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Rompetrol Rafinare continues its investments in renewable energy and is launching a project to develop a photovoltaic plant with an installed capacity of 9.4 MW at the Petromidia refinery. The photovoltaic plant is expected to generate more than 9,800 MWh of renewable electricity annually, all of which will be used by the refinery.
The total project value is approximately 44 million lei, comprising about 14 million lei in nonrefundable financing from the Modernization Fund and a 30-million-lei contribution from Rompetrol Rafinare.
The project is scheduled for implementation by December 31, 2028, in accordance with the deadline set for the funding call. The project is part of the KMG International (Rompetrol) Group’s comprehensive decarbonization strategy.
In recent years, the Petromidia refinery has implemented significant projects to reduce environmental impact, increase energy efficiency, optimize technological processes, and strengthen the platform’s energy independence.
A flagship project is the new cogeneration plant at the Petromidia site, which entered commercial operation at the end of 2025. With an installed capacity of approximately 80 MW, the plant currently meets the refinery’s electricity and process steam requirements, contributing to the optimization of energy consumption and increased operational efficiency.
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Two weeks ago, the leading stakeholders in U.S. PV manufacturing came together at the inaugural Solar Manufacturing USA 2026 conference in Austin, Texas. The speakers left the audience with plenty to digest, and having had time to reflect, we want to share some of our thoughts.
After the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 stimulated a substantial rise in domestic module assembly, it is encouraging to see significant investment now flowing into cell manufacturing, with new capacity online or under construction and more planned. Ingots and wafers have seen initial investments, with additional capacity announced from 2028 onwards. These segments should begin to provide meaningful domestic volumes in the coming years; polysilicon remains the more challenging part of the chain.
A complete PV manufacturing ecosystem is far broader than the value chain from polysilicon to modules. It includes production equipment, spare parts and service, process gases, high-purity quartz and graphite, metallization paste, solar glass, chemicals, consumables and trained people, and a missing or unqualified input can compromise an otherwise capable factory. Herein lies the key message from Austin: if the third wave of U.S. PV manufacturing is to be meaningful and enduring, we need a complete, economically viable and sustainable domestic ecosystem, all the way down to the raw materials.
We took a close look at what went wrong in the earlier attempts to establish competitive PV manufacturing in the United States. It wasn’t all China’s fault. Trade conditions and policy mattered. So did manufacturing leadership, process discipline, technology transfer and the ability to sustain yield, throughput and quality at scale.
It is also worth understanding why China built a full ecosystem in record time between 2015 and 2020. Bank financing for new factories was tied to domestic equipment and materials, and the leading producers became owners or anchors of their suppliers. Within five years the whole value chain moved from multi to mono, to PERC, to n-type as one aligned body, with no government mandate required. The same experience carries a warning: when factory funding went uncapped in 2021–2023, capacity outran demand and prices collapsed.
The stakes are higher now. Today’s ingot, wafer and cell technologies have little in common with what was last operated here 10 to 15 years ago, and the task is to run them at gigawatt scale with the discipline that keeps yield, uptime and cost on plan. Plans to innovate our way past that task are ill placed. Mastery of current state-of-the-art production comes first, including feedstock and consumables made to specification. Innovation stays essential; it belongs on a separate technology roadmap and builds on operational mastery of current production.
The challenge of building sustainable PV manufacturing is appreciable, and significantly harder if the domestic landscape evolves in a fragmented and uncoordinated way, as the first two waves did. Collaboration is the key to making the third wave prosperous and enduring.
As an actionable next step, we propose an industry-led U.S. PV manufacturing ecosystