools, we’re investing in more than classrooms and textbooks. We’re investing in the infrastructure our communities depend on and the opportunities we want the next generation to have,” said Commerce Temporary Commissioner Julia Dreier. “These programs are bringing new technology to schools across Minnesota, and we’re seeing those investments become real projects that students and communities can benefit from every day.” 
State leaders say the “Solar for Schools” program has helped 191 districts install solar panels on buildings since 2022, spending over $30 million.

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Core Development Group Marks 15-Year Anniversary as a National Leader in Energy Solutions  StreetInsider
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“[My system] paid for itself two or three times over, probably more.”
Photo Credit: iStock
For U.K. households considering rooftop solar, a concern raised in a debate wasn’t that panels stop producing useful power but that the surrounding math could change. 
Export rates can drift toward $0, standing charges may rise, and the main lasting value may be in using the electricity yourself.
The question surfaced in r/SolarUK, where one user asked whether suppliers might eventually “whack up the daily standing charge” as more homes add solar, weakening the payback from generating power at home.
Across the Reddit thread, commenters kept separating self-consumed power from exported power. 
As one person put it, “The energy will remain free for you to use,” but they also said, “The value of your solar-generated electricity to export will reduce.”
One user on Agile Export said it’s already happening and described just how uneven those export payments can be.
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“On Agile Export, during August, I managed to get paid just under 18p kWh,” they said, which is about 24 cents. They also noted that, “Throughout the summer there were many days where export was close to 1p and even 0p.” 
In other words, the financial case may depend more on when electricity is used and stored than on how much a system generates.
Several replies framed the issue as one of oversupply. If it’s “a good day for rooftop solar it’s a good day for commercial solar too,” one commenter wrote, so lots of solar generation can reach the grid at once and pull export prices lower.
Some commenters focused on the grid itself. Even when solar households buy fewer units of power, utilities still have to keep the network ready, provide an “always-on and super-reliable connection,” and handle fluctuations in both imports and exports. 
In that reading, standing charges could rise because the infrastructure has to be there whether a home takes a small amount of electricity or a large amount.
Not everyone in the discussion saw that as a reason to avoid solar. One homeowner said that after 14 years, their system had “paid for itself two or three times over, probably more.” 
Another said they had gone “fully off-grid 4 years ago,” although a different commenter argued that matching the reliability of the grid at home would require “multiples more capacity than a standard domestic installation.”
Many of the suggestions centered on increasing self-consumption instead of counting on export payments. Batteries were a recurring part of that advice. After concerns were raised about excess solar production on sunny afternoons, one commenter replied, “This is why batteries are important.”
The Agile Export user pointed to batteries that can forecast the following day’s solar output and decide how much power to take on overnight “so that the next day’s solar generation doesn’t go to waste.” 
That kind of setup could help households keep more of the economic benefit of solar even if export rates keep softening.
One commenter added, “That said, solar and battery economics at the household level will probably be good for many years to come.”
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Series A led by VXI Capital, with backing from the people who built modern solar, including founding Enphase CEO Paul Nahi, former SunPower CEO Tom Werner and former New York energy czar Richard Kauffman
Nine years in the making, Optivolt’s energy intelligence turns passive solar hardware into adaptive power systems by managing energy in real time from within the panel

San Francisco — Optivolt, a power electronics company building the intelligence layer for solar, yesterday announced a $32M Series A led by VXI Capital, a new hard tech fund founded by the former CTO of the Defense Innovation Unit of the U.S. Military, with participation from RA Capital, Valo Ventures, and Atlas Innovate. This round brings Optivolt’s total capital raised to date to $42M.
The solar panel has become a commodity. Optivolt gave it a brain. Its Power Balancer embeds active power electronics directly into the panel, managing energy among cell groups in real time to recover power otherwise lost to shade, weather, dirt and uneven degradation. This creates a foundation for adaptive, connected solar systems. With more than 20,000 panels incorporating the Power Balancer already shipped, the company will use the new financing to expand manufacturing and bring the technology to solar systems at every scale, from individual homes to utility-scale projects designed to help power AI data centers.
“Solar became cheap enough to compete. I founded Optivolt to make it intelligent enough to power the world,” said Rohit Kalyanpur, founder and CEO of Optivolt. “For nine years, we’ve rebuilt the solar panel from first principles, embedding aerospace-grade power electronics so it can respond to Earth as it actually is, not the ideal conditions of a lab. The result is the first solar panel system that thinks for itself – one that adapts to shade, weather, dirt and degradation in real time, recovering energy conventional solar leaves behind. The next step is putting it everywhere.”
“The next era of energy will not be built by simply installing more of the same passive solar panels we already have. It will be built by making solar intelligent enough to become the backbone of the global power system,” said Orin Hoffman, Managing Director at VXI Capital. “Optivolt has spent nine years building the architecture for that future. This financing is about taking it from a technical breakthrough to the platform on which the next generation of solar is built.”
“At Enphase, we transformed rooftop solar by managing power at the output of each panel. Today, rising panel power, the widespread adoption of storage, and the urgent need to reduce costs demand a new approach. Optivolt is bringing a new class of power electronics inside the panel itself to unlock the next leap in performance and economics,” said Paul Nahi, the founding CEO of Enphase and Optivolt investor. “I helped build the last generation of solar power electronics. At Optivolt we are building the next.”
Despite decades of progress, the conventional solar panel remains fundamentally passive hardware. Solar panels are rated under controlled laboratory conditions, but operate in a world of shade, dirt, debris and uneven degradation. Inside a conventional panel, one underperforming cell can constrain the output of an entire cell group – or cause a bypass diode to take that group out of production altogether. A localized problem can therefore suppress the output of a much larger section of the panel.
Optivolt redesigned the electrical architecture inside the panel around a power electronics brain. Its Power Balancer redistributes energy among the panel’s cell groups in real time, addressing mismatch before it becomes a larger loss. It replaces conventional bypass diodes and builds rapid shutdown and monitoring into the panel, allowing solar systems to be designed without separate module-level optimizers, microinverters or rapid-shutdown devices.
Putting active power electronics inside a solar panel created a fundamental engineering problem: heat. To solve it, Optivolt assembled a team with experience designing power systems for satellites, bringing the discipline of aerospace – where every watt matters and hardware must survive without repair – to a product built to spend decades inside a solar panel. That team developed the Power Balancer, which operates at 99.4 percent conversion efficiency under typical conditions.
Optivolt holds 19 issued patents and has 27 additional patent applications pending, covering key elements of its panel-integrated power electronics architecture. Optivolt has earned UL certifications covering its integrated junction-box enclosure, panel-integrated electronics, rapid-shutdown system and solar-module safety.
In Optivolt’s internal testing, panels incorporating the technology produced up to six times as much power as panels using bolted-on optimizers under defined shade scenarios.
“At SunPower, we spent nearly three decades pushing the limits of how efficiently a solar panel could turn sunlight into electricity. Optivolt is attacking the other half of the problem: how much energy that panel actually delivers in the real world once it leaves the factory,” said Tom Werner, former CEO of SunPower and Optivolt investor. “The next great solar panel won’t just produce more power under ideal conditions. It will deliver more energy across the imperfect conditions of its working life.”
“I’ve spent most of my career making clean energy financeable at scale – building new financing tools, redesigning markets and driving deployment costs down,” said Richard Kauffman, former Chairman of Energy and Finance for New York and an Optivolt investor. “But finance can only take the industry so far. When the same solar project produces more energy over its lifetime, the economics change everywhere. Optivolt rewrote that equation inside the panel itself, dramatically expanding the share of the world’s energy demand that solar can economically serve.”
About Optivolt
Optivolt is a power electronics company building the intelligence layer for solar. Its panel-integrated Power Balancer redistributes energy among cell groups in real time, helping solar systems deliver more energy under real-world conditions while simplifying the hardware around the panel. Optivolt’s long-term goal is to make every solar panel an intelligent, connected node in a global energy network, capable of both managing its own performance and coordinating with the system around it. Founded by Thiel Fellow Rohit Kalyanpur, Optivolt is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
To learn more, visit optivolt.com
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Belleville aldermen vote to terminate solar farm lease  Belleville News-Democrat
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The equipment could be mounted on a wall, set up on a balcony, or placed in a garden.
Photo Credit: Fuse Energy
Fuse Energy is pitching a new plug-in solar kit to U.K. households that often miss out on rooftop installations, including renters, apartment residents, and people whose roofs are not suitable for a standard system.
However, the company cannot yet legally install the battery-backed setup, so interested customers can only add their name to a pre-order waitlist.
As TechRadar reported, Fuse Energy’s Jules package pairs a 2.5-kilowatt-hour battery with up to four 500-watt solar panels that plug into a standard socket. 
The company’s app decides when to store electricity and when to draw power from the battery.
The product is marketed to renters, apartment residents, and households with roofs that are shaded, structurally unsuitable, or otherwise impractical for a traditional rooftop solar system.
Rather than requiring scaffolding and a full roof installation, the equipment could be mounted on a wall, set up on a balcony, or placed in a garden, TechRadar noted.
U.S. households looking to save on energy can use EasyHome‘s free explorer tool to get hassle-free pricing and savings estimates from vetted installers in their area.
Plug-in solar kits became legal in the U.K. in August, but Fuse said a plug-in setup that also includes battery storage is still not approved under current rules. For that reason, buyers can only join Fuse’s waitlist.
With energy prices through the roof, there’s never been a better time to go solar — and EasyHome can help you find the best prices from the best installers in your area.
EasyHome takes the guesswork and headaches out of energy upgrades by showing you estimated savings from a network of vetted local partners. To get started, just enter your ZIP and share a few details about your home — seeing your estimate is really that easy.
The 2.5-kWh battery would let households save some of the solar power they generate instead of using only whatever the panels produce in real time. That could help them use more of their own electricity after sunset or during periods of weak sunlight.
Fuse noted the package will cost £577 ($772) once deliveries are allowed. The company estimated about £180 ($241) a year in electricity bill savings, suggesting a breakeven rate of a little over three years.
For comparison, Fuse said its standard rooftop solar systems usually cost between £7,000 ($9,365) and £8,000 ($10,702) before installation and scaffolding are factored in.
That lower entry price could open solar power to people who can’t access a typical rooftop setup.
U.K. shoppers need to check what is actually legal before putting money down on any plug-in solar product.
Because the Jules package runs on a standard socket and can be placed on a balcony, wall, or in a garden, the system could help more households lower energy bills without needing a detached home or a roof suitable for conventional solar.
EasyHome‘s free explorer tool also helps households explore options for backup battery storage alongside solar. Pairing solar with a battery maximizes savings and keeps power flowing when the grid goes down, and Fuse is trying to introduce that flexibility in a simpler format.
Fuse is not promising an immediate rollout. The company said first deliveries of Jules are “expected post legislation approval in 2027.”
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China’s mainstream TOPCon module export prices held steady for a second week, despite efforts by major polysilicon producers to set minimum price floors on module and polysilicon products.
According to the OPIS Global Solar Markets Report released on Oct. 20, the Chinese Module Marker (CMM), the OPIS benchmark assessment for TOPCon modules below 645 W from China, was unchanged at $0.107/W Free-On-Board (FOB) China.
Forward prices were also stable, with Q1 2027 loading assessed at $0.106/W and Q2 through Q4 2027 at $0.105/W.
Under the pricing framework discussed by China’s eight major polysilicon manufacturers at an Oct. 11 meeting in Hangzhou, minimum selling prices of CNY 0.79 ($0.118) /W for TOPCon modules and CNY 0.86/W for back-contact modules were proposed, equivalent to $0.118/W and $0.129/W FOB, alongside a minimum polysilicon selling price of CNY 43/kg, inclusive of tax.
Market participants, however, remained skeptical that the proposed measures would provide price support amid persistent oversupply and weak downstream demand.
Several trade sources questioned whether the pricing discipline could be sustained, as industry self-discipline agreements do not constitute legally enforceable price controls and their effectiveness depends on manufacturers’ willingness to comply.
A source at a Chinese top-tier integrated manufacturer similarly described the proposed fixed module pricing mechanism as difficult to implement, suggesting that efforts by these major polysilicon producers to dictate downstream module prices could be “one-sided wishful thinking”.
In Oct. 2024, the China Photovoltaic Industry Association (CPIY) released an estimated photovoltaic modules production cost of CNY 0.68/W in an attempt to address below-cost bidding in large-scale procurement tenders. However, industry sources noted that the price guideline was non-binding, allowing manufacturers to continue submitting bids below the suggested floor.
Weak installation demand and pressure to clear inventories ahead of year-end could further undermine efforts to stabilize prices, sources said. A tier-1 vertically integrated manufacturer said module shipments were subdued in the third quarter, with producers likely to cut prices in the fourth quarter to stimulate sales volumes, defend market share and support revenue. The manufacturer expected prices to remain stable or edge lower through the rest of the year.
Another downstream manufacturer said the short-term price outlook would also depend on whether manufacturers could secure higher selling prices on existing inventories, adding that many producers were highly motivated to clear stocks in the final quarter of the year.
The outlook for high-efficiency modules, however, was less certain, with demand potentially strengthening in 2027 as China introduces tighter efficiency requirements and increases the adoption of higher-efficiency technologies in its domestic market.
The mandatory national standard taking effect on Jan. 1, 2027 sets minimum efficiencies of 23.2%, 23.2% and 23.5% for n-type TOPCon, HJT and BC modules, respectively. On Oct. 16, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) proposed higher thresholds of 23.4%, 23.4% and 23.7% under its draft 2026 Standard Conditions for the PV manufacturing industry.
Separately, China has proposed export controls on 12 photovoltaic technologies including polysilicon, silicon wafer and cell manufacturing technologies as well as the technology management of core equipment.
According to the proposal, certain technologies such as perovskite tandem cells would be categorized as prohibited exports, while TOPCon, back-contact and heterojunction technologies would be subject to export restrictions where specified thresholds are met.
One market analyst expected limited impact on China’s solar product exports, as the new export controls primarily target manufacturing technologies rather than finished products.
The analyst said the measures could reinforce China’s technological leadership by restricting the transfer of proprietary know-how, particularly as overseas markets increasingly push to localize solar manufacturing. This could also benefit Chinese vertically integrated solar manufacturers by preserving their technological advantage, the source said.
However, tighter controls could complicate overseas manufacturing capacity expansions, joint ventures, technology licensing and equipment shipments involving restricted production know-how. Additional registration and licensing requirements could extend project lead times and introduce uncertainty, the analyst added.
OPIS is a specialist business within Dow Jones Energy, a global energy intelligence business that brings together trusted price reporting, research and market intelligence across the energy value chain. OPIS publishes the OPIS Global Solar Markets Service, which includes pricing data for solar panels and components across Asia, Europe and the U.S., manufacturing capacity data, module forward curves, and a global solar policy tracker. 

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In Nigeria, Solar Panels Are the New Wedding Gift  Bloomberg.com
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Solex Energy launches India’s first N-Type quarter cell solar module at REI 2026  scanx.trade
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Rwanda’s Energy Development Corporation Limited (EDCL) has opened a tender for a 200 MW floating solar power plant alongside an 800 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS). The project is set to be built at Lake Sake, within the Ngoma district of Rwanda’s Eastern province.
Available tender details explain the project will be structured as an independent power producer scheme, with the chosen developer set to enter a long-term power purchase agreement with the state-owned Rwanda Energy Group (REG) through its subsidiary, the Energy Utility Corporation Limited (EUCL), which will act as the offtaker.
The selected bidder will be responsible for the design, supply, installation, testing, commissioning, operation and maintenance of the floating PV system and BESS. Interested bidders are required to have at least 10 years experience in designing, constructing and managing renewable energy power plants.
The tender kicks off with a pre-qualification round, with interested independent power producers expected to meet a series of administrative, technical and financial requirements as set out in pre-qualification documents available on REG’s website.
A site visit for potential applicants is taking place on October 23. The deadline to submit initial bids, which must be sent electronically, is November 12.
Rwanda’s solar market is still in its relative infancy. The Africa Solar Industry Association (AFSIA) has tracked 47.5 MW of operational solar across the country to date, according to figures available in the association’s project database.
There are relatively few operational floating PV plants across Africa despite research identifying significant potential in deploying solar on the continent’s inland bodies of water. A 2023 study found Africa could generate 100 GW of solar by installing on 1% of its 100,000 sqm of reservoirs.
The largest floating solar project under development in Africa is a 600 MW project on Lake Kariba, the world’s largest artificial lake and reservoir by volume, on Zimbabwe’s northern border with Zambia. Last December, government officials in Zimbabwe said work would begin on the site this year, beginning with an initial 150 MW phase.
The largest operational floating PV project in Africa to date is a 13 MW array in Morocco, which came online in July.
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University Affairs
October 22, 2026
Solar panels on top of the Canyon View Terrace parking structure on USU’s Logan campus.
Utah State University has completed the second phase of its campus solar expansion, adding more than 1 megawatt of new solar generation and its first large-scale battery storage system. The work builds on the 1,058 kilowatts installed in the first phase earlier this year and brings USU’s total new solar capacity to more than 2 megawatts across seven sites.
The newly completed installations include:
In total, the new phase is expected to produce approximately 1.5 million kilowatt-hours of electricity each year. The energy generated by this phase is equivalent to:
Combined with the first phase, USU’s new solar systems are expected to generate more than 3 million kilowatt-hours per year.
The Uintah Basin Campus project was funded with support from Rocky Mountain Power’s Blue Sky Program and Wattsmart Battery Program. The 500 kilowatt-hour battery stores solar energy for use by the campus. A portion of its capacity is also reserved for Rocky Mountain Power to dispatch when needed, helping support the reliability of the regional electric grid.
“Every kilowatt-hour we generate on our own campuses is one we don’t have to buy, and over the 25- to 30-year life of these systems, those savings add up,” said Zac Cook, associate director of utilities and energy management at USU. “Projects like this save the university money while reducing the environmental impact of our operations. Adding battery storage in Vernal helps us get even more value from that clean energy and gives us experience we can carry to future projects across the state.”
USU will host a ribbon cutting on from 3-4 p.m. Oct. 27 at the Bingham Entrepreneurship and Energy Research Center on the Uintah Basin Campus. The event will celebrate the completion of the solar and battery project and recent renovations to the BEERC. USU President Brad L. Mortensen will attend.
These projects reinforce USU’s commitment to sustainability, energy cost stability, and long-term environmental stewardship. By producing its own clean electricity, the university reduces its reliance on fossil fuels, hedges against utility price volatility, and saves on utility costs over the 25- to 30-year life of the systems.
For more information about USU’s energy management and sustainability efforts, visit https://www.usu.edu/facilities/services/energy-management and https://www.usu.edu/sustainability/.
Solar panels at USU’s Poisonous Plant Research Lab in Logan.
Solar panels at the Bingham Entrepreneurship and Energy Research Center on USU’s Uintah Basin campus.
Zac Cook
Energy Manager
Facilities
435.797.7048
zac.cook@usu.edu
Comments and questions regarding this article may be directed to the contact person listed on this page.
October 19, 2026     1581
USU enrolled a record 32,286 students this fall, an 8% increase driven in part by significant growth in concurrent enrollment and at campuses across the state.
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Beginning next week, visitors to Utah State University’s main campus will notice something new near the Quad: temporary fencing signaling the start of a construction project expected to last through November 2028.
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TOWN OF MUKWONAGO — A public hearing for a proposed 6-megawatt solar energy project in the Town of Mukwonago has been rescheduled for Monday due to overflow attendance at the originally scheduled hearing.
A Joint Plan Commission and Town Board meeting that includes a public hearing regarding a conditional use permit for the proposed Spring Lake Solar project on its agenda will take place at 6:30 p.m. Monday at St. James Catholic Church, 830 E. Veterans Way.
The meeting had to be rescheduled from its original Oct. 14 date because Mukwonago Town Hall, W320-S8315 Beulah Road, was not a large enough venue to hold all of the area residents who showed up for the public hearing, according to the Town of Mukwonago clerk’s office.
Seattle-based OneEnergy Development LLC wants to install 13,000 solar panels across approximately 28 acres on property northwest of Highway I and Section Road in the Town of Mukwonago. The land would be leased from the Sugden family, with Peter Murphy of OneEnergy serving as the developer’s agent and Stan Sugden as the property owner, according to town documents.
The proposed solar facility could generate enough electricity to power nearly 1,600 Wisconsin homes annually and support more than 30 union jobs during peak construction, according to the developer. The project would connect to existing electric distribution lines along Highway I and serve local We Energies customers.
If approved, construction of the facility would begin in spring 2027 and is expected to take four to six months. The facility is expected to operate for 30 to 50 years; at the end of its useful life, the solar equipment would be removed and the land restored for potential agricultural use, according to the project website.
The project has received mixed feedback from area residents. Resident Loree Mueller, in a letter to the Plan Commission, raised concerns about the project’s impact on the rural community.
“I understand that renewable energy is important and that solar power can have benefits,” Mueller said in the letter. “However, the proposed location and scale of this project are not appropriate for this rural community. A project covering 28 acres would fundamentally change the character and use of this property and could have consequences for surrounding residents for decades.”
On the other hand, resident Jennifer Rath expressed support for the project, citing financial challenges facing farmers.
“Why not since farmers can’t afford fuel or sell their crops?” she said.
The Waukesha County Green Team also showed support for the project in a letter signed by Debra Schneider, president of the Waukesha County Green Team.
“As our county faces increasing energy demands and environmental challenges, investing in renewable energy solutions is both a strategic and responsible choice,” Schneider said in the letter. “This project represents a significant step toward a cleaner, more sustainable future while offering substantial benefits to our local economy.”
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China dominates global solar manufacturing, but Chinese companies may be interested in expanding to Australia, experts say. (Getty: Song Wei/VCG)
Twenty-three years ago, a Chinese-Australian solar scientist moved from Sydney to Wuxi to build China's solar panel manufacturing industry from scratch, using technology developed in Australian universities. 
Shi Zhengrong became the world's first clean energy billionaire, nicknamed "The Sun King". China went on to dominate global solar panel manufacturing and, thanks to a mix of innovation and cut-throat competition, made solar the cheapest source of electricity in history.
Australian science graduates filled the top technology roles at the biggest Chinese solar companies. And a solar cell design developed in Australia became the global standard.
Meanwhile, Australia mostly stopped building its own solar panels.
Scientist-turned-entrepreneur Shi Zhengrong built the first gigawatt-scale solar company. (Getty: China Photos)
Now, with the federal government preparing to ramp up Australia's own tiny solar manufacturing industry, Dr Shi sees the story coming full circle.
"It's an exciting opportunity for Australia," he said, speaking to the ABC from China.
Where China once built an industry from Australian innovation, Australia now needs China's help to do the same.
To build low-cost panels at scale, experts say Australia needs access to the production line technology and manufacturing patents China has developed over the past 20 years.
So, what does it take to build a solar panel?
And why would Chinese companies share their solar-manufacturing secrets?
When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last month announced $1 billion in government funding to boost the number of solar panels made in Australia, he chose a deeply symbolic location.
The coal-fired Liddell power station in the Hunter Valley permanently closed last year, the first of four in the area to be shut down over the next decade.
Mr Albanese said the $1 billion Solar Sunshot program would generate clean energy jobs and funnel investment into the traditional coal-mining region by bringing manufacturing back to Australia.
"We've created the innovation and seen all the value added offshore," he said.
"We missed the opportunities. We're not going to miss the opportunities of this generation."
The public reaction in the weeks since has been mixed. Many energy experts welcomed the plan as a way to ensure supply of a critical energy resource (solar will soon generate most of Australia's electricity) and carve out a slice of a growing global industry.
But some economists and the federal government’s own Productivity Commission warned it could lead to the government wasting money by subsidising the production of panels that China can make more cheaply.
A new federal government program hopes to boost solar panel production in Australia.
At the heart of the debate is an old and familiar question.
How can Australian manufacturers, governed by tighter regulations and paying more for labour, compete with imported goods?
The answer, clean energy experts say, is to change the question.
"It's about what is the global supply chain and where is it sensible we play a part?" Renate Egan, executive director for the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics and professor of engineering at UNSW, said.
Australia needs to work with China, including welcoming Chinese solar manufacturers into Australia, Professor Egan said.
"It's the only way to do it, they have a 20-year technological innovation advantage over the rest of the world."
Australian solar pioneer Muriel Watt agreed.
"China has spent the last 20 years really pushing hard on their R&D and they have by far the best technology," Dr Watt said.
"We've left it really late, we're starting from scratch for everything."
There are broadly four stages to building a solar panel from scratch:
Of these four stages, steps one and three are the most technically advanced.
Australia's only solar manufacturer, Tindo Solar, designs and makes modules from imported components.
These locally assembled panels represent a mere one per cent of the total number of panels installed in Australia each year.
So where in the supply chain should Australia focus its manufacturing efforts? 
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) last year funded the Australian Photovoltaics Institute (APVI), working with Deloitte and a group of key industry stakeholders, to investigate the feasibility of Australia setting up its own solar manufacturing industry.
The resulting Silicon 2 Solar report published in February outlined a "credible and feasible" pathway for Australia to build a domestic supply chain.
It proposed doing this at a relatively modest scale by global standards, with 10GW of polysilicon production and 1GW to 5GW across the other three steps.
All up, this would require $3.2 billion of government financial support over 10 years.
Polysilicon refineries, like this one in Shihezi, China, are vast industrial facilities. (Supplied: Daqo New Energy)
For comparison, global solar PV manufacturing capacity is expected to reach almost 1,000 GW in 2024.
Australia installs about 5GW of solar annually and this figure could increase to as much as 50GW as fossil fuels are phased out and new energy-intensive industries, like green hydrogen, come online.
Australia should initially focus on the first and last steps of the supply chain: polysilicon refining and solar module assembly, Dr Watt, who co-authored the Silicon 2 Solar report, said.
Australia has several advantages in manufacturing solar panels, Dr Watt said.
Another of Australia's advantages is that it's not China, Dr Watt said. The US, India and Europe are also ramping up solar manufacturing to reduce their dependence on imported Chinese panels. To do this, they're looking for sources of polysilicon outside of China.
"The Europeans and the Americans don't want to buy the Chinese product," Dr Watt said.
"If we can work with them to set up in Australia then we have a better opportunity in those value streams than the rest of the world does."
To complicate the picture, early last year the Chinese government mooted banning the export of technology used to make solar panels, in order to maintain its global dominance in the solar industry.
The ban would potentially apply to technology used in ingot-casting moulds to construct the wafers that are pieced together to create solar cells.
"We'll have to work hard to get the confidence of China to import production lines," Dr Watt said.
"We're hoping our good relations will be really useful here because so many [in the Chinese solar industry] come and go to Australia."
Dr Shi opening China's first solar module production line in 2002 alongside UNSW staff. (Supplied: Martin Green)
Aside from ingot and wafer production, Australia may also need Chinese expertise to refine polysilicon and manufacture solar cells at scale, Professor Egan, also a co-author of Silicon 2 Solar, said.
"I would expect we would do it in collaboration with a partner from China," she said.
Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance, agreed.
"I see manufacturing [intellectual property] as a challenge but also an opportunity," he said.
So why would China, which appears to be wary of losing its global dominance in solar manufacturing, share its production-line secrets with Australia?
One answer is that Chinese companies are looking to diversify their own supply chains and bypass the tariffs countries like India and the US have placed on Chinese-made panels.
Twenty years ago, Australia appeared set to be a global player in the solar panel manufacturing industry. Here's how we lost our head start.
It's in their commercial interests to not confine their solar manufacturing to China, Dr Egan said.
"I think there's an appetite in China itself to diversify.
"The companies in China have shareholders and they operate like companies anywhere else in the world. They want security of supply and access to markets."
Dr Shi said Chinese companies were "interested in analysing the opportunity" of manufacturing in Australia, given Australia already imports most of its solar panels from China and the two countries have a long history of research collaborations.
"When you start from scratch you need support and partners, you need a supply chain and engineering support and talent. Gradually by practising you will start to build local capabilities."
SunTech being listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2005, with Dr Shi in the centre and Australian university researchers also attending. (Supplied: Martin Green)
Chinese manufacturing help may amount to Chinese ownership of solar manufacturers in Australia.
Dr Watt acknowledged this could be politically sensitive.
"You can see the politics the minute someone announces it's going to be a fully Chinese company," she said.
"Although we seem to be quite happy having all sorts of other countries own our water supply and pipelines and everything else."
While preparing the Silicon 2 Solar report, Dr Watt and her co-authors approached Chinese solar manufacturers, to ask them if they'd consider expanding to Australia. After initial surprise, the response was favourable.
"They've set up in Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia as a means of diversifying, but they hadn't thought about Australia," she said.
"They went, 'Oh well, you didn't seem to be a manufacturing country. You don't make anything.'"
Whether Australia does become a solar manufacturing country could partly depend on the fate of the Sydney-based start-up SunDrive.
Founded in 2015 by two UNSW graduates, it quickly became a jewel in the crown of the Australian solar industry, receiving significant government research funding and winning the backing of high-profile investors, including Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes and former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. Dr Shi, also an alumni of UNSW, is its chairman.
SunDrive co-founders David Hu and Vince Allen holding a prototype solar cell in 2020. (Supplied: Sundrive)
SunDrive's key innovation was to develop a patented method to replace the use of silver in solar cells with copper, which is cheaper and more abundant. The result is a solar cell that costs less and generates more electricity, SunDrive said.
It's built a 20MW solar-cell production line in South Sydney and plans to build a commercial-scale factory at the site of the Liddell power station in the Hunter Valley.
The Liddell factory will have a capacity of "hundreds of megawatts", the company's chief commercial officer Maia Schweizer said.
"We'll go as big as we possibly can, while still being able to sell into the Australian market," she said.
But the company has even greater ambitions. Partnerships with other manufacturers, including in China, "opens up an addressable market of hundreds of gigawatts for us globally," Dr Schweizer said.
SunDrive needed at least two things to happen to build its Liddell factory in Australia, she said.
The first was ongoing support from Chinese solar companies.
"We've had extremely strong and positive relationships with Chinese companies … and we expect that to continue.
"We will be absolutely be counting on that to make this first factory a success."
SunDrive solar cells, made at its pilot production line in South Sydney, will soon hit the market. (Supplied: SunDrive)
The second factor was government financial support. Without this, Dr Schweizer said, SunDrive may build its first factory overseas.
Countries such as the US are offering hefty subsidies to entice domestic solar manufacturers.
"Ultimately our investors want to see us actually launch and grow and succeed," Dr Schweizer said
"And so we would look at where would be best to do that."
If that happens, Australia would have once again created the innovation and seen all the value added offshore.
On Tuesday this week ARENA opened a six-week process of public consultation on the design of the $1 billion Solar Sunshot program.
Tindo Solar CEO Richard Petterson said Australia should act quickly to set up the scheme. Europe, the US and India are establishing their own solar manufacturing industries and looking to secure supply chains.
If Australia takes too long, "They'll say, 'We don't need you anymore.'"
Tindo, which has been making solar modules in Australia for 14 years, operates a 150MW factory in Adelaide and recently unveiled plans for a 1GW plant in eastern Australia.
But attracting private investment for the $100m "gigafactory" has proved a challenge, Mr Petterson said.
The capacity of rooftop solar in Australia will eclipse the country's entire electricity demand in coming decades, according to a report that charts the technology's rise.
The US Inflation Reduction Act unleashed billions of dollars in clean energy funding and generated an investment vortex that sucked in capital from around the world. This has made it harder to fund clean energy ventures in Australia.
"It's not reasonable to ask private industry to compete by itself against other government-supported industries," Mr Petterson said.
Without financial help from Solar Sunshot, the Tindo gigafactory won't get built, Mr Petterson said.
He estimates the factory's economies of scale would allow Tindo to make modules 10–15 per cent cheaper than it does already. 
This will make the Australian product about the same price as imported premium-quality Chinese-made panels.
"Why can't we make our own panels?" he said.
"If you apply the argument that we can't, as we've seen over the past 30 years, you end up making less and less things onshore.
"If we keep applying it we'll have almost no industry here."
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Enel Colombia has started commercial operations at its 256 MW Atlántico solar plant, located between the municipalities of Sabanalarga and Usiacurí in northern Colombia. The commissioning marks the completion of the company’s three-plant solar complex in the Atlántico department, with a combined installed capacity of approximately 985 MW.
The complex comprises Guayepo I and II, Colombia’s largest individual solar project at 462.4 MW, Guayepo III (266 MW), and Atlántico (256 MW). According to Enel, Guayepo I and II and Guayepo III recently increased their net effective capacity by 5 MW and 20 MW, respectively.
The start of commercial operations at Atlántico follows a testing phase that began earlier this year. In March, Enel announced that the plant had started supplying electricity to Colombia’s National Interconnected System (SIN), following the completion of grid connection infrastructure developed by ISA Energía.
The Atlántico plant features 403,920 solar modules across 34 arrays, mounted on tracking systems. The facility spans approximately 415 hectares and is expected to generate 525 GWh of electricity annually.
The project involved an investment of approximately $200 million. Its grid connection infrastructure includes a 3.5 km transmission line to the Sabanalarga substation, incorporating a 500-meter underground section.
Enel said construction of the Atlántico plant created more than 2,500 jobs, with local residents accounting for more than 75% of the workforce. The company also implemented training programs in partnership with Colombia’s National Training Service (SENA) to develop local workforce skills.
With all three plants now commercially operational, the Atlántico complex could generate enough electricity to meet the needs of approximately 3 million people, according to Enel.
In May, Enel announced that its installed solar capacity had exceeded 1 GWac, although Atlántico was still undergoing testing at the time and was the only one of its six solar plants yet to enter commercial operation.
Following the commissioning, Enel Colombia operates six utility-scale solar plants across the departments of Cesar, Magdalena, and Atlántico, with a combined capacity exceeding 1,404 MW. The company said its portfolio accounts for approximately 50% of Colombia’s operational, centrally dispatched solar capacity.
The projects have also received financial backing from the European Investment Bank (EIB), which disbursed the first $100 million tranche of a $200 million financing package for Guayepo III and Atlántico in July 2025.
Enel said the additional solar capacity will help diversify Colombia’s electricity mix and complement hydropower generation, particularly during periods affected by El Niño weather conditions.
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Dentons advises mBank and Bank Millennium on financing of 135 MW solar photovoltaic project in Poland  Dentons
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While Australia is seeking to support a domestic solar industry through the recently introduced Future Made in Australia Bill and the Federal Government’s $1 billion Sunshot program, one constant question is how Australia can hope to compete with China?  
Australia currently manufactures around one per cent of the solar panels installed across the country. Recent reports and analysis highlight the scale of the challenge in trying to develop homegrown solar manufacturing, as does the example of the US, which has been looking to support its own capabilities while introducing measures to also restrict Chinese imports. We take a look.
Early Adopter
Australia has been an early developer of solar technology and more recently a world leader in adopting rooftop solar.
Globally, solar continues to grow strongly and to such an extent that the rate of growth has consistently surpassed forecasts (see figure 1) for solar installations.
Figure 1 Actual vs Projected growth in solar globally
Source: The Economist
According to BloombergNEF the photovoltaic industry added about 444GW of new capacity last year, or 76 per cent growth on 2022. Prices of solar modules are at record lows – estimated to be US 9-11 cents per watt. End-user markets are booming while manufacturers struggle to make a profit. BloombergNEF forecasts that installations this year will top 520GW.
In this global adoption of solar, China has become the dominant player. The scale and growth of China’s production is shown in figure 2 below. Last year China’s solar exports hit a new record. Exports were dominated by modules which reached a new high of 227GW, while solar cells had the most rapid growth at 61.6 per cent to 38GW.  At the same time export revenue dropped 5.6 per cent to US$49 billion[i], reflecting the significant drop in prices, driven by Chinese oversupply.
China is expected to have more than 80 per cent of the world’s polysilicon, wafer, cell, and module manufacturing capacity between 2023 to 2026, according to a recent report by Wood Mackenzie.  It can now manufacture an estimated 1TW (1000GW) of solar capacity annually with Chinese manufacturers continuing to plan for increased capacity. Only now is this being addressed. This week the Chinese Government released a draft regulation to limit expansions given the glut in supply.  The regulation would require manufacturers to refrain from establishing new PV production capacity and instead focus on technological innovation, product quality and reducing reduction costs.
Figure 2: Global solar module production 2015-2022 (GW)
Source: CSIS
With 99 per cent of Australia’s solar panels imported, there is only one manufacturer – Tindo Solar, an Adelaide-based company that assembles solar panels using imported silicon cells.
The Federal Government is keen to increase the capacity of local manufacturing to capture a bigger market share. It is attempting to achieve that  through its Future Made in Australia policy, which will support renewables development locally, and the $1 Sunshot program (more of this below). The challenge for Australia, like the US and elsewhere, is how to find a niche in a market dominated by the Chinese. The Australian Government is clear that it is not trying to replace all the solar panels that we import from China but wants to have local manufacturing capture around 20 per cent. But it is still a significant leap to make. The question is: Would we be better off just piggy backing off what others are doing – if the aim is to diversity supply, instead of risking taxpayer funds? The American Story
The US experience to date may be instructive.  Our Future Made in Australia is a modest attempt to support local industry in the way that the US major support mechanism, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), is doing, however on a far greater scale.
The IRA is just the latest attempt to support US solar manufacturing. Over the last 15 years there have been tariffs, trade policy and other credits and support mechanisms put in place. Leading US think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) lists these support mechanisms:
The IIJA and IRA are expected to make US manufacture modules 25-40 per cent cheaper for domestic products than Asian imports while increasing US solar capacity by 30-40 per cent by 2030 through their domestic manufacturing credits, extended Investment Tax Credits (ITCs) and Production Tax Credits (PTCs) incentives, according to Boston Consulting[iv].
Yet it still lags behind China’s solar industry, who’s panels are still estimated to be 44 per cent cheaper than US manufactured panels, emphasising how far the US still has to go.[v] Wood Mackenzie estimates Chinese solar modules cost 9-11 cents per watt compared to 27-33 cents for those produced in the US. The IRA has managed to spur on an estimated 49 new solar manufacturing projects in two years (including some supported by Chinese companies) but US manufacturing capacity is estimated to be 26GW versus the 1000GW in China.
The US has also used various tariffs and restrictions under the US’s Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA). Under the US Section 201, the Trump Administration imposed tariffs starting at 30 per cent on imported solar cells and modules in 2018, but excluded bifacial panels (which then became the main solar import, accounting for 98 per cent of US imports). In June 2022 the Biden Administration extended the tariffs but allowed imports for two years (ended in May) from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. As a result, Chinese companies were able to manufacture in those countries and export panels to the US.
Figure 3 US Imports Q1 2024
Source: S&P Global Market Intelligence
In May, the US Government increased tariffs on Chinese solar cell imports to 50 per cent. Stating: “The tariff increase will protect against China’s policy-driven overcapacity that depresses prices and inhibits the development of solar capacity outside of China. China has used unfair practices to dominate upwards of 80 to 90% of certain parts of the global solar supply chain, and is trying to maintain that status quo. Chinese policies and nonmarket practices are flooding global markets with artificially cheap solar modules and panels, undermining investment in solar manufacturing outside of China.”
It also introduced duties on solar cells from Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam[vi]. Last month the US International Trade Commission opted to proceed with an investigation into whether solar panels from Southeast Asia are stifling US manufacturing.
S&P Global Market Intelligence reported in the first quarter of this year, solar panel imports to the US “remained robust”, and were up nearly 14 per cent on the previous year and just shy of the record of 15GW. Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam accounted for around 87.5 per cent of the imports.
The US is not alone in introducing local content requirements as can be seen in figure 4.
Figure 4:
LCR = Local content requirements
Source: Wood Mackenzie
 
Back Home
Back to Australia. Aside from its Future Made in Australia policy, the Australian Government has announced $1 billion in support to the domestic production of solar panels through the Sunshot program.
The program aims to support innovative manufacturing facilities in Australia across the solar PV supply chain. The solar PV supply chain includes polysilicon production, production of ingots, wafers, solar PV cells, and solar module assembly.  Detailed work on the Sunshot program is currently underway under the auspices of ARENA with round one to be launched in August and applications for support due in November.
ARENA aims to make Round One funding decisions before the end of December 2024. ARENA has already been supporting solar developments.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen argues there is a pressing economic need for a local solar industry and told the ABC: “I’m not suggesting we can make all the solar panels we need in Australia, but we can build a greater sovereign capability. And we should.”
He believes Australian manufacturing can meet around 20 per cent of Australia’s needs with the right policy settings.
ARENA’s CEO Darren Miller argues Australia shouldn’t aim to be the world’s top PV manufacturer, but we should seek to make our supply chain less vulnerable to external shocks.
“The scale at which solar needs to be deployed to meet our climate targets and deliver on the renewable energy superpower vision means that we cannot rely solely on importing cheap solar panels from overseas,” he wrote in an Australian Financial Review opinion piece.
Australia is seeking to carve out its own niche, but given the ongoing growth on Chinese capacity, as well as moves by the US and Europe, that will not be easy.
Productivity Commissioner Danielle Wood has voiced significant concerns about the idea, arguing there is “nothing wrong” with buying cheap solar panels from China. And the former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chair, Rod Sims (who now chairs the Superpower Institute) also argues Australia could piggyback on overseas efforts to diversify supply and that we should be aiming to get the cheapest panels we can to support the energy transition.
The government’s ambitions for local manufacturing will likely run into the reality faced by most other countries – the sheer scale and experience of the Chinese solar manufacturing sector. Chinese panels are well made and very competitive. And as the US has found, simply trying to catch up and diversify is difficult, expensive and requires years of sustained effort.
[i] Wood Mackenzie analysis
[ii] While not having the same objectives the Federal Government’s major solar support initiative is also called the Sunshot program
[iii] See Goals of the Solar Energy Technologies Office | Department of Energy
[iv] PowerPoint Presentation (breakthroughenergy.org)
[v] Assessing the United States’ Solar Power Play, Center for Strategic and International Studies, July 2024
[vi] 4 Key Takeaways | Solar Industry & Chinese Tariff Update (ktslaw.com)
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Lightweight, flexible and semi-transparent perovskite photovoltaics could expand solar deployment across buildings, vehicles, agriculture and smart electronics.
Solar energy is moving beyond conventional rooftops and utility-scale installations as next-generation photovoltaic technologies open up new opportunities for renewable power generation. While traditional silicon solar panels remain a proven solution, their weight, rigidity and opaque design can limit their use in certain buildings, vehicles and other applications. Perovskite photovoltaics (PV) offer an alternative, with the potential to transform previously unsuitable surfaces into energy-generating structures.
According to IDTechEx’s report, Perovskite Photovoltaics 2027–2037: Technologies, Markets & Trends, the technology’s commercial potential extends beyond high-efficiency perovskite-silicon tandem cells. Single-junction and flexible perovskite devices are also attracting attention for specialised applications where lightweight construction, flexibility and adjustable transparency are important.
One promising area is building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV), where solar cells are incorporated into building materials such as windows, façades and roofing. Lightweight perovskite modules could also offer opportunities for industrial warehouses and commercial facilities with roofs that cannot support the additional weight of conventional solar installations. However, practical deployment will depend on durability, weather resistance, service life and installation costs.
Perovskite PV could also support the development of agrivoltaics, where solar generation is combined with agricultural activities. By adjusting light transmission, semi-transparent solar cells may allow suitable amounts of sunlight to reach crops while generating electricity. Other potential applications include vehicle-integrated photovoltaics (VIPV), roadside noise barriers and other infrastructure surfaces that offer limited opportunities for conventional solar panels.
At a smaller scale, indoor perovskite photovoltaics could provide power for Internet of Things (IoT) devices, smart sensors and connected electronics. These devices often operate under artificial lighting and require relatively little energy, making indoor PV a potential alternative to disposable batteries in selected applications.
The commercial outlook for perovskite technology is becoming increasingly specialised. Rather than competing with silicon solely on conversion efficiency, different perovskite designs are being developed to meet the requirements of specific markets. Flexible devices, semi-transparent modules and tandem cells each offer distinct advantages, depending on the intended application.
Despite this potential, several challenges remain, including long-term stability, moisture and heat resistance, manufacturing scalability and the management of lead-containing materials in many perovskite formulations. Addressing these issues will be essential to achieving reliable performance and widespread commercial adoption.
IDTechEx’s research examines technology development, manufacturing dynamics, cost structures, industry participants and emerging market trends. It also assesses developments from material innovations and pilot production lines to commercialisation strategies, providing insights into the technology’s anticipated evolution over the next decade.
As the solar industry expands beyond conventional power plants and rooftops, perovskite photovoltaics could create new opportunities for integrating renewable energy into everyday structures and devices. IDTechEx’s report, Perovskite Photovoltaics 2027–2037: Technologies, Markets & Trends, provides a detailed analysis of nine application sectors, including market value and capacity forecasts, to help technology developers, investors and end-users assess the opportunities ahead.

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Enviromena has acquired the 27.5 MWp Essex solar project as the first step in a 233 MWp partnership with Innova.
Enviromena, a UK-based independent power producer, has acquired the 27.5 MWp Parkgate Farm solar project near Braintree, Essex, from leading UK developer Innova Renewables.
The acquisition is expected to be the first of a number of transactions between the two companies, through which Enviromena expects to acquire 233 MWp of solar and 75 MW of co-located battery energy storage system (BESS) projects from Innova before the end of 2026.
Parkgate is fully consented and secured a Contract for Difference (CfD) in Allocation Round 6 (AR6) and is expected to be energised in summer 2028. Once energised, it will generate more than 28 000 MWh of clean electricity each year, enough to power the equivalent of over 10 000 homes annually.
The project will be Enviromena’s second large scale solar farm in Essex, following the construction of its flagship 71 MWp Medebridge solar farm near South Ockendon which has been operational since September 2025.
Chris Marsh, CEO at Enviromena, said: “We’re delighted to be working with Innova, with Parkgate marking the first milestone in a portfolio of projects that we plan to deliver together.
“This is a significant opportunity for both businesses, and we’re looking forward to progressing the wider portfolio through construction and into operation. We’ve established a strong relationship with the Innova team throughout this process, and we hope this will be the foundation of a successful, long-term relationship.”
Daniel Mushin, CFIO at Innova, said: “We are delighted to announce the sale of Parkgate to Enviromena. As the first project in a broader relationship between our organisations, this transaction continues Innova’s success on our renewable energy pipeline and our collaborative approach to project development.
“We look forward to working together on future opportunities and would like to thank our advisors PKF Corporate Finance, Burges Salmon, and OWC for their support on this transaction.”
Further acquisitions under the partnership are expected to complete in the coming weeks, adding to Enviromena’s growing portfolio of CfD-backed solar projects across the UK.
 
 
The Autumn issue of 2026 is available now! The new issue begins with a regional report on Asia Pacific, looking at the region’s transition from building capacity to building systems. The issue also explores topics such as offshore wind foundations, solar maintenance, training the new workforce, inspection & maintenance, and more! With insights from experts such as Everllence, BW Ideol, EM&I, Watson Farley & Williams, and many more, make sure to check out this issue now.
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China’s solar export market shows significant shifts in 2025, as global solar supply chains increasingly diversify. Ember now tracks and publishes cell and wafer exports from China in addition to panels, on a monthly basis, available via the interactive data tool and open dataset. 
In this commentary, we provide a brief analysis of the cells and wafers dataset. The key takeaways are:
Cell and wafer exports are more than making up for the stagnation in Chinese solar panel exports so far in 2025. To understand the growing global solar supply chain, it’s now crucial to track products upstream of panels. India is driving growth in cell exports, whilst panels must now find new markets to go to.
China exports not only significant amounts of solar panels, but also increasingly significant amounts of solar cells and wafers. China accounts for the largest share of manufacturing capacity at every stage of the solar panel supply chain. According to the IEA’s latest Photovoltaic Power Systems report, in 2023 China produced 98% of solar wafers, 92% of cells and 85% of panels globally.
As global pressures to manufacture panels locally have increased, the supply chain is changing and it is no longer sufficient to track only panel exports. Based on the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China (GACC) and Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) reporting of exports, Ember now reports the monthly exports of these products by country. Details of how this dataset is compiled can be found in the Methodology.
For the first time since GACC reported panel and cell exports separately in 2022, panel export growth is stagnating. Cumulative panel exports have fallen by 5.2% year-on-year in the first 6 months of 2025 (-6.7 GW). Cell and wafer exports, however, have increased by 76% (+19 GW) and 26% (+8.6 GW) respectively. This increase means that combined solar product capacity exported by China is 11% higher than in the first half of 2024. The 208 GW that has been exported so far this year is more than twice Germany’s total installed solar capacity as of the end of 2024.  
The growth in cell and wafer exports is a multi-year trend. From 2022 to 2024, cell exports have increased from 23 GW to 57 GW (+144%). Wafers increased from 36 GW to 60 GW (+67%) over the same period. So far in 2025, China has exported more solar cells (7.5 GW) and wafers (7 GW) on average each month than the total installed solar capacity of Portugal (6.3 GW). This growth has pushed cells and wafers to now make up more than 40% of China’s exported solar products.
Prices of solar products have fallen dramatically in recent years, with production innovations and the rapid expansion of manufacturing capacity contributing. After a silicon price spike in 2021-2022, caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, cells now cost less than a quarter of the average price across 2022. Meanwhile panel prices have fallen 63% over this period. Prices of Chinese products have stabilised since late 2024, amid intensifying industry and government efforts to maintain profitability. China’s extraordinary solar capacity installations in H1 2025, driven by a rush to deploy ahead of market rule changes, have helped buoy prices. It is not clear how prices will evolve in the second half of the year.
Panel price reductions are in large part due to the fall in cell prices. Since August 2022, the price of cells and panels exported from China has fallen by $0.16 and $0.20 per Watt respectively (cells from $0.19/W to $0.03/W, panels from $0.29/W to $0.09/W). More than 50% of the raw cost of Chinese solar panels is now contributed by components other than solar cells, such as glass facing and the aluminium border.
As installations slow and stockpiles are accessed, European and Latin American panel imports are down in 2025, driving a fall in China’s total panel exports. Amid slowing deployment of rooftop solar and drawdown of warehouse stocks, EU solar capacity additions are expected to fall for the first time since 2016. The Netherlands, a major re-export hub of solar panels for Europe, is importing 30% fewer (-7.5 GW) panels in the first half of 2025 compared to the same period last year. This is the second consecutive year of decline in solar exports to Europe. In Brazil, meanwhile, panel imports from China decreased by 42% and solar installations by 36% in the first half of 2025, partly because of delays in grid connection availability. 
Whilst Europe dominated demand for total solar product exports until 2023, in the first 6 months of 2025, Asia imported 114 GW, more than twice as much as Europe’s 54 GW. Increased demand for cells in India, Indonesia and Türkiye is reshaping solar trade. In the first half of 2025, these countries accounted for 75% of global demand for Chinese solar cells.
India is rapidly building up its domestic panel and cell manufacturing industry. The Indian Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has reported that in the financial year of 2024, 36 GW of panel capacity and 16 GW of cell capacity were added. As of March 2025, panel and cell manufacturing capacities stood at 68 GW and 25 GW respectively, more than double the solar capacity India installed in 2024 (32 GW). 120 GW of panel capacity is targeted by 2030.
This manufacturing capacity aims both to supply the domestic market, and to export to other countries. So far exports have been almost entirely to the US, which restricts Chinese imports via the UFLPA. Following recent scrutiny of Indian panels containing Chinese cells, and the US’s efforts to protect its own domestic industry, Indian exports to the US have fallen by 30% in GW terms in the first half of 2025.
With panel manufacturing capacity outpacing cell capacity, India currently relies on cell imports to feed its panel factories. In the first half of 2025, India’s cell imports have almost doubled compared to the same period last year, increasing from 11 GW to 21 GW. This increase accounts for 52% of the growth in Chinese cell exports between H1 2024 and H1 2025.
With the recent decision to extend ALMM status to domestic cell manufacturers from June 2026, India is now aiming to accelerate its domestic cell manufacturing capacity, with 65 GW expected by 2030, less than current panel manufacturing capacity. Wafer imports are now also accelerating to feed cell production.
Beyond its role in global solar trade, India’s domestic clean energy buildout is also accelerating. In June 2025, India hit a milestone of over 50% capacity from clean sources for the first time, with solar now making up 24% of India’s total capacity. With solar capacity set to double in many states by 2030-35, India’s development of local industry underpins its commitment to clean power.
Ember is an independent, not-for-profit energy think tank that aims to shift the world to clean electricity using data. It gathers, curates and analyses data on the global power sector and its impact on the climate, using cutting edge technologies and making data and research as open as possible. It uses data-driven insights to shift the conversation towards high impact policies and empower other advocates to do the same. Founded in 2008 as Sandbag, it formerly focused on analysing, monitoring and reforming the EU carbon market, before rebranding as Ember in 2020. Its team of electricity analysts and other support staff are based around the world in the EU, UK, Türkiye, India, China and Indonesia.
The IEA has stated that China’s solar photovoltaic exports account for 80% of the global market. While there is a wide variety of products that make up the solar supply chain, panels, cells and wafers make up the majority of exports by trade value, and can be expressed in GW terms. Ember tracks these products to give a clearer picture of the global solar supply chain.
Ember’s China solar exports dataset is sourced from the General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China (GACC):
Average monthly panel, cell and wafer prices are sourced from weekly InfoLink Consulting Group publications. Prices are reported in USD/W for panels and cells and USD/pc for wafers. The market shares of each type for panels, cells and wafers are based on annual shares reported by the IEA and InfoLink. These annual shares are scaled to estimated monthly market shares, used to weight the types and calculate an average monthly price.
Prices are interpolated for missing months in 2017. The monthly product prices are included in the data download.
The capacity (MW) of the solar export products in this dataset is not reported by GACC. Ember estimates it using the following methods:
GACC releases the monthly solar export data with a one month lag (except for January and February data, which is released together in March). The GACC release is usually available on the 20th of the month, and this dataset is updated shortly afterwards.
GACC export data records the first country products are exported to, which may not be the final destination country. This is particularly evident for exports to The Netherlands, which is a major re-export hub for European countries.
The price to capacity conversion of panels and cells is based on the average prices of each product type reported for that month. This should be regarded as an indicative value useful for comparing broad trends. In reality, the exact amounts of each product type and price they were traded at are not available in the customs data, and may vary by country.
Rini Sucahyo, Claire Kaelin, Dave Jones, Sam Hawkins, Duttatreya Das, Biqing Yang, James Blackwell
Michele D’Ottavio / Alamy
Ember is an energy think tank that aims to accelerate the clean energy transition with data and policy. Ember is the trading name of Ember Energy Research CIC, a Community Interest Company registered in England & Wales #06714443. ‘Ember’ is a trademark held at the United Kingdom and European Union Intellectual Property Offices. All content is released under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC-BY-4.0). Website powered by 100% renewable electricity.
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Climate action, News, Waste reduction
King County is celebrating the 25th anniversary of green building practices that have applied to all capital projects led by county departments.
Twenty-five years after King County committed to green building practices, nearly 7,500 families live in affordable green homes and critical infrastructure is better prepared for climate impacts.
King County is celebrating 25 years of green building practices that have produced thousands of healthy, energy-efficient affordable housing units and built critical infrastructure prepared for climate impacts.
Nearly 7,500 families live in affordable green homes as a result of the Executive Order establishing green building practices that King County adopted in 2001, later codified as the Green Building Ordinance in 2005. King County also finances affordable housing developed by nonprofit and community partners. County-financed housing projects are among the capital investments subject to King County’s green building requirements, helping extend the benefits of healthier, more energy-efficient buildings to people and families living on lower incomes.
All capital projects owned by King County – wastewater treatment facilities, Metro Transit facilities, upgrades at the County Courthouse, Harborview Medical Center, and King County International Airport, recycling and transfer stations, fish passage restorations, park and trail construction, roads and sidewalks, flood-risk reduction projects, and the Pier 50 terminal built for the King County Water Taxi among many others – applied the principles of the Green Building Ordinance.
“King County’s longstanding commitment to both equity and green buildings have made it possible for thousands of families to comfortably live in affordable homes that are healthy and cost less to heat, cool, and maintain,” said Executive Zahilay. “We’ve also built critical infrastructure designed to withstand climate impacts, promoting a sustainable future for generations to come.”
King County’s Green Building Ordinance guides the building process, not just the finished product. As a result, all county-led or financed capital projects are designed and constructed with green building and sustainable development features. That can include sustainable, cost-effective development that minimizes environmental impact, reduces energy and water consumption, diverts construction materials from landfills, integrates equity opportunities, improves ecological habitat, provides open space, alternative transportation options, community amenities, promotes resiliency, and improves air quality.
Green building practices contribute to King County’s commitment to equity and social justice. For affordable housing residents, investments can support healthier indoor environments and reduce energy costs. For affordable housing providers, energy- and water-efficient buildings can reduce operating costs over the life of a property.
One goal of King County’s broader green building efforts is to increase participation in county projects, apprenticeship and training, increased contracts with local companies, integrate design and service priorities from the community, and increase representation of diverse communities, culture, and history.
King County’s longstanding commitment to green building practices has made access to healthy homes and workplaces that cost less to heat, cool, and maintain while also improving air quality. It’s also better prepared the region’s infrastructure and habitat restoration projects for increased flood risks and other climate impacts.
King County’s Green Building Team developed resources that help capital project teams meet the requirements of the ordinance, assisting with planning design, construction, remodeling, renovation, maintenance, and operations. Applying green practices have increased energy efficiency, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, waste, and water use, and improved stormwater management.
The Solid Waste Division’s Construction and Demolition Program aligns with the Green Building Ordinance while promoting equitable access to green jobs that offer living-wage salaries. One example is a workforce training program that promotes deconstruction, an alternative to traditional demolition that can reduce the amount of valuable material that ends up in the landfill by up to 90%.
The anniversary celebration organized by the Solid Waste Division was hosted at the new White Center HUB and Canopy Apartments, a community-led development that brings together 76 affordable homes with health and dental care, youth and family services, and community gathering spaces.
The development incorporates healthier, more resilient building practices, including non-toxic materials, fossil-fuel-free systems, solar panels, EV charging, and on-site stormwater treatment. Mature trees were also preserved to reduce heat impacts
King County invested more than $16.1 million in the development between 2022 and 2023, including affordable housing investments through the Department of Community and Human Services’ Housing and Finance Program. Canopy Apartments serves households earning between 30% and 60% area median income, with 24 homes reserved for large families.
Infrastructure throughout King County is far more energy efficient today than it was before the ordinance went into effect.
Solar panels cover 74% of the rooftop at the new South County Recycling and Transfer Station, providing more than half of the energy required to operate the 84,000-square-foot facility. The Vashon Recycling and Transfer Station is Zero Energy Certified, meaning the solar array generates more renewable energy each year than the facility consumes from the power grid.
The first-of-its-kind battery system installed at West Point Treatment Plant in Seattle has proven to be effective at keeping critical pumps operating during disruptions that can occur during intense storms, which are happening more often due to climate change.
King County also applies green building practices at projects on natural landscapes. Floodplain restoration projects – including the largest in King County’s history – have improved salmon habitat and reduced flood risks.
Multiple divisions at the Department of Natural Resources and Parks have earned Salmon-Safe certification this decade. King County Parks is the largest park agency in the nation to be certified for its maintenance and operations. The Solid Waste Division’s new recycling and transfer station in Algona will be the first facility of its kind when it achieves certification. A major sewer upgrade in Bellevue is the first of its kind to be certified, simultaneously modernizing infrastructure and improving habitat.
King County’s Solid Waste Division is where the county’s green building work first started. The Green Building Ordinance was ultimately borne from a Solid Waste GreenTools’ initiative to manage construction and demolition waste from county capital projects. The GreenTools team continues to steward the ordinance today, providing resources to update and implement the ordinance to ensure all county divisions utilize the best and highest green building standards that contribute to responsible development in the community.
Joe Basile, Solid Waste Division, 206-848-0496
Doug Williams, Department of Natural Resources and Parks, 206-477-4543
Visit our Newsroom for additional resources
Public Affairs Manager King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks View all posts by Chad Lewis
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The findings come as demand for critical raw materials continues to rise. Electric vehicles, solar power, battery storage and expanding electricity grids all require substantial mineral supplies.
However, new mines, refineries and processing plants take years to develop. Consequently, recovering materials from existing products could help ease future supply pressures.
Rystad Energy estimates that recyclable materials from solar panels are worth around EUR 1.7 billion today. By 2050, that value could reach EUR 69 billion.
The consultancy bases its projections on global solar deployment and expected increases in material prices. Nevertheless, the potential contribution varies significantly between materials.
Recycled silver could meet 21% of solar manufacturers’ requirements in 2035, it says. By comparison, recycled copper would supply only around 2% of demand.
These projections specifically consider panels installed in 2020 and recycled by 2035. Therefore, manufacturers could use installation records to estimate future supplies of recovered materials.
Additionally, solar farm operators could incorporate potential revenues from material recovery into their decommissioning plans.
Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Newcastle in Australia have demonstrated a process that recovers almost all the silver from end-of-life solar-cell material. The development could prove significant as Australia prepares for a growing volume of retired solar panels. It could generate more than one million tonnes of this waste by 2050.
Researchers estimate that the panels could contain between 300 and 500 tonnes of silver. Although recyclers commonly recover glass and aluminium, extracting silver remains more difficult and expensive.
The Newcastle team uses froth flotation, a technique traditionally associated with mineral processing. The process combines water, air and relatively small amounts of chemicals to separate and concentrate valuable materials.
During continuous pilot testing, researchers processed solar-cell material equivalent to 468 kg of rooftop panels. Silver recovery remained close to 100%, while the final concentrate represented just 1.25% of the original material.
‘We’re applying proven mineral-processing technology to one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the renewable energy sector,’ says Mahshid Firouzi, deputy director of the university’s Centre for Critical Minerals and Urban Mining.
For her, the question is no longer whether recyclers can recover silver but whether recovery can be commercially viable. Despite the promising recovery rate, commercial viability remains a challenge.
Solar panel recycling currently costs considerably more than sending panels to landfill. Silver represents one of the highest-value materials within solar cells so Firouzi believes more efficient recovery could improve the recycling economics and reduce material losses.

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New Delhi: For a country that recorded all of the world’s 50 hottest cities this April, India’s ability to harness the sun’s energy took decades to take off. It wasn’t until 2011-12 that the country crossed a critical milestone: 1 gigawatt of installed solar power capacity. The next significant milestone was 100 GW, achieved more than a decade later, in early 2025.
India has galloped since, adding nearly 50GW of solar power capacity in 2025 and reaching 168.04GW by 31 August this year. It’s a stellar achievement. But it is beginning to strain the country’s vast electricity grid.
India’s transmission infrastructure is struggling to carry all the electricity generated when the sun shines. Surplus solar power can congest the grid, while inadequate storage means excess energy cannot always be saved for use when demand rises.
At the same time, fluctuations in solar power generation, depending on the time of day and weather, make it harder to balance electricity supply and demand, and maintain the grid’s frequency within the permitted range. If operators cannot correct such imbalances, the risk of wider disruptions increases.
In some instances, grid operators have asked solar farms to reduce or stop generation, a process known as curtailment, even when sunshine is abundant.
No easy solution is in sight, threatening to hamper one of the world’s largest energy transition efforts—from fossil fuels to clean energy—by the world’s third-largest generator of renewable energy.
“We are seeing increasing stress on the grid, particularly in the form of transmission congestion, renewable energy curtailment, and greater balancing requirements,” said Prashant Sinha, chief executive of Resonia Ltd, a power transmission firm. “However, these operational stresses should not automatically be characterized as grid instability.”
As India’s green energy drive enters its next phase, the focus has turned to strengthening the country’s electricity infrastructure. This includes building adequate capacity to carry electricity from solar and wind farms to the power grid and then to factories, homes and other consumers.
Consequently, installing new renewable energy capacity has taken a back seat. About 14.7GW of renewable energy projects were awarded in FY26, down from 40.6GW in FY25 and 47.3GW in FY24, according to rating agency Icra. The slowdown has continued this fiscal year, with only 4.7GW awarded as of 10 August.
On the other hand, 4,301 circuit kilometres (ckm) of transmission capacity was installed in the first five months of this fiscal year (April–August), according to data from the Central Electricity Authority (CEA), the country’s apex power-sector planning body. That is 58% of the 7,403 ckm target for FY27.
In February last year, the CEA advised state power utilities and renewable energy implementation agencies to incorporate two-hour co-located energy storage systems, equivalent to 10% of installed solar project capacity, in future solar tenders.
On 3 September this year, the authority proposed mandating two-hour battery energy storage systems (BESS), with capacity equivalent to at least 10% of installed capacity, for all new solar and onshore wind projects commissioned after 1 July 2027. These systems can store solar and wind energy when it is generated for use later.
India currently has only 8.6 gigawatt hour (GWh) of BESS capacity. Another 42.53 GWh is under construction, 38.42 GWh has been awarded, and 65.57 GWh is in the tendering process. That amounts to 155.12 GWh of existing and planned BESS capacity, while the CEA projects a requirement of 236 GWh by 2032.
India also has a it at various stages of development. These plants can absorb surplus renewable power during off-peak hours and release it when demand rises. The CEA has a roadmap to install another 100GW of pumped storage project (PSP) capacity by 2035-36.
In the first six months of FY27 (April–September), India added 24.56GW of renewable energy capacity, including 20.79GW of solar and 3.11GW of wind capacity, show data from the Union ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE).
Overall, India had 308.02GW of installed non-fossil fuel-based electricity capacity as of 30 September, including 299.24GW of renewable energy capacity. Another 183.14GW is under implementation, while 51.29GW has been tendered. India is targeting 500GW of non-fossil fuel-based power capacity by 2030.
“The idea is to sustain the current momentum. We have achieved about 50GW of RE in a year. The idea should be to continue this momentum and keep on increasing from here,” MNRE secretary Santosh Kumar Sarangi said in a recent interview with Mint.
“If you go by CEA’s projection then by 2035-36, another 400GW of RE is expected to be added. And the confidence for this comes because the battery energy storage system cost has also gone down. So if more and more RE has to come then more of BESS, more of PSP will have to supplement RE,” he added.
An MNRE spokesperson said the ministry’s focus was on expanding transmission infrastructure, improving forecasting and scheduling, and coordinating with the ministry of power, the CEA, state governments and utilities to minimize congestion and renewable energy curtailment.
“India’s energy transition is moving from capacity addition towards delivering reliable, affordable and round-the-clock green power,” the spokesperson said in an email reply to Mint’s queries.
“We are promoting round-the-clock (RTC), firm and dispatchable renewable energy (FDRE), and solar-wind hybrid projects integrated with storage to ensure that renewable electricity is available in line with demand, including during evening and peak hours,” the spokesperson added. “Battery energy storage systems and pumped storage hydropower will play a critical role in balancing the variability of renewable energy.”
While solar power will continue to be complemented by wind, small hydro and other renewable energy sources, the spokesperson said “timely signing of power purchase agreements and power sale agreements, along with effective project implementation, will also be essential to translate awarded capacity into operational projects”.
The spokesperson also noted that the CEA’s March 2026 transmission plan envisages transmission infrastructure to integrate more than 900GW of non-fossil capacity by 2035-36.
“India’s energy transition is entering a more demanding phase. The focus is no longer limited to adding renewable capacity; it is equally about ensuring the grid can integrate and deliver that clean power when and where it is needed,” said Simarpreet Singh, CEO of Hartek Power, an engineering, procurement, and construction company focused on the power and solar sectors.
India moved from treating solar power as a rural-electrification technology and a corporate social responsibility initiative to making it a central pillar of its energy system. However, for several years solar power remained expensive with no real progress in terms of installation.
The Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission launched in January 2010 provided some support, starting with modest targets of 1GW of grid-connected solar in Phase I and enhancing it to a 100GW solar target for 2022.
The Solar Parks Scheme, introduced in 2014, brought about much of the push for solar power as it aimed to resolve a key bottleneck: land. Instead of every developer separately acquiring land, obtaining clearances and building transmission connections, solar parks could provide common roads, substations and transmission infrastructure.
The scale-up thereafter was extraordinary—from about 2.8GW of installed solar capacity at the end of March 2014 to 168.04GW as on 31 August 2026. Of this, about 124GW were ground-mounted projects, 32.6GW were grid-connected rooftop solar units, 4.8GW were solar components in hybrid projects, and 6.6GW off-grid solar.
The launch of the PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana in February 2024, the flagship scheme to install 30GW of rooftop solar capacity at a cost of about ₹1 crore, also contributed to a pickup in solar installation. However, it has not added to grid strain because it primarily caters to households, and only excess power can be sold to the discoms.
By 2018, India’s investment of $20 billion in adding solar power capacity was greater than the investment in all fossil-fuel electricity generation combined, according to the International Energy Agency. In 2022, around $15 billion was invested in Indian solar capacity, marking a revival from Covid-hit FY21.
More broadly, India’s clean-energy investment reached $68 billion in 2023, almost 40% above its 2016–20 average, while in 2024 an extraordinary 83% of power-sector investment, about $100 billion, went to clean energy.
According to Ember, a Norway-based think tank focused on energy transition, transmission constraints led to the loss of 300 GWh of clean electricity in India in the first quarter of 2026 (January–March), particularly at grid pooling stations in the northern and western regions.
On 30 March alone, India lost 34 GWh of clean generation, equivalent to the daily electricity use of about 5 million urban middle-class households, Ember said in a report in May.
The analysis also found that total renewable energy curtailment in Q1 2026 reached around 470 GWh, of which 300 GWh stemmed directly from transmission constraints. The northern region accounted for 178 GWh and the western region for 122 GWh. The southern region recorded none, reflecting better synchronisation between generation and grid expansion.
Duttatreya Das, Ember’s energy analyst for Asia, said India’s renewable energy curtailment arising from transmission constraints is beginning to reach “materially significant levels”.
Inadequate transmission capacity has left about 40GW of power purchase agreements (PPAs) and power sale agreements (PSAs) unsigned, according to the Ember report. This 40GW of capacity, mostly solar, lacks integrated storage and is therefore less attractive to electricity distribution companies, or discoms, as the power is unavailable in the evening when demand is usually higher, the report added.
“Curtailment is no longer a hypothetical. It is already visible in high-renewable states, and instances of low or near-zero midday power prices on the exchanges are becoming more frequent,” said Simarpreet Singh of Hartek Power. “These carry real financial consequences for developers, particularly where curtailed generation goes uncompensated.”
India has met only about 80% of its annual transmission targets over the past five years, according to Ember. As a result, the target for the inter-state transmission system, which is crucial for evacuating power from solar-rich states to other states, has increased from 15,382 circuit kilometres to 25,146 ckm for FY27.
Ember added that about 20 GW of renewable energy capacity is likely to face connectivity delays of more than four months in FY27 because of slow installation of transmission capacity.
Inadequate energy storage has also led to an oversupply of solar power, primarily between 11 am and 3.30 pm, forcing discoms into distress sales on power exchanges, according to executives with power developers.
Power prices fell below ₹0.05 per unit 31 times in the first quarter of FY27, hitting zero on 1 May, according to data from the Indian Energy Exchange. In the year-earlier first quarter, power prices had dropped below ₹0.05 per unit six times.
“When solar supply floods the grid, it results in lower price discovery on energy exchanges as observed on the IEX day-ahead market, where mid-day prices fell to between ₹0 and ₹0.30/kWh on several days in late May and early June 2025,” said Anujesh Dwivedi, partner, Deloitte India.
“At the same time, several solar generators are forced to curtail power during afternoon hours due to lack of grid connectivity through GNA, and when enough temporary-GNA is not available to evacuate power from RE-rich areas,” Dwivedi added.
General network access (GNA) is a regulatory mechanism that allows power generators and distributors to access the national transmission grid without a specific point-to-point contract.
Zero prices on the exchange are “a symptom of generation success running ahead of storage infrastructure”, added Sanjeev Aggarwal, founder and chairman, Hexa Climate Solutions, a renewable power generator. “It is a loud, clear market signal that we urgently need to shift this excess energy to the evening peak. It isn’t a demand problem; it is a grid-balancing and storage problem.”
The decline in power prices comes despite rising electricity demand. India’s peak power demand hit a record 270.8GW on 21 May and is expected to reach 272GW this fiscal year. The power ministry projects peak demand to rise further to 300GW in FY28.
Noting this dichotomy, Sanjeev Sanyal, a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM), said in a recent working paper that India’s power demand is not only large but also extremely volatile even within the duration of a single day.
“On 21 May 2026, India’s power grid set an all-time record. At 3:45 pm, the peak demand met reached 270. 8GW. As striking as the quantum of the load was the speed of its change. At 8 am on the same day, demand sat at 224.1GW. In less than eight hours, the grid took on an additional load of 46.7GW, more than the entire British grid drew at its peak in all of 2025,” stated the working paper titled ‘The Duck and The Camel: Tracing the Net Load on the Indian Power Grid’, co-authored by Sanyal and Satvik Dev, joint director, EAC-PM.
Peak demand and peak power prices often occur at different times of the day, and the gap between them has become an important feature of the modern Indian grid, the authors stated. And the best way to smooth these fluctuations, they added, is to store electricity when it is abundant and release it when it is scarce.
Sanyal and Dev noted that power prices fell to near zero per unit during peak solar hours but hit the price cap of ₹10 per kWh in the evening, when solar power is unavailable.
“As a consequence, the peak-to-trough spread within a single average day has widened from ₹5.27/KWh in 2023 to ₹8.60/KWh in 2026, a 63% increase in absolute terms,” they said in their working paper. The spreads would have been higher if not for the price cap imposed by the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission from April 2023, they added.
The bulk of India’s electricity is sold under long-term power purchase agreements at fixed schedules outside the exchange. Only about 13% of the country’s power is traded on the market.
To ensure predictable revenue for power generators, the Electricity (Amendment) Bill, 2025 proposes promoting ‘contracts for difference’ (CfD).
Under this arrangement, a power generator and a buyer agree on a fixed reference price, known as the strike price. If the market price falls below that level, the buyer pays the difference to the generator. If it rises above the strike price, the generator refunds the difference.
Sanyal and Dev made a case for incentivising flexibility, noting that energy storage, demand response and the ability to ramp up power generation quickly are precisely the resources whose value lies in intraday price spreads. A market dominated by long-term energy contracts gives power generators little opportunity to monetise that value.
Empowering the regulator to design market products is one of the institutional preconditions for expanding storage capacity, they said, insisting that the most direct response to the flexibility problem is to give legal standing to storage systems.
Currently, most power market transactions are based on power purchase agreements, but sector experts say demand is growing for new procurement models, CfD being a key alternative.
In a notification issued in March, MNRE approved a pilot CfD scheme, designating the Solar Energy Corporation of India (Seci) as the nodal agency for 500 megawatt (MW) of capacity supplying 1,500 MWh of renewable electricity daily during non-solar hours.
“India now needs to deepen short-term and real-time markets, bring discoms more actively into dynamic procurement, and scale policy moves such as Seci’s 1,500 MWh CfD-based peak-supply tender much faster,” said Shashank Sharma, founder and CEO, Sunsure Energy, a commercial and industrial-focused renewable energy developer.
“For developers, the message is equally clear: the old model of plain-vanilla solar spilling excess power into the exchange is giving way to hybrid, storage-backed assets that shift clean power into evening peaks, support the grid and hedge merchant exposure.”The alchemy of black gold: inside India’s multi-billion-dollar push to turn coal into cheap industrial gas
Rituraj Baruah is a special correspondent covering energy, housing, urban affairs, heavy industries and small businesses at Mint. He has reported on diverse sectors over the last eight years including, commodities and stocks market, insolvency and real estate; with previous stints at Cogencis Information Services, Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) and Inc42.
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Australia faces a looming crisis managing end-of-life (EOL) solar panels.¹ As of 1 August 2023, Australia only recycles 17% of solar panel components, specifically the aluminium frame and junction box.² The “remaining 83% of a solar panel’s materials (including glass, silicon and polymer back sheeting) are not currently recyclable in Australia”,³ and treated as waste.⁴
The University of New South Wales recently partnered with the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics to undertake a scoping study on the EOL management of Australian solar panels (Scoping Study). The industry standard lifespan for most solar panels is 25 – 30 years,⁵ and the oldest solar panels in Australia are starting to reach EOL. The Scoping Study sets out the weight and value composition of materials in a typical solar panel (extracted below), which highlights the potential of recovering critical minerals from EOL solar panels.⁶

Table 1: Weight and value composition of major materials in a typical crystalline silicon photovoltaic panel. Source: Scoping Study: Solar Panel End of Life Management in Australia, 2024.
Researchers found on average 95% of materials from a typical 20kg solar panel can be recovered (which amounts to a value of $22.6 per solar panel).⁷ The total material value from all EOL solar panels is projected to surpass $1 billion by 2033.⁸ Reducing waste from EOL solar panels is an opportunity to not only capture economic value, but also significant social and environmental value in a market with a growing emphasis on ESG.
According to the Rooftop Solar and Storage H2 2023 Report, rooftop solar is the largest source of renewable energy generation in Australia and uptake of solar is continuing to grow.⁹ More than 3 million Australian households currently have solar panels installed on their roofs.¹⁰ This is not surprising given NSW broke the record for the “highest annual installed capacity of any state”,¹¹ and QLD was the “first state to surpass a total of one million rooftop solar installations in 2023.”¹²
The Scoping Study projects solar panel waste will reach 100,000 tonnes annually by 2030 in Australia based on historical PV installation data as of 30 April 2022.¹³ The graph below depicts the projected solar panel waste from small-scale (blue) and large-scale (yellow) solar projects over the next 12 years. As predicted, the trend shows the initial solar panel waste will come from residential solar, and shift to large scale solar by 2030 (as panels from large scale solar farms reach EOL).¹⁴

Figure 1: Projected Cumulative PV waste in tonnes in Australia from 2022 to 2035, comparison between small- and large-scale systems, Scoping Study: Solar Panel End of Life Management in Australia, 2024.
The increase in feedstock should assist recycling operators achieve economies of scale in their operations and be profitable. The current primary barrier for recycling solar panels in Australia has been the cost, which is approximately $28 per panel.¹⁵ This is roughly six times the cost of sending EOL solar panels to landfills, which is estimated to cost $4.50 per panel.¹⁶
However, the outlook for solar PV recycling is promising as economic factors and policy settings are beginning to align. Federal and State governments have opened a series of grant funding programmes and regulatory schemes to develop a sustainable recycling industry in Australia that achieves both commercial and environmental objectives.
Professor Penelope Crossley, an international legal scholar on the energy transition (University of Sydney), is an authority on the topic of solar panel recycling.  She notes that there is currently no national scheme or program for the collection, recycling, or re-use of decommissioned PV systems in Australia. Professor Crossley views this as a market failure that “demands regulatory intervention to fundamentally reorient our regulatory framework governing energy technologies”.¹⁷
She continues that “national solar recycling has been listed as a key environmental priority for the Australian Government for the past seven years. However, there is still no national legal framework to address the end of life of solar panels”.¹⁸
While the Federal Government’s proposed product stewardship scheme for small electrical products and solar photovoltaic systems could aid in closing the regulatory gap,¹⁹ no announcements have been made after the closing of the consultation period on 23 July 2023.²⁰
An important proposed change includes the inclusion of solar panels in the statutory definition of ‘regulated e-waste’ which will allow solar panels to be managed according to more stringent environmental standards and recycling requirements. The Federal Government’s proposed product stewardship model intends to shift the cost of recycling from users and operators of solar panels to producers and importers. It also aims to ensure Australia meets “international obligations regarding waste” under the Basel Convention (ratified in Australia through the Hazardous Waste (Regulation of Exports and Imports) Act 1989).²¹
States and territories have yet to follow suit, but there are ongoing discussions and consultations regarding e-waste management and recycling regulations at both state and federal levels. Victoria is currently the only state to have officially banned solar panel systems from landfills under the Environment Protection Act 1970 (VIC) since July 2019.²² South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory have imposed restrictions on disposing e-waste in landfills.²³ Notably, Western Australia is implementing Phase 1 of the Waste Avoidance and Resource Recovery (e-waste) Regulations 2024 (WA) which came into force on 1 July 2024, and a landfill ban for solar panel waste is anticipated for future phases.²⁴ The anticipated increase in feedstock from EOL residential solar panels and domestic policy supporting recycling will also coincide with the implementation of the Basel Convention’s e-waste amendment which will enter force on 1 January 2025.²⁵ The amendment aims to regulate the movement of solar panel waste and prohibit their export. This, coupled with landfill bans at the state and territory level, will lead to an increase of recycling feedstock.²⁶
The Scoping Study found domestic EOL solar waste will be concentrated in major cities – Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Adelaide – over the next two to three years.²⁷ Conveniently, this means 70 per cent of solar panel waste will be centralised near metro regions with supporting infrastructure.²⁸ As depicted in the graph in Figure 1, this will provide a buffer period for recycling operators to enter the Australian market, streamline their operations, save on transport costs and prepare for future expansion into regional areas where solar panel waste is expected to increase from large scale solar farms in 2030.²⁹
Australia’s journey towards effective solar panel recycling is both a challenge and an opportunity. The incumbent Government’s commitment to building a solar manufacturing industry in Australia through initiatives like the Solar Sunshot program and Future Made in Australia agenda also provides recycling operators with confidence in the ongoing growth of the solar industry domestically.
With increasing volumes of EOL solar panels and the potential benefits of recycling, the alignment of policy and market forces paints an optimistic outlook in building a sustainable and efficient recycling infrastructure to support our energy transition.
The Hamilton Locke team advises across the energy project life cycle – from project development, grid connection, financing, and construction, including the buying and selling of development and operating projects. For more information, please contact Matt Baumgurtel.
¹University of Sydney, ‘Australia faces solar waste crisis’ (Web page, 13 September 2023) <https://www.sydney.edu.au/news-opinion/news/2023/09/13/australia-faces-solar-waste-crisis.html>
²Sustainability Victoria, ‘National approach to manage solar panel, inverter and battery life cycles’ (Web page, 1 August 2023) <https://www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/recycling-and-reducing-waste/product-stewardship/national-approach-to-manage-solar-panel-inverter-and-battery-lifecycles&gt;
³Ibid.
⁴Rong Deng et al, Scoping Study: End of life management in Australia, ACAP and UNSW (Web page, March 2024)  <https://www.acap.org.au/post/research-reports?fbclid=IwAR1HYWy0_S7j5RwrF2519NIEVYAEmeQjumZtBNuaqKABZjyuv7rosnEml0c>
⁵Cecilia Duong, ‘Repair, reuse and recycle: dealing with solar panels at the end of their useful life’, University of New South Wales (Web page, 10 June 2023) <https://www.unsw.edu.au/news/2023/06/repair–reuse-and-recycle–dealing-with-solar-panels-at-the-end->
⁶Ibid n 4 18.
⁷Ibid.
⁸Ibid..
⁹Clean Energy Council, ‘Rooftop solar and storage report: H2 2023’ (Report).
¹⁰Clean Energy Council, ‘Rooftop solar generates over 10 per cent of Australia’s electricity’ (Web page, 16 April 2024) <https://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/news/rooftop-solar-generates-over-10-per-cent-of-australias-electricity>
¹¹Ibid n 9.
¹²Ibid n 9.
¹³Neil Martin, ‘Bigger and better solar panel recycling centres needed to deal with PV waste, says report’ UNSW (Web page, 26 March 2024) <https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2024/03/Bigger-better-solar-panel-recycling-centres-needed-deal-PV-waste-report&gt;
¹⁴Ibid n 4 5.
¹⁵Ibid n 1.
¹⁶Ibid n 1.
¹⁷Ibid n 1.
¹⁸Ibid n 1.
¹⁹Australian Government, ‘E-stewardship in Australia’ (Web page) <https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/protection/waste/e-waste>
²⁰Australian Government, ‘Regulation for small electrical products and solar photovoltaic systems’ (Web page) <https://consult.dcceew.gov.au/regulation-small-electrical-products-solar-pv&gt;
²¹Australian Government, ‘Wired for change: Regulation for small electrical products and solar photovoltaic system waste’ (Consultation Paper, 20 June 2023) <https://storage.googleapis.com/files-au-climate/climate-au/p/prj2748908c878a1b4b81a54/public_assets/Wired%20for%20change%20Regulation%20for%20waste%20small%20electrical%20products%20and%20solar%20photovoltaic%20systems.pdf>
²²Solar Victoria, ‘How to manage end-of-life solar PV’ Vic.gov.au (Web page) <https://www.solar.vic.gov.au/manage-end-life-solar-pv&gt;
²³Ibid n 4 38 – 29.
²⁴Government of Western Australia, ‘E-waste to landfill ban in WA’ (Web page, 15 July 2024) <https://www.wa.gov.au/service/building-utilities-and-essential-services/waste-management/e-waste-landfill-ban-wa#:~:text=The%20WA%20Government%20is%20delivering,environment%20by%20managing%20waste%20responsibly.&gt;; Government of Western Australia, ‘E-waste to landfill ban in Western Australia: Decision regulatory impact statement’ (Statement, October 2023) <https://www.wa.gov.au/system/files/2023-10/e-waste-to-landfill-ban-in-wa-dris.pdf>
²⁵IISDO: Earth Negotiations Bulletin, ‘Summary Report, 25-28 June 2024’ (Web page) < https://enb.iisd.org/basel-convention-oewg-14-summary&gt;
²⁶Ibid n 4 19.
²⁷Ibid n 4 13.
²⁸Ibid n 4 5.
²⁹Ibid n 4 13.
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Australians love solar power and it’s not hard to see why. As one of the sunniest countries in the world, harnessing our endless sunshine to power our homes and businesses with clean, affordable energy just makes sense. It’s no wonder we’re the world leader in rooftop solar.
Already, more than 3.6 million Aussie households have taken control of their power bills by putting solar panels on their rooftops. That’s one in three households, and on average each of them are saving more than $1,500 per year. As many families struggle with increasing costs of living, rooftop solar is a clear opportunity to help Australians cut their power bills and our climate pollution at the same time.
By better using the available space on top of our homes, social housing and businesses, we can double our rooftop solar capacity this decade – and deliver the bill-busting benefits to millions more Australians. But we’re missing a trick if we focus on solar panels alone. By ramping up battery storage as well, we can soak up excess solar energy while the sun is shining, and provide reliable, affordable and clean power around the clock.
Supercharging our rooftop solar and storage can also help us build a more equitable energy system. By installing solar on social housing, we can ease the burden of bills on some of the most vulnerable people in our community. By rolling out more community batteries, we can share the benefits of affordable solar power with people who can’t install their own panels, like renters and apartment dwellers. And by easing overall demand on our electricity grid, we can make our energy system more affordable and reliable for everyone.
There’s huge benefits for our climate, too. Rolling out more rooftop solar and storage will help Australia ramp up our renewable energy capacity as our coal-fired power stations continue to close over the coming years. Cutting climate pollution further and faster this decade will help us stem the rapid rise of dangerous global warming and secure a safer future for our kids.
So what are we waiting for? We have huge potential to keep growing rooftop solar and storage in Australia, and so much to gain when we do: lower bills, less climate pollution and a more reliable grid. It’s time to cement our place as the world’s solar champions by going even bigger on solar now.
This report finds sea level rise will conservatively cost Australia $855 billion this century, and become a constant drag on our economy.
This report finds the biggest polluters continuously covered by the Safeguard Mechanism have cut their climate pollution by just 0.4%, falling far short of the 4.9% cut set out in the law.
Australian governments and industry have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to develop data centres in ways that support our shift to renewables without negatively impacting power bills, energy security or water resources.
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The Peruvian government has proposed resuming talks with Chile on the interconnection of their electricity grids, a project that could facilitate the use of Chilean solar and wind power while taking advantage of the complementary nature of Peru’s natural gas and hydropower resources.
The announcement was made by Peru’s Minister of Energy and Mines, Guillermo Shinno, during the 21st meeting of the Chile-Peru Business Council, recently held in Lima. Shinno noted that electricity integration is part of Commitment 21 of the Santiago Action Plan and expressed his intention to meet with Chilean Energy Minister Ximena Rincón to advance discussions.
“The interconnection with Chile is on the agenda. It is a matter of seeing when we can meet with the Chilean energy minister to move this objective forward. If it does not happen before November, I imagine we will discuss it on Nov. 29 at the Peru-Chile binational meeting,” Shinno said.
One of the options under consideration is a 500 kV transmission line with a capacity of 1,000 MW connecting Montalvo, in southern Peru, with Kimal, in northern Chile.
According to a study commissioned by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) in 2025, the project would require an estimated investment of $550 million. The study found that bidirectional electricity exchanges could reach between 3,600 GWh and 5,700 GWh annually, generating combined economic benefits averaging $170 million per year.
The complementary nature of the two countries’ electricity generation mixes was a key consideration in the study. Chile has substantial solar and wind generation capacity, particularly in the north, while Peru has hydropower resources and natural gas-fired power plants that could supply electricity during periods of lower renewable energy generation in Chile.
For Chile, the interconnection would also provide an additional outlet for surplus solar generation, which currently faces transmission constraints limiting its delivery to major demand centers.
As previously reported, solar and wind power curtailment in Chile reached 2,680 GWh between January and July 2026. Exporting some of this electricity to Peru could help reduce curtailment, although the extent of such exchanges would depend on available transmission capacity and operating conditions in both countries.
Peru has also significantly increased its solar power generation. According to data from the Ministry of Energy and Mines, solar generation reached 1,442 GWh in the first half of 2026, up 87% year on year. Much of the country’s installed PV capacity is concentrated in the southern regions, particularly Arequipa and Moquegua.
Meanwhile, Chilean company EnorChile Transmission submitted an environmental impact statement for the Los Héroes-Parinacota transmission line project to Chile’s Environmental Assessment Service (SEA) on Oct. 13.
Unlike the Montalvo-Kimal proposal, the project involves an estimated investment of $30 million and the construction of approximately 22 km of transmission line on Chilean territory, connecting the Parinacota substation in Arica to the Peruvian border. From there, the line would extend to the Los Tacéro substation in Peru.
The proposed infrastructure would have a maximum transmission capacity of 250 MVA and include a converter substation to accommodate the different operating frequencies of the two national grids.
Despite renewed interest in cross-border electricity integration, the proposed 1,000 MW interconnection has yet to secure a final investment decision or construction schedule. Its development will depend on technical, regulatory and commercial agreements between the two countries.
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A large solar farm in a desert region.
.China wants to put tariffs on green technology on the COP31 agenda in Antalya, Turkey, next month. Li Gao, vice minister at China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said on Wednesday that talks must tackle a new obstacle to global climate efforts: unilateral, protectionist trade policy. The remark is seen as a veiled jab at Washington and Brussels.
The country dominates global production of solar modules, turbines, batteries and electric cars. The US has placed steep duties on Chinese solar products and electric cars. The EU has taxed Chinese autos, curbed some solar parts and opened an unfair-trade probe into a major wind company.
Li also urged delegates to agree on a plan to deliver the $300 billion in yearly climate finance promised to developing nations in 2024. On Turkey’s proposed global electrification goal, he said it matches Chinese policy but did not offer outright support.
Kenya and a group of donors have signed Thamani Asili, a $160 million program to protect 173,000 square km, focusing on hotspots between the Great Rift Valley and the Maasai Mara. The name is Kiswahili for “value of nature.”
Donors, including heirs of the Walton and Cargill families, will invest $80 million over ten years, and the government will add a similar amount. The money will fund new conservation areas and improve care for some existing ones under the Project Finance for Permanence model, which links payouts to government policy reforms.
The Nature Conservancy said four regions come first, including Tsavo. The scheme is set to move Kenya closer to the global goal of protecting 30% of land and sea by 2030, up from an estimated 20%-23%. Brazil and Gabon unveiled comparable deals last year, and Namibia and Botswana are developing their own.
Here is a list of articles selected by our Editorial Board that have gained significant interest from the public:
Meta faces a class action in Australia over claims that Facebook and Instagram harmed young users. Law firm MinterEllison lodged the case in the Federal Court this month on behalf of eight plaintiffs, who say they suffered harm as minors and want compensation. The claim alleges the platforms exposed children to harmful material and used algorithms to keep them addicted. It may be the first Australian case to hold social media responsible for harm to users.
Meta said it will strongly contest the claim. A court order issued Monday bars publication of details that could identify the plaintiffs, or of the statement of claim.
Australia has banned social media for under-16s, a world first, and proposed new rules that could let users switch off algorithm-driven feeds. In August, Meta agreed to pay $18 billion to settle child addiction claims with nearly all US states.

Citi said it has closed a $72 million note that channels private capital into carbon removal. The 3.5-year, principal-protected instrument will back Applied Carbon’s biochar project in Texas.
Note buyers forgo regular coupon payments. Instead, investors receive an upfront payment, and repayment depends on the issuance and delivery of carbon credits the project generates. Citi described it as its first outcome bond tied to verified carbon removals.
Applied Carbon uses mobile pyrolysis equipment that turns crop residue into biochar, a durable material that stores carbon and improves soil. The equipment can operate within a field or along its edge. Microsoft signed a 2022 deal to buy a portion of the credits. Nuveen invested and said the biochar equipment fits its portfolio.
Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed here by the authors are their own, not those of impakter.com — Cover Photo Credit: K
Amruta Doke holds an MA in Issues in Modern Culture from University College London and a background in editorial publishing and journalism. Based between Mumbai and London, she is interested in the intersection of sustainable development, culture and climate narratives.


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Zambia’s cumulative solar capacity has surpassed 1 GW, according to figures published by the country’s Ministry of Energy.
Details on the ministry’s website confirm total solar capacity has risen from 178 MW in 2024 to 1,027 MW as of early October.
The milestone follows an update from early September which placed cumulative solar capacity at 841 MW. Additional projects have come online since, including the 100 MW Maamba solar energy project built by a subsidiary of Indian conglomerate Nava Limited.
Zambia is currently one of Africa’s most dynamic solar markets, in part down to an ongoing market liberalisation that is making it one of the most attractive markets to private sector renewable energy developers. Other large-scale projects switched on this year include the 136 MW Itimpi II PV plant. In July, state-owned utility ZESCO doubled the capacity of its Chisamba solar power plant from 100 MW to 200 MW.
With the 1 GW solar target met, Zambia now turns its attention towards its longer-term goal of reaching 10 GW of installed electricity generation capacity by 2031. The most recent figures published by the Ministry of Energy put the country’s current installed electricity generation capacity at 4,722 MW, a 52.3% increase since 2021.
Speaking during the opening of the 2026 Energy Week Exhibitions in the Zambian town of Kabwe last week, Ministry of Energy Permanent Secretary, Ephraim Munshifwa, said Zambia’s expansion in electricity generation facilities is a result of the government’s response to drought conditions that reduced water levels in major reservoirs and triggered severe load shedding.
Munshifwa said investments in power generation and strategic reforms were aimed at developing long-term energy security, while adding that the national grid is now meeting demand of households and industries.
During this month’s Energy Forum for Africa Conference in Zambian capital Lusaka, Acting Minister of Energy, Situmbeko Musokotwane, said Zambia currently has “several energy projects at different stages of development”. He also said he was confident the 10 GW target would be achieved through partnerships.
The ministry’s official figures for solar capacity covers grid-connected utility-scale solar plants and installations made under the country’s net-metering scheme, which stood at around 30 MW as of September this year.
The Africa Solar Industry Association (AFSIA) has tracked 1,336 MW of operational solar projects in Zambia, according to figures from its project database, 538 MW of which is classified as commercial and industrial projects. The database adds a further 1,619.7 MW of solar projects are under construction across the country.
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FIMER has introduced the PVS990-2000, a 2 MW central inverter designed for utility-scale solar applications. The inverter platform offers power ratings ranging from 2,000 kVA to 8,000 kVA, with a scalable architecture intended to support multi-megawatt solar plants while optimizing system efficiency and reducing installation time.
The PVS990-2000 supports DC input voltages of up to 1,500 V and has a DC operating voltage range of 935 V to 1,350 V. According to the product specifications, the inverter has a maximum DC current of 2,300 A and supports up to seven DC inputs.
FIMER reports a maximum efficiency of 99% or higher and a European efficiency of 98.8% or higher for the PVS990-2000.
The inverter incorporates grid-support functions, including power quality management and fault ride-through (FRT) capabilities. It also supports parallel operation, night-time reactive power compensation, and communication with up to five master units.
Other features include global grid compliance, comprehensive AC- and DC-side protection, and simplified commissioning without the need for a separate chiller installation. The inverter supports industrial data communication through supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. FIMER also offers lifecycle services and support through its global service network.
“The PVS990 is the result of FIMER’s continued investment in R&D, shaped by the evolving needs and feedback of our customers across the global utility-scale market,” said KN Sreevatsa, Group Co-CEO, FIMER. “We have brought together decades of power-electronics expertise, advanced engineering and real-world project insights to create a platform that is distinctive in its scalability, performance and grid-support capabilities. With the PVS990, we are redefining what customers can expect from Utility scale solar & storage systems.”
The inverter is housed in an IP65-rated outdoor enclosure measuring 956 mm × 2,300 mm × 2,000 mm and weighing approximately 1,500 kg. It is designed to operate at ambient temperatures ranging from -20 degrees C to +60 degrees C, with power derating starting at 52 degrees C.

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Solarworld unveils home batteries, a 2,500 kVA PCS and 715 Wp solar modules at REI Expo 2026.
October 23, 2026. By EI News Network
Solarworld Energy Solutions Ltd. has launched three products covering residential energy storage, utility-scale power conversion and high-output solar modules at the Renewable Energy India (REI) Expo 2026, being held at the India Expo Centre & Mart in Greater Noida from October 22 to 24.
The new products comprise lithium iron phosphate (LFP) home energy storage batteries with capacities ranging from 1.28 kWh to 5.12 kWh, a 2,500 kVA central power conversion system (PCS) developed under joint branding with Belectriq, and AQUILA bifacial G12 solar modules rated up to 715 Wp.
The launches mark an expansion of the company's portfolio beyond solar engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) and module manufacturing into battery energy storage and power conversion. The products are intended for residential consumers, commercial and industrial (C&I) facilities, and utility-scale solar and storage projects.
The home energy storage range comprises three lithium-ion battery models: SW12100, rated at 12.8 V and 1.28 kWh; SW24100, rated at 25.6 V and 2.56 kWh; and SW51100, rated at 51.2 V and 5.12 kWh. Each model uses 100 Ah LFP cells and is designed for home inverters, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems and solar-plus-storage installations.
The batteries incorporate a battery management system with protection against over-voltage, under-voltage, over-current, short circuits and temperature-related risks. The company said the products comply with applicable standards, including IS 16270, IEC 62619 or UL 1973, and UN 38.3. They carry a five-year product warranty.
The launch comes as the company expands its storage portfolio beyond residential applications. Its existing offerings include liquid-cooled battery energy storage systems for commercial, industrial and utility-scale projects. These include a 125 kW/261.24 kWh system for C&I applications and a 5,015 kWh containerised system for industrial and utility-scale use.
For larger solar and storage projects, Solarworld has introduced the SWPCS2500 central power conversion system under joint branding with Belectriq. The system has a rated capacity of 2,500 kVA, maximum AC power of 2,750 kVA and maximum DC voltage of 1,500 V.
The PCS uses a three-level topology and offers efficiency of up to 99%. It supports both grid-connected and off-grid operations, with RS485, CAN and Ethernet communication interfaces. The system incorporates air and liquid cooling options and has an IP55-rated control cabin.
Power conversion systems are used to manage the conversion of electricity between direct current and alternating current in solar and battery storage installations. The SWPCS2500 is intended for large-scale applications requiring power conversion for solar generation and storage.
The third launch, the AQUILA bifacial G12 solar module series, covers capacities from 650 Wp to 715 Wp. The modules use N-type tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) bifacial cells and are manufactured in India by Solarworld's subsidiary, ZNShine Solarworld Private Limited.
The modules offer efficiency of up to 23.02% and feature a 16-busbar cell design and glass-to-glass construction. The series is IEC-certified, BIS-approved and listed under the Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM).
The modules carry a 12-year product warranty and a 25-year performance warranty. Other specifications include a temperature coefficient of -0.29% per degree Celsius, an IP68-rated junction box and resistance to potential-induced degradation (PID).
Commenting on the launches, Kartik Teltia, managing director of Solarworld Energy Solutions Limited, said the Indian solar sector was moving beyond capacity installation towards integrated energy systems covering generation, conversion and storage.
He said customers and project developers were increasingly looking for integrated solutions and suppliers capable of serving multiple requirements. The new products, he added, would allow the company to address additional customer segments and reduce its dependence on any single part of the market.
Teltia also highlighted the company's plans to expand its manufacturing capabilities through solar cell production, adding to its existing operations across solar modules and battery storage.
Solarworld manufactures solar modules and battery energy storage systems at its facilities in Roorkee, Uttarakhand. The company is also setting up a 2.4 GW solar cell manufacturing plant in Narmadapuram, Madhya Pradesh, in partnership with Rays Power Infra Limited.
According to the company's corporate profile, Solarworld has more than 13 years of experience, a solar project portfolio exceeding 1.5 GW and a BESS EPC and independent power producer (IPP) portfolio exceeding 1.2 GW.
Its business includes solar EPC, large-scale solar park development, customised rooftop and ground-mounted solar installations, module manufacturing and battery storage solutions for commercial, industrial and utility customers.
The company has a 1.552 GW solar module manufacturing facility, a 5 GW junction box manufacturing line developed through a joint venture, and a 3.6 GW BESS manufacturing facility in Roorkee, according to its corporate profile. It is also pursuing backward integration into solar cell manufacturing through its partnership in Madhya Pradesh.

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The popularity of rooftop solar in Australia has been nothing short of remarkable. (ABC News: Jess Davis)
Amid the growing warmth and increasingly volatile weather of an approaching summer, Australia passed a remarkable milestone this week.
The number of homes and businesses with a solar installation clicked past 4 million — barely 20 years since there was practically none anywhere in the country.
It is a love affair that shows few signs of stopping.
And it's a technology that is having ever greater effects, not just on the bills of its household users but on the very energy system itself.
At no time of the year is that effect more obvious than spring, when solar output soars as the days grow longer and sunnier but demand remains subdued as mild temperatures mean people leave their air conditioners switched off.
Such has been the extraordinary production of solar in Australia this spring, the entire state of South Australia has — at various times — met all of its electricity needs from the technology.
What South Australia could not use itself, it exported to other states.
And everywhere, it seems, demand for power from the grid — that is, demand for power not being met by rooftop solar — has fallen to record lows.
But all of this solar is prompting some hard questions, and gnashing of teeth, for one, simple reason — there is, at times, too much solar power in Australia's electricity systems to handle.
To deal with this abundance, experts say Australia needs to come to terms what appears a counter-intuitive argument.
It needs to accept that much of this solar will have to be wasted — or spilled — sometimes.
Jess Hunt, an electricity market designer based in Adelaide, likens Australia's abundance of sun-powered electricity to another natural resource — water.
Ms Hunt says it is simply unviable and unnecessary to capture every drop of water that falls to the ground.
We don't try to catch every drop of rain that falls. There are calls to treat solar the same way. (AAP: Dan Himbrechts)
Similarly, she says it makes no sense to store every ray of sunshine that hits a solar panel.
"Spilling solar shouldn't be seen as a cause for hand-wringing," Ms Hunt wrote on social media.
At the heart of the concerns about Australia's occasional over-abundance of solar is a technical phenomenon known as minimum demand.
The term refers to the demand for power from the grid.
Necessarily, it excludes the demand that is met by rooftop solar panels — so-called behind-the-meter sources of supply that are provided by customers themselves.
When the amount of rooftop solar in Australia was immaterial, it wasn't a problem.
Coal plants not only provide electricity — they also help keep the grid strong. (Supplied: AGL)
The proportion of demand for power being met by solar was tiny, and conventional generators such as coal- and gas-fired power plants carried on almost totally unaffected.
But as the amount of small-scale solar has grown to truly monumental levels, the dent it has put in demand for power from the grid has become equally large.
Rooftop solar is now such a dominant force in the system, at times, it is pushing the minimum level of demand for power from the grid to critically low levels.
Alex Wonhas, the chief executive of battery developer AMPYR and a former executive at the Australian Energy Market Operator, said the problem was a physical one.
Dr Wonhas said traditional sources of generation such as coal- and gas-fired plants, as well as electricity, provide the services that make the grid resilient and help it ride through shocks.
These include inertia, the physical property that makes balancing a moving bicycle easier than a stationary one, and "system strength", which helps maintain the heartbeat of the grid.
Like solar panels, wind turbines typically don't provide so-called system strength services. (Reuters: David Gray/File)
By contrast, Dr Wonhas said wind turbines, solar panels and batteries did not typically provide such services.
The result, he said, was a grid that could be left dangerously short of resilience when minimum demand fell too low.
In other words, when too many conventional generators were squeezed out of the system.
"The minimum demand problem typically happens in the middle of the day on weekend days when you have a lot of solar output but maybe not a lot of demand," Dr Wonhas said.
"At that time, the electricity grid effectively becomes a little bit unstable.
"It's a little like cycling on your bicycle when it's moving very slowly — the inertial forces of the bicycle become less and really very difficult to keep it straight.
"That's the same challenge of operating an energy system during those periods of time.
"You have to either increase the load (demand) during that time to make it more stable or you have to basically reduce the solar output or other output."
For all these challenges, Dr Wonhas noted times were changing.
There are high hopes batteries can help Australia soak up much of its excess solar. (ABC News: Glyn Jones)
Importantly, he said improved technology for inverters — which enable assets such as solar panels to connect to the grid — was allowing green energy to provide the system with strength and security services.
Equally, he said batteries would significantly help deal with the problem "in a number of different ways".
It was for this reason, he said, that investors were flooding into the space, stumping up billions of dollars to build batteries that would add dozens of gigawatts of storage to the system.
"To put it simply, batteries are the solution to the minimum demand challenge.
"Batteries can actually start to provide those services and can help to stabilise the grid.
"And we are seeing increasing applications of batteries to help to manage the minimum demand challenge.
"They can firstly absorb a lot of the energy in the middle of the day and then obviously release it at a later time.
"As a result of that happening, we see an absolute wave of battery projects now coming into the electricity market to fulfil that role.
"But batteries can also go even further — with the latest technology they can actually provide inertia so they can basically pretend to be a coal or a gas plant."
Solar farms are among the hardest hit when rooftop systems squeeze other sources offline. (ABC News: Michael Franchi)
Despite his bullishness of the potential for batteries, Dr Wonhas acknowledged that it would be impractical and too costly to store every unit of electricity generated by solar in Australia.
He said there would inevitably be a "trade-off" between cost and efficiency once enough storage was built to handle most of the excess solar.
"Buying batteries at the moment has become cheaper but it's still relatively expensive, say, compared with the cost of solar energy," he said.
"So, there's simply an economic trade-off decision whether you want to build a battery for every single kilowatt hour that comes out of a solar panel or maybe at some point say, 'We already have enough … but that's okay because it's still the lowest cost outcome for consumers.'"
According to Ms Hunt, building more batteries to cope with the surge in solar was only part of the solution to the minimum demand problem.
She said another, arguably better option, was to increase demand for electricity during the middle of the day when solar output was highest.
This, Ms Hunt argued, was ultimately likely to be the cheapest and most efficient way of using Australia's solar riches.
And to that end, she said encouraging consumers from householders to industrial customers to shift their consumption as much as possible was the key.
About one in every three Australian homes now has a rooftop solar installation. (ABC News: Glyn Jones)
"While I agree that we need to replace coal with flexible storage and gas, I don't see this as a solution for managing minimum demand," Ms Hunt wrote.
"It will only buy us a handful of years before the rooftop PV juggernaut rolls on and we have a grid stability problem again.
"We need to get better at demand flexibility so that we can use solar as productively as we can, and we to change our mindset."
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by John Moritz, CT Mirror
October 22, 2026
Earlier this year, Connecticut joined a growing list of states easing restrictions on small, portable solar panels that can be plugged into a wall outlet to offset some residential electrical usage — and shave dollars off monthly bills.
The new law, passed as part of H.B. 5340, allows residents to purchase and install plug-in solar systems under 1,200 watts without notifying their utility company. It went into effect Oct. 1. Previously, anyone seeking to install any kind of solar device had to seek permission from their utility first, through an interconnection agreement.
But while the law exempts smaller systems from the interconnection process, it still requires the devices to meet the safety standards set by the state’s building and fire codes, as well as certification from UL Solutions, a national product-safety group.
That has led to confusion over whether plug-in panels are safe to own — or even legal.
Some of the hangup has to do with the lack of building codes that specifically address plug-in solar panels, which are a relatively new technology in the U.S.
In April, months before the new solar law took effect, lawmakers voted down revisions to the state’s building and fire codes over disagreements on an unrelated issue, road access for fire trucks. The codes, which are typically updated every four years by the state’s Department of Administrative Services, are now in limbo as officials and lawmakers seek to resolve the dispute.
Leigh Appleby, a spokesman for DAS, said there is no timeline for when the building and fire codes will be updated to specifically address plug-in solar panels.
“DAS is reviewing how the existing codes apply when a device is plugged into an existing outlet,” Appleby said in an emailed response to questions. “Adding or changing an outlet or circuit requires a permit and inspection. We can’t give a blanket assurance that every device or installation is safe or code-compliant. Local building officials and fire marshals enforce the codes in their municipalities and can assess specific installations.”
Without new state codes, however, local officials have no way to ensure that solar devices meet safety standards, according to Roger Nelson of the Connecticut Fire Marshals Association. (Nelson, who also serves as the fire marshal in Bloomfield, said he has not heard from any residents in his town about installing plug-in panels.)
“Until a code is passed, it’s not legal in Connecticut,” Nelson said.
Even Connor Yakaitis, a deputy director at the Connecticut League of Conservation Voters who was among the state’s early proponents of plug-in solar panels, said he was urging residents to be cautious. As more and more states pass laws similar to Connecticut’s, Yakaitis said officials around the country have been taking notice and working to resolve lingering safety and regulatory hurdles.
“Lot’s of people have been asking, ‘When can I go get these panels?” Yakaitis said. “We’ve been telling people not to buy panels until this is all ironed out.”
Regardless of the uncertainty, plug-in solar panels are widely available for sale online at prices ranging from a few hundred to several thousand dollars.
One online retailer, the California-based nonprofit Bright Saver, sells a 180-watt kit for $285, plus $29 for an annual membership. (Without a membership, the kits sell at retail for $499.)
Cofounder Cora Stryker said Bright Saver’s model is based on wholesale clubs such as Costco, which are able to offer lower prices by buying products in bulk. In addition, she said the group’s membership model helps to form a voting block that can advocate for removing existing barriers on plug-in solar. Bright Saver has 57 members in Connecticut and has shipped 49 kits to the state.
“Our whole goal is to build a massive membership that takes action to support clean energy… and make it dirt cheap,” Stryker said.
Stryker said Bright Saver’s plug-in kits meet the requirements under Connecticut’s law by having each of the component parts, such as the solar panel, plug and inverter, certified by UL Solutions. That definition, she said, is enough to cover most of the systems currently available on the market.
“I think it gives coverage for anyone in Connecticut who wants to buy one, even at the component level certification, and plug it in and not worry about the utility,” Stryker said. “It could be more explicit, but I think it’s OK.”
Other states, such as California and Vermont, have more stringent rules requiring that the entire system receive certification together as one device. UL Solutions launched a new full-system certification standard in January, but it has yet to approve any products for the U.S. market.
“That distinction is important,” Ken Boyce, UL Solutions vice president of principal engineering, said in an emailed statement. “A system assembled from individually certified components is not automatically certified. Component-level certifications may not address hazards arising from component interactions, including electric shock, circuit overload, compatibility with ground-fault protection, accidental contact with energized parts, and unsafe current flow. In other words, certified parts do not necessarily add up to a safe, certified whole.”
Stryker said Bright Saver plans to obtain UL certification on a fully-integrated system “in the very, very near future.” However, she said the requirements for that certification will necessitate rewiring by a licensed electrician and a special outlet, meaning the systems will not be available to most renters.
One of the authors of H.B. 5340, state Sen. Norm Needleman, D-Essex, said he is open to “refining” the law to add more clarity around plug-in solar, but he has yet to hear any specific concerns from constituents.
Connecticut’s law also requires that plug-in solar systems come equipped with a device that prevents electricity from being fed back onto the power grid during an outage. This rule was added in order to address concerns raised by utility officials that the devices could pose a threat to line workers who are working to restore power.
Additionally, anti-tampering features on many older electrical meters may fail to recognize any excess power sent onto the grid by unregistered solar panels, resulting in customers being charged extra for the power they produce. While this issue can be addressed with new, more advanced two-way meters, the rollout of those meters has been slowed in Connecticut due to disputes between regulators and Eversource, the state’s largest utility.
Eversource Spokeswoman Jamie Ratliff said in an email Monday that any devices sold in Connecticut must come with a warning about the potential for excess generation.
“It is important for the safety of our line workers and customers, as well as the reliability of the electric system, that only approved devices with built-in safety features are connected to the electric grid,” Ratliff said. “We understand that testing is taking place with certification agencies towards meeting these goals, which we believe is a necessary first step.”

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Rooftop solar can at times meet more than half of the total demand across the national electricity market. (ABC News: Glyn Jones)
If you're one of the 4 million Australian householders or business owners with solar panels on your roof, you may have been greeted with a rude shock at the start of this week.
News emerged that the body responsible for keeping the lights on in Australia's main electricity grids wanted powers in every state to ensure rooftop solar could be turned down — or switched off — in extreme circumstances.
The Australian Energy Market Operator said an "emergency backstop mechanism" was urgently needed everywhere and by next year, no less.
It's a radical notion and not one that's likely to be immediately welcomed by too many rooftop solar owners.
But what exactly is involved in this proposal?
And why on earth is anyone suggesting the powers are needed at all?
The answers to these questions, and more, speak as much as anything to the profound changes underway in Australia's electricity system and the role of householders within it.
As the name suggests, the backstop power would be for emergencies.
More precisely, those circumstances would arise when there is so much rooftop solar in the system that it's threatening to overload the grid.
It's hard to appreciate just how much rooftop solar can be generated at times in Australia.
A couple of decades ago, there was practically none anywhere in the country.
Even when state governments lavished subsidy schemes on solar and people started to take up the technology with gusto, the amount of power that could be collectively generated was tiny.
But fast forward to now and it's a very different story.
Across the entire national electricity market, which spans the eastern seaboard and South Australia and services about 10 million customers, excess solar power exported to the grid from household systems can meet more than half of demand at times.
And in South Australia, arguably the world's rooftop solar capital, that share periodically exceeds 100 per cent.
In other words, South Australia can meet all of its demand for electricity from rooftop solar at times. And what it can't use gets exported interstate.
But with all that solar comes risks for the grid.
Solar power doesn't help keep the grid stable during power losses. The grid needs inertia, which is like the momentum that keeps a car moving smoothly even when you take your foot off the accelerator.
Coal, gas, and hydro plants provide this inertia through their turbines, helping keep the grid steady and maintaining consistent power levels.
Rooftop solar can't do the same thing, and it's increasingly pushing those plants out of the system in the middle of the day when its output is greatest.
Conventional generators can turn down their output to accommodate solar, but only to a point. Eventually, their output becomes so low they have to switch off altogether.
And, for AEMO, that's a worry.
The agency fears the amount of conventional generation providing those security and stability services — and able to step in when the sun stops shining, for example — is falling to critically low levels.
Hence it says powers are needed to "reduce" some of that excess rooftop solar at certain times.
The powers already exist in South Australia, Western Australia, parts of Queensland and Victoria, but AEMO wants them extended everywhere.
It's not entirely clear how emergency backstop powers will work, but AEMO says they are most likely to occur in spring — when the days grow longer and sunnier and solar output soars while demand for electricity remains relatively subdued thanks to milder temperatures.
In those conditions, the agency says the amount of rooftop solar in the system can become a risk if anything goes wrong, such as the unplanned loss of a coal-fired generator or transmission line.
And things always go wrong.
At such a time, AEMO would tell the relevant state or states as well as the network poles-and-wires companies there was a problem.
It would then be up to the states and the poles-and-wires companies to deal with the problem.
One of the levers at their disposal would be the backstop provisions, which would allow rooftop solar systems to be throttled back to stop sending excess energy to the grid, or switched off entirely.
AEMO says it would be up to states and network providers to use the emergency powers. (ABC News: Chris Gillette)
On those occasions, Queensland poles-and-wires companies Ergon and Energex say, affected households can expect a few things.
A signal will be sent to their solar inverter, shutting down generation.
The affected household would then have to take their power from the grid, from which they'd be charged "as per your electricity tariff".
Once the emergency backstop has been removed, "a signal will be sent to the inverter which will return it to normal operation".
All up, according to Ergon and Energex, an emergency would last no more than 4 hours.
What's more, the firms said, "the chances of an 'emergency event' occurring is very low and it may only occur once per year or less".
Added to this, AEMO notes that even in South Australia, where the emergency backstop has been in place since 2020, "compliance rates were initially poor".
Many older, and even some new, solar installations do not have the ability to be remotely switched off.
Rectifying this, AEMO says, is likely to be a long and difficult task.
According to AEMO, the backstop would only ever be wheeled out when all other measures to keep the system on an even keel were "exhausted".
Broadly, those measures would include further lowering — where possible — the "minimum safe operating levels" of the big coal plants that act as bookends for the system.
Doing so would make more room for solar.
Similarly, AEMO says investments could be made in special pieces of kit known as synchronous condensers, which replicate the system strength functions of coal plants without producing any electricity.
Coal plants have long provided intrinsic strength to Australia's grid. How to replace those properties is one of the big challenges in the energy transition.
Another option is to increase demand for electricity during the day, when solar energy is so abundant and cheap.
This could be done by developing industries that need a lot of power but not all the time.
Or it could be through electrification — getting our cars and our household appliances to soak up as much of that solar as possible.
Then there is storage — building more batteries and pumped hydro projects to stash the energy when it's flooding on the grid.
But even with all those options, AEMO says emergency backstop powers will still be needed as a "last resort".
It warned that without such powers, more draconian measures might be needed.
These could include increasing the voltage levels in parts of the poles-and-wires network to "deliberately" trip or curtail small-scale solar in some areas.
An even more dramatic step would be to "shed" or dump parts of the poles-and-wires network feeding big amounts of excess solar into the grid.
On this question, there is some confusion.
Despite vociferously advocating for greater control of rooftop solar and, specifically, the emergency backstop capability, AEMO is at pains to point out it would not be pulling the trigger.
In response to the ABC's reporting of the topic this week, AEMO released a statement in which it said it "does not want to directly control people's rooftop solar".
More bluntly, the market operator stressed there was no "big red button" that allowed it to dump people's solar installations from the grid.
What we do know is that in areas where the backstop exits, households getting new or replacement solar panels will need to have a special type of inverter connecting their system to the grid.
Households installing new or replacement solar panels will need to have a special type of inverter connecting their system to the grid. (ABC: Glyn Jones)
The inverter will have to be capable of receiving a signal to turn off — or down — when required.
And, indeed, it is the poles-and-wires companies that would send the signal to that inverter.
But, according to Ergon and Energex, network firms like them would not be acting alone.
They would be acting "under the direction of AEMO" and "in alignment with" the state government.
Suffice to say, AEMO is ultimately the body responsible for keeping the lights on across the major electricity systems in Australia.
The agency monitors the balance between supply and demand for power and the stability of the grid.
None of this is likely to happen without AEMO first setting the parameters by which the backstop would be used.
In all likelihood, the backstop power will have a minimal effect on solar households.
It may even have no effect at all.
Although rooftop solar is a growing force in Australia's electricity system, the circumstances in which it pushes the grid to the precipice are still rare.
What's more, they only last for a few hours at a time.
Economists love them. Regulators say they make the grid more efficient. But many Australians are finding out time-of-use tariffs mean sharply higher power prices.
To deal with the challenge, AEMO has pointed out all the ways that excess supply can be turned into an asset rather than a liability for the system.
The politicians, regulators and energy experts want us all to use more power when the system is awash with cheap solar and less of it later in the day, when it isn't.
It's why so much effort is being put into installing smart meters on every home by 2030 and introducing surge prices that charge energy customers higher prices in the evening.
Chances are, Australia will learn to better capitalise on its solar riches, avoiding the need to take drastic steps like throttling rooftop solar.
Still, AEMO says the amount of extra solar getting added to the grid every year means the risks aren't going away.
The estimates vary, but rooftop solar generally tends to lower power costs.
A rule of thumb, according to industry players, is that a typical rooftop solar installation will cut electricity bills by about 30 per cent a year.
But how much rooftop solar might save a householder depends on how they use the power generated by the panels.
Generous feed-in-tariffs — the payments made to customers for the excess solar power they export to the grid — are increasingly a thing of the past.
Like millions of Australians, Doreen Fawcett is grappling with a nightmare of unwanted power bill complexity. Calls for simplification are growing.
Whereas once a householder might have received anything up to 60 cents per kilowatt-hour for their solar exports, they can now realistically expect something more like 5 cents.
For that reason, experts say it's now far more valuable to use the power generated by solar panels in your own home rather than sell it to the grid.
After all, buying power from the grid on a flat rate can easily exceed 30 cents a kilowatt-hour — or even double during the peak under surge pricing plans.
Using a kilowatt-hour of electricity generated by your solar panels, on the other hand, costs nothing once the up-front cost is paid.
The spread of emergency backstop powers to be used on rare occasions seems unlikely to change the basic equation in favour of solar.
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Perovskite solar cells have spent fifteen years setting efficiency records that silicon cannot match. They have also spent those fifteen years failing to reach a factory floor, and the reason is not the perovskite. It is the liquid you have to dissolve it in.
A team at the University of Surrey has now built working solar mini-modules from an ink that swaps the industry’s standard toxic solvents for ethanol and a bio-derived alternative, coated at room temperature and dried with a jet of gas. The modules reached power conversion efficiencies above 18%, and the details of how they got there are more interesting than the number itself.
The results were published in Nano Energy as Solvent systems with significantly reduced toxicity for high-efficiency perovskite solar modules, and the study involved researchers from the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, the MAX IV Laboratory in Sweden and the National Physical Laboratory.
Table of Contents
Perovskite is genuinely remarkable at absorbing light. It can also be dissolved into an ink and printed onto flexible surfaces, which is the entire commercial promise: solar cells made the way newspapers are printed, at speed, on rolls rather than in batches.
That promise runs straight into a chemistry problem. The solvents that dissolve perovskite precursors well enough to make high-quality films are, almost without exception, hazardous. The Surrey paper names the main offenders: dimethylformamide (DMF), N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP), and acetonitrile (ACN). Several are classified as reproductive toxins.
On a laboratory bench, a researcher in gloves and a fume hood can handle those chemicals. On a gigawatt-scale coating line, the same chemicals become four separate industrial problems at once:
The scale at which this bites is easy to underestimate. According to the Surrey release, producing a gigawatt of electricity from these perovskite modules can consume more than 90,000 liters of solvent on a single coating line. That is a chemical plant’s worth of hazardous liquid flowing through a process that is supposed to be cheaper than silicon. The University of Surrey’s announcement of the work is the source for that figure.
This is not a new argument, and it is not a niche one. A 2021 study in Solar RRL estimated that the added cost of managing DMF-based inks specifically works out to about 3.7 US cents per watt. That figure is from a separate modelling paper, not from the Surrey work, and it is a useful yardstick for how much of a solar panel’s cost structure can be consumed by a solvent choice.
Silva’s framing of the prize is deliberately modest. “The potential impact of our innovation extends beyond simply replacing a hazardous solvent,” he said. The process, he added, “points to more compact, resource-efficient, and potentially lower-cost manufacturing for emerging solar technologies.” That is a direction of travel, not a price.
Their formulation is called a significantly reduced-toxicity (SRT) solvent system. The main components are ethanol and 2-methyltetrahydrofuran, the latter derived from renewable sources such as agricultural and forestry waste. The published abstract adds a detail the press release only gestures at: a minimal fraction of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) is included, and the release describes it as a small amount of a milder additive to control how the film forms.
Three consequences follow. First, no DMF, NMP, or ACN is required. Second, the ink is coated at room temperature and dried with a jet of gas rather than baked, which cuts both energy input and process time. Third, the antisolvent drip is eliminated entirely, because the SRT ink crystallizes under mild conditions without one.
The Surrey press release quotes the lead researcher on why the process and the chemistry were designed together. “For a technology to move from the laboratory into a real manufacturing environment, we need to consider not only performance, but also the solvents, processing conditions, safety, resource use and overall complexity of production,” said Dr. Ehsan Rezaee, a research fellow at Surrey.
The process was designed as a single continuous route from agricultural and forestry waste to a bio-derived ink, through room-temperature coating, to a laser-scribed module.
The team fabricated monolithically interconnected mini-modules with active areas up to 11.5 square centimeters, using a laser-based P1 to P4 scribing process to carve the interconnection pattern between cells. The published abstract reports power conversion efficiencies exceeding 18%. The university’s release puts the same result at above 18% and reports it as 18.2%.
Both figures describe active area only. That qualifier matters: efficiency measured over a module’s active area excludes the dead space taken up by interconnects, busbars, and edge margins, so it is always flattering next to aperture-area efficiency, which is what a panel datasheet would eventually quote. A single mini-module of this size is also not a panel. It is a test structure, and the gap between a printed mini-module and a commercially packaged panel includes encapsulation, larger-area uniformity, and years of weathering that no laboratory test has yet supplied.
The second thing to hold onto is that this number is not a record, and it is not certified. It is the authors’ own measurement of their own devices.
Placing 18% in context requires care, because the headline perovskite numbers that circulate widely are a different kind of measurement entirely.
Those two certified records describe cells smaller than a fingernail. The Surrey result describes a printed module roughly the size of a postage stamp and a half. Comparing them directly is not fair to either, but the comparison is not meant to be fair. It is meant to show that perovskite’s famous efficiency figures and perovskite’s manufacturability problem are being solved on different tracks, at different scales, by different kinds of measurement. A technology can hold a certification record and still have no route to a coating line.
The SRT inks in this study were formulated for methylammonium lead iodide, or MAPbI3. That is worth noting plainly, because MAPbI3 is not the composition the field has gravitated toward for stability. The perovskite community has largely shifted to formamidinium and caesium-containing mixtures, often abbreviated FA/Cs, which tolerate heat and humidity considerably better than the methylammonium variant. MAPbI3 was the workhorse of early perovskite research and remains easy to crystallize from solution. A later line of research attacked the lead itself by building hybrid organic-inorganic structures that removed it, arguing that the absorber’s composition is as much a commercial constraint as its efficiency.
That makes it a sensible choice for a solvent demonstration, and it means the solvent result is best read as a statement about processing rather than about durability. Whether the same reduced-toxicity approach transfers to more stable absorber compositions is a separate question that this paper does not answer.
The claim about durability in the Surrey release is a single sentence: the modules stayed stable under continuous light during testing. No test duration is given. No irradiance level is given. No temperature or humidity condition is specified, and no standard test protocol is named. Whatever exposure the devices survived, the public material does not quantify it.
That is a real limit on how much the result can be read as a durability story. Perovskite modules are judged on operational lifetime above almost everything else, and a qualitative statement about continuous illumination cannot be compared against the published degradation figures that competing research groups report. Readers should treat the durability point as encouraging and unquantified rather than as evidence of a working lifetime.
It is also worth separating this result from the device-level stability problems that have dominated perovskite research for years, including the mechanical and chemical failure of interfaces between the layers of a cell stack. Work on toughening those internal interfaces has shown that a layer stack can hold far longer simply by stopping the weakest junction from cracking. This paper’s contribution is upstream of all of that: it addresses what goes into the coating line, not what happens to the finished panel after twenty years outdoors.
The architecture is a specific choice rather than a generic cell. The modules use an inverted, or p-i-n, device structure with an interlayer-free design, where the hole transport layer is a self-assembled monolayer applied by bar coating rather than a separately deposited layer.
Removing that interlayer matters for manufacturing simplicity, because every additional coating step means another deposition station, another solvent, another drying stage, and another chance for a defect. The SRT ink sits on top of a bar-coated monolayer and crystallizes under mild thermal conditions after deposition, with the gas jet driving solvent removal. The abstract notes compatibility with both rigid and flexible substrates.
The coating method itself is described as room-temperature, gas-blowing-assisted bar coating, which is one step short of full roll-to-roll production. Bar coating can run continuously and is compatible with roll-to-roll lines, but a laboratory bar coater is not a manufacturing line. The release describes the process as compatible with roll-to-roll manufacturing rather than as having been validated on production equipment, and that distinction is worth preserving.
The honest summary is that this paper does not produce a better solar panel. It produces a plausibly printable one, using chemicals a factory might actually be allowed to use at scale.
That is a bigger deal than it sounds. For years, the perovskite conversation has been dominated by the efficiency leaderboard, where progress is measured in tenths of a percent on millimeter-scale devices. The commercial blocker has sat elsewhere the whole time: in the solvent inventory, the waste contract, the extraction system, and the antisolvent drip that nobody puts on a conference slide.
Surrey’s contribution is to demonstrate that the whole stack can be printed from an ink that avoids DMF, NMP, and ACN at room temperature, without an antisolvent, at a scale where interconnection losses become real. The efficiency is unremarkable next to certified records. The process is the point.
What remains genuinely open is everything that sits between a printed mini-module and a manufactured panel: quantified stability under standard test conditions, performance at larger widths, transfer to more stable absorber compositions, and whether any of this reaches a production line. The Surrey work answers none of those questions, and it does not claim to.
Solvent chemistry was never going to be the thing that made perovskite famous. It may well be the thing that makes it shippable.
A perovskite solar cell uses a crystalline material with a distinctive atomic structure to absorb light and generate electricity. The name describes a crystal structure rather than one specific compound, and the most studied versions for solar applications contain lead, including the methylammonium lead iodide used in the Surrey study.
Not in the sense of a consumer product. Perovskite photovoltaics are moving toward commercial deployment through tandem designs layered onto silicon, but neither the Surrey mini-modules nor the certified laboratory records described above are products. This paper provides no timeline, and none should be inferred from it.
Because they are different measurements. Certified cell records are taken on devices well under a square centimeter, where losses from interconnects and inactive area are minimal. A module adds up many cells connected in series, and every interconnect, busbar, and edge margin takes a bite out of the available area, so module efficiency always trails cell efficiency for the same material. Add the fact that the certified records are independently measured while the module figure is self-reported, and the comparison becomes even less direct.
It is one of the most concrete ones. Large volumes of DMF, NMP, or acetonitrile bring worker safety obligations, hazardous waste handling, and additional air extraction capacity, all of which are costs and regulatory burdens that arrive before commercial production begins. A separate 2021 assessment in Solar RRL estimated an added cost of roughly 3.7 US cents per watt from managing DMF-based inks alone, which gives a sense of why solvent choice shows up in the economics.
Many perovskite recipes force crystallization by dripping a second solvent onto the wet film while it spins or coats. It works well in a laboratory and is awkward on a continuous line because it is hard to apply evenly across a wide web, and the antisolvents involved are often toxic themselves. Removing that step simplifies the process and cuts a hazardous chemical from the recipe.
This study does not say, and no availability date should be attached to it. The paper describes a process demonstration at a mini-module scale. The distance from that to a commercial panel includes quantified durability testing, larger-area manufacturing trials, and the transfer to more stable absorber compositions, none of which appear in the published result.
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Researchers have developed a framework to assess fire risk and improve resilience in building integrated photovoltaic façades, a technology that combines solar power generation with the building envelope. The study titled ‘Framework for fire risk assessment and resilience optimization of building-integrated photovoltaic façades,’ responds to growing deployment of photovoltaic façades as developers pursue low carbon buildings and nearly zero energy performance.
Global cumulative photovoltaic capacity reached close to 3 TW in 2025, with an estimated 698 GW of new capacity installed worldwide. As suitable land becomes scarcer and buildings seek to cut operational emissions, photovoltaic systems are increasingly moving from ground mounted plants and rooftops into façades.
The research combines normalised variance contribution sensitivity analysis, the analytic hierarchy process and triangular fuzzy number analytic hierarchy process methods. It evaluates risks across electrical faults, external climatic conditions, photovoltaic module composition and installation conditions.
The study finds that fire risk in building integrated photovoltaic façades arises from the combined influence of multiple factors rather than one isolated failure mode. Direct current voltage and current magnitude ranked first across all three methods, contributing 8.17% in the normalised variance contribution analysis, 13.44% in the analytic hierarchy process and 13.67% in the triangular fuzzy number version.
Photovoltaic systems commonly operate at direct current voltages of 300 to 1000 V. Increased contact resistance, insulation degradation or circuit damage can cause local overheating, sustained arcing and ignition of nearby combustible materials.
The ageing of photovoltaic modules and associated equipment, circuit contact resistance, the glass type used in modules and the fire performance of encapsulation materials were consistently identified as high risk factors. Encapsulation materials such as ethylene vinyl acetate and polyvinyl butyral, along with junction boxes and other polymeric components, can add to the fire load of a building when they decompose or burn.
Environmental conditions also matter. Temperature, dust accumulation and wind loads can affect module heat dissipation, fault development and flame heat feedback. Installation factors, including the gap between panels and the building, installation form and installation angle, can influence flame propagation, panel breakage and heat release.
The framework also maps dominant risks to practical resilience measures. Ignition prevention and fire spread suppression together account for 60.83% of the total weighting in the resilience optimisation results, while rapid shutdown ranks first among individual measures at 19.62%.
The researchers argue that fire safety management should focus more on preventing ignition and controlling fires in their early stages than on passive response after a fire has started. They prioritise rapid shutdown protection, compliant equipment and wiring connections, improved flammability ratings for encapsulation materials and electroluminescence detection technology.
The findings are intended to support fire safety design, operation, maintenance and emergency planning for building integrated photovoltaic façades. The authors note that the framework currently provides relative risk rankings rather than quantitative predictions, and that future validation will require standardised large scale fire tests, field monitoring data and real incident records.
Link to full paper HERE 
Author: Bryan Groenendaal






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Solar Panel Installation in Australia Industry Analysis, 2026  IBISWorld
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The rise of solar power shows no sign of slowing down, with the International Energy Agency predicting it will overtake coal as the world's biggest source of electricity next year. Behind its success is a little-known Australian inventor.
On a crisp, sunny morning overlooking the beachfront at Bronte, in Sydney, a smartly dressed man strolls along the pavement.
The glorious winter weather has brought out a crowd as he navigates the bustling footpath.
He has to step between surfers carrying boards, mums pushing prams and any number of other passers-by.
His kindly bearing draws smiles and acknowledgements, which are returned in kind.
But seemingly nobody recognises him.
"I'm Martin Green from the University of New South Wales in Sydney," he tells the ABC in an interview at his home nearby.
"And I've been researching on solar cells for over 50 years and had a bit of success in developing new technology and having it commercialised."
Others regard Green as the godfather of modern solar power.
The man behind the technology that's in nine out of every ten solar panels around the world today.
To understand the explosion in the adoption of solar one can look no further than the basic economic principle of supply and demand.
Since the late 1970s the cost of solar has fallen roughly 400 times.
Fierce competition between Chinese manufacturers has led to an oversupply, causing prices to plummet.
Which in turn has seen installations of the green technology outstrip expectations at every turn.
Australia's former chief scientist — and top energy adviser — Alan Finkel says none of that would be possible without Martin Green, who, arguably, has done more to advance solar research than anyone else.
Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull describes Green as "really one of the handful of people that ultimately made the transition" towards renewable energy possible.
And Zhengrong Shi, a protégé of Green's who was the world's first solar billionaire, says the global solar industry would not be what it is today without Green's contribution.
So, how is it that Green can enjoy virtual anonymity in his own country?
In his own, adopted home town, no less?
Turnbull says it's no coincidence Green has largely escaped the limelight.
"Well, look, he is by nature a little bit shy," the former PM says.
Another with a clue is Renate Egan, a professor at UNSW who runs the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics.
To understand Green, Egan says it is necessary to understand that he is, first and foremost, a scientist.
"Martin Green started in 1974 to do research into solar energy in Australia, when the concept that we would be powering our homes from solar was just basically a dream," Egan explains.
"Martin was from Brisbane, he was a child of the sun and the Sunshine Coast.
"It was the same thing that attracted me into solar.
"And that was to do something in the sciences where it made sense in Australia and where I could see a net positive from the research that was being done."
At the time, solar research was in its infancy.
Green might have been chosen to lead a new team investigating the field, but resources were scarce, as were expectations.
Egan says the first of the big oil shocks — in which Arab petrostates cut supply to the US and its Western allies in 1973 — had given the first impetus to solar research.
But as the shock eventually wore off, she says dependence on — and investment in — oil returned with gusto.
Conversely, she says interest in solar power as an alternative source of energy sharply fell away.
There was one exception, however.
"What they found was there was one place where you couldn't rely on oil, and that was in space," she says.
"So space solar has had continuous amounts of research for a long time."
Indeed, Green notes that space had been a proving ground for solar power in ways that defied expectations.
"Actually, the fourth satellite to go up worldwide, and the second US one, had some solar cells on it," Green explains.
"This is in 1958.
"And they worked really well.
"In fact, they worked too well in that they didn't put an off button on the satellite, and the solar cells kept powering the satellite, sending out radio signals for the next six or seven years, blocking up the airway."
For all the practical success of these early photovoltaic cells, fundamental obstacles remained.
Green says the technology was simply too expensive to produce competitively.
In the titanic world of energy, he says it was barely at the margins.
"Probably quite rightfully, you know, the cells were so incredibly expensive, and the numbers being made for these satellites were so puny," he says.
"And this was the era when nuclear was very highly regarded.
"One of the nuclear scientists or administrators of that era is on record as saying the impact of solar would be like a flea on an elephant's back in any energy future.
"So the prospects weren't regarded too highly."
In a development with eerie echoes to the present, Green says it was the Iranian Revolution in the late 1970s — and the resulting oil crisis — that gave renewed vigour to solar research.
Governments across the developed world poured money into research programs.
Then US president Jimmy Carter famously installed solar panels on the White House.
Meanwhile, Green and his colleagues were making breakthroughs that would ultimately have profound consequences for the cost problem bedevilling the technology.
These breakthroughs centred on a key theory Green had been mulling for years.
Boiled down, the theory amounted to adding an extra layer to solar cells to trap more of the escaping light and electrons, making them far more efficient.
"The biggest eureka moment was a couple of years into the project," Green says.
Finkel, who has spent much of his distinguished career communicating science to the layman, says Green and his collaborators have achieved many milestones in solar research.
But his development of passivated emitter and rear cell technology — otherwise known as PERC — was perhaps his crowning achievement.
It is a technology that is used in about 90 per cent of solar panels installed worldwide today.
"It was one of many breakthroughs, but it's a very significant one for cost and efficiency," Finkel says.
The breakthrough catapulted UNSW — and Green — to the cutting edge of solar research.
From "just battling to keep the team growing" and using "very rudimentary equipment", the school carved out a reputation for excellence.
Such was their momentum, they even streaked ahead of NASA — a patron and pioneer of solar development — before going on to claim the world record for cell efficiency.
As they pushed the efficiency of solar cells ever higher — from 16.5 per cent to as much as 26 per cent — the record stayed in their hands for more than three decades.
More importantly, perhaps, the centre's burgeoning reputation began attracting some of the best and brightest researchers in the world.
Among them was a young student named Zhengrong Shi, who capitalised on reforms to open up China to the world in the 1980s by moving to Australia to study.
"At the time, my intention was actually quite simple," Shi says.
"Just do my PhD and later on maybe get a tertiary position or professorship in the university as an academic. It was very simple.
"But sometimes you never know in your life. Sometimes just opportunity pops up. If you are there and ready, you can grab them."
Shi did more than grab his opportunities.
With the lessons he learned at UNSW, Shi moved back to China in 2002 with "$US6 million in his kitty" according to Green.
From there, he set up the country's first commercial solar manufacturing line.
"I sometimes slept on the desk because I had to deal with Europe and the US at different times," Shi recalls.
"I had to build a factory. I went to Europe and Japan to look for all the equipment. Because I designed the process myself, I had to look for the equipment. So that's what I did."
Shi's venture was called Suntech and it became an enormous success, tapping into rapidly growing demand for solar power fuelled by subsidies in rich countries such as Germany.
Green says the measure of Shi's success came when Wall Street bankers started throwing money at his business.
"Zhengrong's became the first private Chinese based company to list on the US on the New York Stock Exchange in 2005," Green explains.
"And he listed and raised $400 million by listing.
"Only part of his company was up for offer … he still held the majority of the company. So he became, overnight, the first solar billionaire on that listing."
According to Green, the stunning success of Suntech triggered an "avalanche" of other listings by Chinese solar manufacturers eager to expand and grab a share of a rapidly growing market.
He says more than $7 billion was injected into 10 Chinese solar companies which listed in America around that time, pumping up the industry and super charging growth.
As is with way with such breakneck growth, however, he says supply quickly started to exceed demand as Chinese firms competed fiercely for business.
"The competition between these companies, these cashed up companies, the only way to sell what they were making was to drop the price," Green says.
"So that's what they did.
"And it caused a rapid price reduction. It dropped by a factor of four over four years or something like that."
The cut-throat competition was devastating for many of the fledgling solar companies, including Suntech, which went bankrupt in 2013.
Crucially, however, it entrenched prices at levels that had once been unimaginably low.
"They've driven the price down in manufacturing by a factor of 100," says Egan from UNSW.
Egan says the secret to the stunning falls in the cost of manufacturing solar lies in its simplicity.
"The silicon technology is really quite simple, and it's infinitely scalable," she says.
"Once you've got it right, you can just perfect it by doing it over and over and over again.
"And what's also happened in the last 20 years is automation of the processes.
"So the automation of the processes in China, there's basically very little human interaction in the manufacturing processes in China now."
Turnbull, Australia's prime minister between 2015 and 2018, agrees.
"The remarkable thing about solar photovoltaics is that a solar panel is the same panel regardless of where it is," Turnbull says.
"Whether it's one panel sitting on somebody's caravan or their hut somewhere and just being there to charge their phone perhaps or run a light bulb, or whether it's one of a million or 10 million solar panels in some vast industrial solar farm."
He says those lamenting solar manufacturing a lost opportunity for Australia ignore the reality.
Australia, he says, could never have competed with China in developing an industry that requires such deep pockets — and such manufacturing muscle — to establish.
"It's difficult to think of any mass commodity product like solar PV where it is going to make sense to be manufacturing in Australia," he says.
"The idea that the global solar supply could be built out of a couple of factories in Australia — that was never going to happen."
Imbued with so many of the lessons learned by Green, his collaborators and his pupils, the Chinese solar industry now sits astride a global market worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
As Finkel notes, when people refer to extraordinary growth in the uptake of solar around the world, they are not exaggerating.
The amount of solar installed has been doubling roughly every three years, becoming 10 times what it was in a decade.
Satellite imagery reveals the staggering rise of solar farms around the world in recent years.
Last year, about 650 gigawatts of solar was installed worldwide — a figure more than 10 times' the size of Australia's main electricity grid.
"The number of solar panels is just exploding," Finkel says.
"We are looking, literally, globally at exponential growth of the manufacturing and deployment of solar panels."
Analysis from energy think tank Ember suggests solar contributed 6.9 per cent of global electricity supply in 2024, compared with practically nothing 20 years ago.
UNSW's Egan says for all these gains, its share of supply will need to rise much further if the world is to have any chance of meeting emissions reduction goals.
"We need that to get to around 50 per cent by 2050," Egan says.
"We need almost tenfold growth.
"So there's still a lot of work to do to get that much extra solar produced sustainably and integrated."
Given the technology's low cost — the International Energy Agency says it's the cheapest source of power in history — Shi doesn't doubt this will happen.
The man once dubbed the "Sun King" says solar power is not without its limitations — the most obvious one being it only generates when the sun is shining.
But he argues its extremely low cost — and the rapid development of technologies that will complement it such as batteries — make solar a compelling choice.
"You look at the demand for electricity globally with artificial intelligence and data centres," Shi says.
"You look at the US, the natural gas turbine, you have to wait five years to get the equipment.
"They talk about nuclear, but that will take maybe 10 plus years to develop.
"What can be done now is solar. It's so fast and cheap."
It's a view echoed by Turnbull, who says the rise and rise of solar is nothing short of a "revolution".
"It's remarkable.
That such a phenomenon should have such an Australian story behind it is remarkable, says Turnbull.
It should be, he says, a celebrated story nationally.
But he says Green is far too modest to demand the limelight.
"Well, I don't think Martin Green's work is recognised enough by the general public, but this is not to say he is hard done by," he says.
"Martin is laden with honours of every type."
Finkel goes one step further.
The former chief scientist knows Green well after they both served together on a board advising Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest man, on the energy transition.
He says Green could have sought fortune — and recognition — beyond most people's wildest dreams.
Instead, Finkel says Green consciously took a path to further solar research in the public interest.
"I think that Martin, you could say, is one of our best kept secrets," Finkel says.
"Part of the reason… is he chose to stay with the academic and educational training route rather than the commercial route.
"He didn't chase patents. He promoted publications and sharing of information.
As he sits at his Bronte home, which, of course, has solar panels on its roof, Green is optimistic about the changes he was so instrumental in unleashing.
The septuagenarian notes the solar manufacturing in China capacity is "well over one terawatt" these days.
By comparison, he says a large coal-fired power station has a capacity of one gigawatt.
"So that's 1,000 large coal-fired power stations a year is what the Chinese industry is capable of manufacturing now," Green says.
"And that number is growing very rapidly."
It's a scale that's hard to comprehend, even for the man whose life's work has been dedicated to it.
"People aren't used to things changing as quickly as they've changed in the solar industry or with the speed that the industry has developed from a small industry to one that could now very rapidly provide all the energy that the world needs," he says.
"20 years ago, even I would not have believed them.
"With a reputation for being overly optimistic, I've proved to be overly conservative in my prediction of what the future… of the industry might look like."
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‘Balcony solar’ and plug‑in systems could help cut your energy costs. But only if rules change  UNSW Sydney
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Jeff Russcher recalls bulldozers plowing everything flat when he visited a solar farm in Indiana. 
“They don’t care about the topsoil,” he says now. 
“They’re just trying to flatten the land so they can lay panels across. That will never be farmable land again.”
Four months later, the Russchers and local farmers worry the same thing will happen in West Michigan. 
On Oct. 14, 2026, a 20th Circuit Court judge ruled RWE Solar can use 562 acres for a proposed 1,900-acre, 200-megawatt solar farm. A Michigan farm family who joined RWE’s initial study in 2020 must now vacate the land under a court order after RWE filed a lawsuit. 
They are James Smallegan and his 81-year-old mother, Patricia. The Ottawa County Farm Bureau members believed a five-year lease agreement was part of an early feasibility study and was signed by James’ father in 2020, who died in 2022.
Instead, Ottawa County Circuit Judge Jon Hulsing ruled they had to honor the contract, issuing an opinion that the Smallegans, “their agents, and their servants are enjoined from entering the property that is subject to the agreement.” 
The family was granted 10 days to vacate their farmland and property.
“For those 10 days, RWE is also fine with your clients having a temporary license to access those areas of the property required for the caring of your clients’ livestock,” Brandon C. Hubbard, co-chair of Dickinson Wright’s Michigan Litigation Team, wrote in an Oct. 14 email obtained by Michigan Farm News.
“We are doing this in the spirit of seeking resolution with your clients. If we make meaningful progress toward resolution, RWE will consider extending the foregoing temporary license.” 
RWE is one of the largest developers and operators of solar projects in the U.S.  
The average acre of Ottawa County farmland is valued at $7,588, up from the state average of $6,600 per acre in 2026. 
This is prime farmland, Jeff Russcher, an Allegan County Farm Bureau member, said.
“What happened is the contract (the Smallegans) originally signed back in 2020 said that if you signed on for the study, you automatically get enrolled in the program if (RWE) deems (the land) workable,” Jeff told Michigan Farm News.
“There was that fine print that a lawyer probably would have caught and said, ‘Hey, don’t do this.’ But, unfortunately, the Smallegans trusted the people they were working with.”
The Russchers’ family farm, Precision Pork, borders the Smallegans’, who could not go on record for this story due to ongoing litigation with RWE. Lisa Russcher said the solar development will affect their hog operation, completely altering their manure management and future feasibility. 
While the Russchers declined RWE’s offer to lease their land, their neighbor’s land is already under contract. According to Jeff, Smallegan and dozens of other farmers received $30 to $40 per acre per year in 2020 under the original five-year contract. 
Now, sources say farmers are being offered up to $1,400 per acre annually for 35 years.
But the Smallegans didn’t want to give up their ground, said Lisa, who also serves as Overisel Township supervisor in Allegan County. She said James feels misled — that the contract wasn’t binding in the sense that “you can do whatever you want.”
“The whole project hinges on this farm because it connects other parts of the solar property together,” Lisa continued. “But the Smallegans didn’t want their home farms involved. 
“They thought they were done after the RWE study.” 
West Michigan is home to 70% of Michigan’s turkeys. The farmland also produces more than 40% of Michigan’s total agricultural sales.
It’s the same farmland that’s being turned into parking lots, said James DeYoung of CJD Farm Consulting Inc. in Grand Rapids.
“(T)he development pressure is extremely obvious,” said DeYoung, whose company works with farmers to develop Comprehensive Nutrient Management Plans — like adding anaerobic digesters, manure storage or sand separators. “You can see it from the highways and any adjacent land near a highway exit. Every large chunk of property is being sold and developed for industrial use.
“The Dorr and Moline area, which used to be prime farmland and home to many small farms, is all being turned into trucking logistics hubs and car part places. I know we need these things too, but at the cost of productive farmland?”
So, what can farmers do if a developer comes knocking? 
According to Allison Eicher, general counsel of Michigan Farm Bureau, farmers should gather information, ask questions and consult an attorney before committing to any contract. 
“What seems like a simple lease can create obligations that last for decades and have significant impacts on you, your family, and your neighbors,” she said. “There is going to be fine print about access rights, easements, liability, termination, and land use restrictions, and those can have just as much impact on your farm as the money you receive in exchange.”
Over the past 15 years, Ottawa County Farm Bureau’s Jeff VanderWerff has been approached by more than 10 solar companies wanting to offer solar leases. His dad engaged with three that made considerable offers, but all three fell apart when his law firm raised concerns.
RWE’s Michigan portfolio includes projects in Lenawee, Otsego, Clinton, Ottawa, Wayne and Ionia counties. Learn more here.
“We discovered very quickly that these companies don’t like to negotiate any of their terms, and they REALLY don’t like it when you respond to their inquiry by handing them a business card for a partner at (Warner Norcross + Judd LLP) and say, ‘please call this person. All correspondence will run through them,’” VanderWerff wrote in an email to Michigan Farm News.
“I think the best advice I’ve given anyone in this area is to hire a damn good attorney before you even read the documents.”
Farmers should also stay active with their county planning board, DeYoung, a Kent County Farm Bureau member, added.
“I recently heard the statistic that we are losing several football fields worth of productive farmland each day to development,” he said.  
As for James, “He is in this fight because he didn’t want to affect other farmers,” said Lisa Russcher.
“These contracts can have unintended consequences on other farmers.” 
RWE didn’t return a request for comment by press time.
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According to the latest IndexBox report on the global Tracker Actuators for Solar Arrays market, the market enters 2026 with broader demand fundamentals, more disciplined procurement behavior, and a more regionally diversified supply architecture.
The World Tracker Actuators for Solar Arrays Market is entering a phase of sustained expansion, with demand forecast to accelerate through 2035. Tracker actuators are performance-critical electromechanical devices that orient photovoltaic panels toward the sun, and their market is tightly linked to the pace of utility-scale solar deployment and the rising share of tracking systems in new ground-mount projects. Tracker penetration is expected to climb from approximately 30% to over 45% of new ground-mount installations by 2035, creating a structural demand tailwind for both linear and rotary actuator types.
Linear actuators, favoured for single-axis horizontal tracking designs, command roughly 60–70% of the unit market, while rotary actuators serve dual-axis and concentrated photovoltaic applications, a smaller but higher-value segment. The market is also being reshaped by design shifts toward higher torque and longer stroke actuators to accommodate larger bifacial modules, raising per-unit power requirements. Integrated actuator–controller units with embedded diagnostics and communications are gaining adoption, reducing field wiring and enabling predictive maintenance.
Supply remains concentrated, with China accounting for an estimated 40–50% of global actuator production, while most regions outside Europe and North America remain structurally import-dependent. This report provides a data-driven view of market size, demand structure, supply capability, trade flows, pricing, and competitive landscape, with a forecast horizon to 2035.
The baseline scenario for the World Tracker Actuators for Solar Arrays Market anticipates high-single-digit to low-double-digit CAGR through 2035, supported by rapid utility-scale solar deployment and a steady increase in tracker penetration from approximately 30% to over 45% of new ground-mount projects. Demand is overwhelmingly driven by utility-scale solar farms, which account for an estimated 75–85% of actuator consumption, with large commercial and industrial installations providing additional volume.
The product mix is expected to remain dominated by linear actuators, which hold roughly 60–70% of the unit market, while rotary actuators continue to serve dual-axis and concentrated photovoltaic applications at higher unit values. Average actuator specifications are shifting upward as tracker designs move toward higher torque and longer stroke to accommodate larger bifacial modules, raising per-unit power requirements and supporting value growth. Integrated actuator–controller units with embedded diagnostics and communications are forecast to capture 25–35% of new shipments by 2030, reflecting demand for reduced field wiring and predictive maintenance capabilities.
On the supply side, China’s estimated 40–50% share of global actuator production creates concentration risk, and procurement cycles increasingly require IEC 62817 compliance and third-party factory audits, lengthening supplier qualification lead times to 6–12 months for utility project first-tier contractors. Input cost volatility for neodymium magnets, steel, and electronic components remains a key margin risk, as raw materials account for roughly 50–60% of actuator cost. Overall, the baseline outlook points to continued expansion, with the market index rising from 100 in 2025 to a materially higher level by 2035.
Utility-scale solar farms represent the dominant end-use sector for tracker actuators, accounting for an estimated 75–85% of consumption. Demand is driven by the build-out of ground-mount projects and the increasing share of tracking systems versus fixed-tilt structures. As tracker penetration rises from approximately 30% to over 45% of new ground-mount projects by 2035, actuator demand per installed megawatt increases because each tracker row requires one or more actuators. The shift toward larger bifacial modules is pushing specifications toward higher torque and longer stroke, raising per-unit power requirements and average selling prices.
Procurement is increasingly concentrated among first-tier contractors that require IEC 62817 compliance and third-party factory audits, lengthening supplier qualification lead times to 6–12 months. Demand-side indicators to watch include utility-scale solar capacity additions, tracker attachment rates, and average project size. The sector’s growth is also supported by integrated actuator–controller units that reduce field wiring and enable predictive maintenance, which are forecast to capture 25–35% of new shipments by 2030. Current trend: Rising.
Major trends: Tracker penetration rising from approximately 30% to over 45% of new ground-mount projects by 2035, Shift to higher torque and longer stroke actuators for larger bifacial modules, Growing adoption of integrated actuator–controller units with diagnostics, and Increasing procurement requirements for IEC 62817 compliance and factory audits.
Representative participants: Nexus Motion Technologies, SolarDrive Systems, ArrayTech Actuation, HelioMotion Controls, and TracPower Components.
Large commercial and industrial installations form a secondary but growing end-use sector for tracker actuators, particularly in regions with high electricity costs and land availability. These projects typically range from several hundred kilowatts to multiple megawatts and increasingly adopt single-axis tracking to improve energy yield and reduce levelized cost of electricity. Demand in this segment is less standardized than utility-scale, with project-specific requirements for actuator stroke, torque, and control integration. Through 2035, growth is expected to be supported by corporate sustainability targets and on-site generation, though the segment remains smaller than utility-scale.
Demand-side indicators include commercial rooftop and ground-mount capacity additions, corporate power purchase agreement activity, and local net-metering policies. Actuator suppliers serving this segment must balance cost competitiveness with reliability, as maintenance access can be more constrained than at utility sites. Integrated actuator–controller units with remote diagnostics are particularly attractive here because they reduce on-site servicing needs. Current trend: Moderate growth.
Major trends: Adoption of single-axis tracking to improve energy yield in commercial projects, Growth supported by corporate sustainability and on-site generation targets, Demand for remote diagnostics to reduce on-site maintenance, and Project-specific actuator specifications limiting standardization.
Representative participants: SunAxis Engineering, PV Drive Solutions, OptiTrack Motion, and RenewAct Systems.
Dual-axis and concentrated photovoltaic systems represent a smaller but higher-value end-use sector for tracker actuators, primarily served by rotary actuators. These systems require precise two-axis orientation to maximize energy capture, and the actuators must deliver high torque and positional accuracy in harsh outdoor environments. Demand is concentrated in specific geographies with high direct normal irradiance and in applications where land is constrained. Through 2035, growth is expected to be modest but steady, supported by niche deployments and technological improvements in concentrated photovoltaic efficiency.
Demand-side indicators include concentrated photovoltaic capacity additions, dual-axis tracker attachment rates, and project economics in high-irradiance regions. Rotary actuators in this segment command higher unit values than linear actuators, making it attractive for suppliers with specialized motion-control expertise. However, the segment faces competition from conventional single-axis tracking, which has lower balance-of-system costs. Current trend: Niche growth.
Major trends: Rotary actuators serving high-precision dual-axis orientation, Demand concentrated in high direct normal irradiance regions, Higher unit values than linear actuators, and Competition from lower-cost single-axis tracking systems.
Representative participants: HelioMotion Controls, Global Tracker Actuators, AxisPro Solar, and Kinetic Solar Components.
Replacement and after-sales service is a growing end-use sector as the global installed base of solar trackers ages. Tracker actuators operate in harsh outdoor environments and require maintenance and eventual replacement over design lives of 25 years or more. Demand in this segment includes replacement actuators, consumables such as gears and bearings, and control modules. Through 2035, the segment is expected to expand as early utility-scale tracker installations reach mid-life and require component replacement. Demand-side indicators include the age distribution of the installed tracker base, failure rates, and service contract penetration. Suppliers with strong after-sales networks and spare-parts availability are well positioned.
The segment also benefits from the growing adoption of integrated actuator–controller units with embedded diagnostics, which can predict failures and trigger timely replacements, reducing downtime and supporting service revenue. Current trend: Rising with installed base.
Major trends: Aging installed base driving replacement demand, Growth in service contracts and predictive maintenance, Consumables such as gears and bearings contributing recurring revenue, and Embedded diagnostics enabling timely replacements.
Representative participants: TracPower Components, RenewAct Systems, PV Drive Solutions, and Nexus Motion Technologies.
Other industrial and specialized applications form a small residual end-use sector for tracker actuators, including use in research installations, agricultural photovoltaic systems, and specialized solar concentrators. Demand in this segment is project-based and often requires customized actuator specifications. Through 2035, growth is expected to be stable but limited, as these applications remain niche compared with utility-scale solar farms. Demand-side indicators include research and development spending on solar technologies, pilot projects, and specialized agricultural photovoltaic deployments. Suppliers serving this segment need flexibility to accommodate small batch sizes and custom requirements.
While the volume share is small, these applications can serve as proving grounds for new actuator technologies, such as advanced control algorithms and integrated sensors, which may later migrate to mainstream utility-scale projects. Current trend: Stable.
Major trends: Project-based demand with customized specifications, Niche applications in research and agricultural photovoltaic, Small batch sizes requiring flexible production, and Potential testbed for advanced actuator technologies.
Representative participants: OptiTrack Motion, Kinetic Solar Components, and SunAxis Engineering.
Interactive table based on the Store Companies dataset for this report.
Asia-Pacific is the largest regional market, driven by rapid utility-scale solar deployment in China and India. China alone accounts for an estimated 40–50% of global actuator production, creating a concentration of supply. Tracker penetration is rising, and domestic demand is supported by large-scale solar tenders. The region is also a major exporter of actuators to import-dependent markets. Direction: Leading production and demand.
North America is a mature market with high tracker penetration in utility-scale projects. Demand is supported by federal and state renewable energy targets and corporate procurement. The region requires UL certification, which limits supplier options and lengthens qualification times. Replacement and after-sales service demand is growing as the installed base ages. Direction: Mature but growing.
Europe shows steady growth, with tracker adoption increasing in southern European markets with high solar irradiance. The region has stringent CE marking and environmental directives, raising compliance costs. Domestic production is limited, making Europe reliant on imports from Asia-Pacific. Integrated actuator–controller units are gaining traction for their diagnostic capabilities. Direction: Steady growth.
Latin America is an emerging market with growing utility-scale solar capacity, particularly in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. The region is structurally import-dependent for actuators, with procurement often tied to international engineering, procurement, and construction contractors. Tracker penetration is rising from a low base, supported by favorable solar resources and auction mechanisms. Direction: Emerging growth.
The Middle East & Africa region is nascent but promising, with large-scale solar projects in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries and South Africa. High direct normal irradiance supports both single-axis and dual-axis tracking. The region is entirely import-dependent for actuators, and project development is often driven by government-led tenders and international financing. Direction: Nascent but promising.
In the baseline scenario, IndexBox estimates a 9.2% compound annual growth rate for the global tracker actuators for solar arrays market over 2026-2035, bringing the market index to roughly 241 by 2035 (2025=100).
Note: indexed curves are used to compare medium-term scenario trajectories when full absolute volumes are not publicly disclosed.
For full methodological details and benchmark tables, see the latest IndexBox Tracker Actuators for Solar Arrays market report.
This report provides an in-depth analysis of the Tracker Actuators for Solar Arrays market in the world, covering market size, growth trajectory, demand structure, supply capability, trade flows, pricing, competitive landscape, and forecast to 2035.
The study is designed for manufacturers, distributors, importers, exporters, investors, procurement teams, advisors, and strategy teams that need a consistent, data-driven view of market dynamics and a transparent analytical definition of the product scope.
This report covers the global market for tracker actuators used in solar array tracking systems, including linear and rotary actuators designed for single-axis and dual-axis solar trackers. The scope encompasses actuators that adjust the orientation of photovoltaic panels to optimize sunlight exposure, as well as associated components, integrated systems, and consumables used in their operation and maintenance.
The report combines the standard market-statistics backbone with strategic chapters that are useful for commercial planning, sourcing decisions, market entry, competitor monitoring, and portfolio prioritization.
The market is segmented into decision-relevant buckets so that demand drivers, pricing logic, supply constraints, and competitive positions can be compared across the same analytical frame.
The report classifies tracker actuators for solar arrays by product type (components and modules, integrated systems, consumables and replacement parts), by application (industrial automation and instrumentation, electronics and optical systems, semiconductor and precision manufacturing, OEM integration and maintenance), and by value chain segment (upstream inputs and critical components, manufacturing and assembly, distribution and integration, after-sales service and lifecycle support).
Coverage includes global totals, major demand markets, production and sourcing hubs, leading exporters and importers, and country profiles for the top national markets.
The report combines official statistics, trade records, company disclosures, product-level evidence, and analyst validation. Data are standardized, reconciled, and cross-checked to keep market sizing, trade flows, pricing, and forecasts comparable across countries and time periods.
All indicators are mapped to a consistent product definition and reviewed against the segmentation framework used in the Table of Contents.
Report Scope and Analytical Framing
Concise View of Market Direction
Market Size, Growth and Scenario Framing
Commercial and Technical Scope
How the Market Splits Into Decision-Relevant Buckets
Where Demand Comes From and How It Behaves
Supply Footprint, Trade and Value Capture
Trade Flows and External Dependence
Price Formation and Revenue Logic
Who Wins and Why
Where Growth and Supply Concentrate
Commercial Entry and Scaling Priorities
Where the Best Expansion Logic Sits
Leading Players and Strategic Archetypes
Detailed View of the Most Important National Markets
How the Report Was Built
Key supplier for space-grade actuators
Specializes in extreme environment mechanisms
Integrated space systems provider
European leader in space mechanisms
Major satellite prime and component supplier
European space prime with in-house actuator production
Joint venture between Thales and Leonardo
Integrated space systems manufacturer
European satellite builder with mechanism division
Key supplier for large satellite platforms
Acquired by BAE Systems in 2024
Defense-focused space component supplier
Niche supplier for European space programs
Spanish aerospace engineering firm
Acquired by Eaton in 2024
Includes heritage from Sinclair Interplanetary
Specializes in lightweight deployable structures
German specialist in space mechanisms
Focus on miniaturized mechanisms
CubeSat component supplier
Nanosatellite manufacturer with in-house mechanisms
Growing European small satellite component maker
Acquired by Kongsberg in 2022
Acquired by Raytheon (RTX) in 2021
UK-based small satellite manufacturer
Vertical integration includes in-house actuator design
Large constellation operator with custom actuators
In-house development for LEMUR satellites
Specializes in on-orbit servicing mechanisms
Acquired several mechanism heritage companies
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In 2026, global solar PV demand is expected to decline year over year for the first time in several years. According to InfoLink’s projections, global demand will fall from 685 GWdc in 2025 to approximately 509–597 GWdc in 2026, a decline of 13%–26%.
A closer look, however, reveals that nearly all of the contraction will come from China, where demand is expected to drop by around 40%, from 368 GWdc to 220–232 GWdc. By contrast, demand in markets outside China is expected to reach 289–366 GWdc this year, compared with approximately 317 GWdc in 2025. In other words, the global solar market has not lost its underlying momentum. Rather, China, its largest growth engine, is undergoing a temporary shift in pace.
Document No. 136 marked a turning point for China’s solar PV demand. In the first half of 2025, developers rushed to complete installations ahead of the cutoff separating existing projects from new ones, pushing demand to a quarterly peak of 152 GWac in Q2 2025, with demand remaining above 100 GWac in the second half of 2025. Following the policy’s implementation, electricity revenues for new projects became more exposed to market prices, alongside the introduction of a mechanism-based settlement arrangement, increasing uncertainty over project returns. Quarterly demand subsequently fell to 41 GWac and 30 GWac in Q1 and Q2 2026, respectively.
Compounding this, 2026 marks the first year of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, with utility-scale projects slow to start. According to China’s National Energy Administration (NEA), newly installed PV capacity totaled 97 GWac from January through August, down 66% year on year. As utility-scale projects progress and provincial competitive bidding processes proceed in the second half of the year, capacity additions in 2026 are expected to reach 200 GWac, though still below previous levels.
Despite the sharp decline in demand, supply has not contracted accordingly, and there has been little meaningful capacity shakeout in the market. Currently in China, cell manufacturers are operating at utilization rates below 50%, while polysilicon inventories held by producers, upstream and downstream companies, and traders may total 730,000–790,000 MT. Even if polysilicon manufacturers halt production, existing inventories would still be sufficient to meet industry demand for more than six months.
To stabilize the market, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) issued pricing compliance guidance to the solar industry, and polysilicon manufacturers committed to refraining from selling below their full production costs. Only then did polysilicon prices return to RMB 40/kg in September.
Cell prices, meanwhile, briefly approached USD 0.06/W amid soaring silver prices before falling back to USD 0.04/W, with market participants continuing to negotiate prices near cash-cost levels. Export prices have also undergone a shift: China eliminated export VAT rebates for PV products effective April 1, pushing FOB prices for TOPCon modules destined for markets outside China from nearly USD 0.10/W to approximately USD 0.115/W. Going forward, prices are expected to fluctuate within a narrow range around this level.
Will overcapacity worsen before conditions improve? InfoLink expects 2026 to mark the worst point in the supply-demand imbalance. Supply has yet to contract meaningfully, with every segment of the PV supply chain, from polysilicon to modules, still maintaining 1,200–1,700 GW of production capacity, while demand remains near its lowest level in recent years.
Looking ahead to 2027, China’s grid integration challenges are unlikely to be resolved in the near term, as further expansion of ultra-high-voltage (UHV) transmission infrastructure and the development of additional ways to utilize renewable energy are still needed. China’s PV demand is projected at approximately 203–224 GWac in 2027, broadly in line with 2026 levels, while global demand is expected to reach 520–622 GWac. A V-shaped demand rebound sufficient to absorb excess capacity therefore appears unlikely.
A meaningful capacity shakeout will depend on the implementation and enforcement of regulatory standards. The Norm of Energy Consumption Per Unit Products of Monocrystalline Silicon (GB 47835-2026) and Norm of Energy Consumption Per Unit Products of Polysilicon and Germanium (GB 29447-2026) will take effect on January 1, 2027.
The Minimum Allowable Values of Energy Efficiency and Energy Efficiency Grades for Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Modules and Inverters (GB 47834-2026) will also take effect on the same date, establishing energy efficiency requirements for modules and inverters. All three standards are expected to facilitate the phaseout of outdated production lines and the upgrading of production technologies. Ultimately, the effectiveness of capacity consolidation will depend largely on how rigorously these standards are enforced and how committed the government and manufacturers are to implementing them.
Energy storage presents a different picture. Over the past year, energy storage prices have risen steadily. Lithium carbonate prices climbed from approximately RMB 60,000/MT in mid-2025 to more than RMB 150,000/MT by mid-2026. Prices for 314 Ah energy storage cells rose from RMB 0.29/Wh to RMB 0.375/Wh, and prices in markets outside China increased from approximately USD 45/kWh to USD 50–52/kWh.
Yet demand remained resilient. Global energy storage cell shipments reached 468 GWh in the first half of 2026, nearly doubling year over year, with full-year shipments projected to exceed 1,000 GWh. Two factors explain this resilience. Despite the price increases, energy storage system (ESS) costs remained substantially below 2024 levels. Moreover, curtailment and growing grid integration pressures across global markets have made solar-plus-storage increasingly essential rather than optional.
The upward trend in prices across the upstream and midstream energy storage supply chain began to reverse in September. As shipments of lithium-bearing minerals resumed from African sources, including Zimbabwe, and China’s inventories of imported lithium ore recovered, market expectations strengthened significantly for a rebound in spodumene-based lithium production and lithium salt supply in Q4. As a result, the price premiums arising from earlier disruptions to lithium ore supply narrowed rapidly. Meanwhile, some energy storage battery manufacturers proactively kept their inventories in check, tempering market expectations for another substantial increase in planned production in Q4.
As prices for lithium carbonate and lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode materials declined significantly, battery cell raw material costs also fell. Meanwhile, China began levying a consumption tax on lithium-ion batteries in September, providing some support for prices. In the short term, however, the decline in upstream material costs was more pronounced, leading to a slight further drop in actual cell transaction prices from already low levels.
Looking ahead, energy storage demand is expected to maintain relatively strong growth in 2027. Utility-scale standalone energy storage projects in China, utility-scale energy storage in Europe and Australia, projects and behind-the-meter (BTM) storage in emerging markets, and new demand from AI data centers (AIDCs) will continue to drive growth. However, as the market expands rapidly from an increasingly large base, energy storage demand growth is expected to gradually normalize, making it unlikely to fully offset the supply pressure from continued expansion in upstream resource production over the long term.
According to InfoLink’s projection, lithium carbonate prices will fall to approximately RMB 105,000/MT by mid-2027, while continued growth in overall demand is expected to keep battery cell and ESS prices relatively stable compared with current levels. In the near term, the energy storage industry’s principal risk lies not in price levels but in regional trade barriers. China’s gradual elimination of export VAT rebates for batteries, combined with U.S. tariffs on Chinese products and non-tariff restrictions such as foreign entity of concern (FEOC) requirements, is driving regional disparities in ESS costs: such costs may edge lower in markets without trade barriers, while prices in markets with such barriers are expected to remain elevated. These developments are unlikely to significantly affect overall solar PV demand but will change the cost of procuring energy storage across markets.
In sum, capacity shakeout has become the focus of China’s PV industry following years of losses among manufacturers and intense price competition. PV supply chain prices are expected to fluctuate within a narrow range at low levels, while a broader restructuring of China’s PV manufacturing industry is only beginning. Meanwhile, the drivers of global demand growth have gradually shifted from China toward emerging markets, particularly those in the Middle East, although aggregate demand outside China remains relatively stable. Whether India can become the next major driver of global growth after 2027 will depend on whether its domestic solar cell manufacturing capacity can close the supply gap and whether its grid infrastructure and energy storage deployment can keep pace with demand growth. 
Figure 1. Module price trends and China’s export VAT rebate elimination, January 2026–June 2027

Ms. Corrine Lin brings over a decade of expertise in renewable-energy research and market intelligence, spanning solar PV, energy storage, and the net-zero transition. As InfoLink&#39;s Chief Analyst since its founding, she has led the team in delivering actionable industry insights. Since assuming the role of Chief Executive Officer of InfoLink Consulting on January 1, 2026, she has continued to advance the company’s research-driven strategy and advisory capabilities.
We are India’s leading B2B media house, reporting full-time on solar energy, wind, battery storage, solar inverters, and electric vehicle (EV)
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Renters and apartment dwellers can finally have their share of the solar boon. (Supplied: Yuma Solar)
Australia's energy ministers have agreed to explore pathways for "safe deployment" of plug-in solar across the country.
Lifting a ban on plug-in solar and batteries would unlock access to the technology for millions of apartment dwellers and renters for the first time.
Campaigners for the legalisation of plug-in solar are calling on the government to provide a timeline by December detailing when the ban could be lifted.
Australia could soon follow in the footsteps of Germany and the United Kingdom as it prepares to lift a ban on plug-in solar and batteries, unlocking access to the technology for millions of apartment dwellers and renters for the first time.
The move was discussed during a meeting of the country's energy ministers, where they agreed to explore pathways to support the "safe deployment" of plug-in solar across the country.
Australia is leading the world in the adoption of batteries. But in one state, storage is fuelling some perverse and pricey outcomes.
The systems, which are also commonly referred to as 'balcony solar', were legalised in the United Kingdom last month and New Zealand has flagged plans to do the same within 12 months.
Germany is a world-leader in plug-in solar, with an estimated one in 10 households having a system installed.
It can technically be sold in Australia but not legally plugged in and used.
Energy Minister Chris Bowen said a third of Australians have solar on their roof, making the technology "more popular than the backyard pool".
"Now we're taking the next step, by looking at how even more Australians can take advantage of free, abundant sunshine to cut their energy bills — even if they don't have a roof.
"All state and territory ministers are on board and will work with the Commonwealth to look at how plug-in solar and batteries can work in Australia to give apartment dwellers more control over their energy bills."
Chris Bowen says a third of Australians have solar on their roof. (ABC News: Matt Roberts)
Heidi Lee Douglas is the CEO of Solar Citizens, a community organisation that's been campaigning for plug-in solar to be legalised, and welcomed that Australia was now a step closer to that reality.
"This commitment to make plug-in solar and plug-in batteries legal in Australia is great news for more than a third of Australians who rent or live in apartments, and also for low-income households so they can access some of the bill-busting benefits that cheap clean solar home owners enjoy," she said.
"We want to see a firm timeline and deadline by December at the next energy ministers meeting for when plug-in solar and batteries will be available for use in every state and territory.
Heidi Lee Douglas is the CEO of Solar Citizens and says plug-in systems would finally bring more social equity for the technology. (Supplied: Solar Citizens)
Plug-in solar systems and batteries can be plugged into regular power points and do not require installation by an electrician.
The power generated by the panels is fed into the home network via an inverter and a standard plug and helps offset electricity used by appliances.
Overseas, they are commonly attached to apartment balconies or installed in backyards and produce between 600-800 watts of power, typically at a cost of up to $1,300.
They are a popular choice for people who live in an apartment and cannot mount rooftop solar as well as renters, many of whom have never considered the possibility of accessing renewable energy.
More than 30 per cent of Australians are renting, which equates to almost 3 million households.
Maiya Irving-Mackinnon is a renter from the Sydney suburb of Marrickville who estimates their electricity bills have increased by about 15 per cent, or $200, over the past 12 months.
Maiya Irving-Mackinnon, a renter from the Sydney suburb of Marrickville, is keen to reduce their power bills by having a plug-in solar panel. (ABC News: Patrick Thomas)
"Solar has never really been something that we can consider as a renter because we can't install anything on the roof or on a ground floor apartment," they said.
"I would really like to have the option to install solar panels and for that to be subsidised but it's not really something that's been available for a renter before.
Experts have suggested the payback period for plug-in solar systems ranges from four to ten years.
Ms Lee Douglas expects some households will save up to $1,000 a year on electricity bills.
"The average plug-in solar panel will allow you to save about $300-$400 a year, and plug-in batteries will easily double that," she said.
Importantly, renters would be able to take the panels and batteries with them when they moved.
Plug-in solar systems don't need installation; they are as easy to plug in as a kettle or toaster. (Supplied: Holger's Pictures)
The federal government will now work with the states and territories to "identify measures that enable the safe use" of plug-in solar and report back on next steps by the end of the year.
The federal government is yet to indicate whether it is considering offering subsidies or rebates for the technology.
Solar Citizens is calling on plug-in solar and batteries to become legal in Australia by July next year.
But there are still barriers to overcome ahead of then, including ensuring safety standards are up to scratch for when products begin to enter the market.
Executive director of the German Plug-In Solar Association Craig Morris said Australia could look to the safety standards that Germany has developed as a starting point.
"The risk of too many companies coming in and some of them not being serious has gone down," he said.
"If you go back just five years, I think we had a number of companies that you didn't really know too much about them and maybe they were just trying a quick buck.
Surging levels of renewable energy and better reliability from coal-fired generators are set to give consumers a break, with benchmark power prices to fall up to 10 per cent for consumers and more for small businesses.
Bringing landlords and body corporates on board to allow plug-in solar to be hung on balconies or stationed in backyards is another challenge that would need to be addressed in Australia before the technology is legalised and rolled out.
In Germany, tenants need to get permission to install plug-in solar but landlords need a good reason, such as planned facade renovations, to reject the request.
Mr Morris said ultimately, adoption of plug-in batteries would be crucial in allowing the full benefits of plug-in solar to be fully realised.
"What we're ultimately offering, which is plug-in solar with batteries, or maybe even plug-in batteries without solar, offering flexibility from households," he said.
"The batteries would charge and discharge not in order to optimise our consumption of the solar power we generate, but to optimise operation of the local grid.
"And this can save money across the board, across the country for everyone, even if you don't have a system, because we're going to optimise the usage of these public power lines."
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That cap has forced them to rethink the project before installation even begins.
Photo Credit: iStock
A homeowner in Solihull, England, says their roof fits 23 solar panels and has roughly 11 kilowatts of capacity, but the local grid will only allow about 4 kilowatts of generation.
That cap has forced them to rethink the project before installation even begins.
Writing on Reddit, the homeowner explained that NGED (their distribution network operator) said the limit stems from the property’s single-phase connection and the number of neighboring homes that already have solar. Under that restriction, the project could use only one G98 inverter at roughly 3.68 kilowatts, and a quote to add a three-phase service came back at about £27,000.
The homeowner added that NGED would not approve a G100 export-limiting arrangement. They said the operator was concerned that output reduction could take up to 15 seconds, allowing voltage to climb before the limit took effect.
Others in the thread said the issue is common. One commenter wrote, “I had the same limit. 4kW inverter full stop – not just an export limit. Was initially depressed about the whole thing but now I have a SolaX 3.6kw inverter, 20kWh of batteries and 7kWp on the roof – 14 panels. Works really well for me.”
Tying into an existing grid creates complexity. Neighborhood grid constraints can block clean-energy upgrades even when a homeowner has the roof space, budget, and interest to move forward. In this case, nearby solar adoption and limitations in the existing hardware appear to have limited one household’s ability to install solar.
For households that can move forward, going solar is still one of the best ways to save money on home energy. Readers comparing system sizes can use EasyHome’s free explorer tool to see pricing and savings from vetted installers in their area.
When a grid operator limits a house’s output, adding solar gets a bit harder. In this case, the homeowner already tried all the options with the grid manager and faced bespoke options to get the full potential of their roof space.
With energy prices through the roof, there’s never been a better time to go solar — and EasyHome can help you find the best prices from the best installers in your area.
EasyHome takes the guesswork and headaches out of energy upgrades by showing you estimated savings from a network of vetted local partners. To get started, just enter your ZIP and share a few details about your home — seeing your estimate is really that easy.
They were weighing a Sigenergy Neo, provided it reaches the U.K. with the needed certification and software support; a Fox PQ1-3.7 that could take all 23 panels with optimizers; and a Fox H1-3.7 G2 paired with about 19 kilowatt-hours of batteries.
For readers facing the complexities of adding solar, EasyHome can be a useful place to compare installer quotes and system designs side by side. EasyHome’s free explorer tool can also help homeowners explore backup battery storage, and pairing solar with a battery can maximize savings while keeping the home powered by solar when the grid goes down.
The homeowner summed up the central issue plainly: “The frustrating part is that we have roof space for 23 panels (about 11 kWp, east, south and west).”
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Commenters largely treated the problem as a lawyer issue, not a customer-service call.
Photo Credit: iStock
A Reddit user said their monthly electricity costs shot from about $10 to $500 after the solar setup on a house sold with “Owned Solar equipment” stopped working.
The situation became more confusing when the solar provider told them the panels and batteries weren’t actually theirs.
According to the Reddit thread, the buyer said the home sale was marketed as including paid-off solar equipment, only for the solar company to later say it still owned the hardware and wouldn’t repair it. The buyer wrote that the company’s response was: “your equipment? Not it’s ours we’re just waiting on a pickup date.”
The buyer said renters, not the homeowner, originally approved the installation, and that the prior owners later won a lawsuit against both the solar company and the installer. But when the buyer reviewed the settlement, they said it appeared to show only that the contract had been terminated — not that the equipment became part of the property.
Commenters largely treated the problem as a legal issue, not a customer-service call. Calling the company’s stance “some wild logic,” commenters suggested the sellers, real estate agents, or title company may have failed to confirm who actually owned the solar equipment.
Still, going solar is one of the best ways to save money on home energy. Readers who want to compare pricing and projected savings from vetted local installers can use EasyHome‘s free explorer tool.
The jump from a $10 bill to a $500 bill highlights how much a working solar system can change a household’s monthly power costs.
What makes the dispute unusual is the apparent mismatch in the paperwork, not just the equipment failure. The buyer said the closing documents showed “no leases on the property and owned equipment,” yet the solar company still said it owned the system. That kind of contradiction could leave a homeowner with unusable panels on the roof and no obvious company willing to service them.
With energy prices through the roof, there’s never been a better time to go solar — and EasyHome can help you find the best prices from the best installers in your area.
EasyHome takes the guesswork and headaches out of energy upgrades by showing you estimated savings from a network of vetted local partners. To get started, just enter your ZIP and share a few details about your home — seeing your estimate is really that easy.
The buyer also said the sellers “want nothing to do with the property anymore,” that even their agent couldn’t reach them, and that the panels are only about 2 to 3 years old — meaning repairs could still be worthwhile if ownership gets sorted out. Commenters, meanwhile, pointed to title records and possible UCC filings as documents that could help determine whether any financed-equipment claim was still attached to the system.
Hiring a real estate attorney was the most common recommendation. Some commenters said the buyer should not allow the company to remove the panels unless a lawyer approves it, while others argued the title company also deserves scrutiny if it missed a filing or other encumbrance during closing.
Commenters also proposed a separate practical step: have another solar repair company inspect the system. Several said an outside technician might identify an inverter issue and determine whether the equipment can be reset or reconnected. One commenter estimated that if an electronically locked inverter is the problem, replacement parts could run about $1,000 to $2,000.
For homeowners who want to avoid that kind of surprise, EasyHome‘s free explorer tool helps compare vetted installers, pricing, and expected savings before signing anything. The tool can also help readers explore backup battery storage; pairing solar with a battery lets homeowners maximize savings and keep the power on when the grid goes down.
Get TCD’s free newsletters for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here.
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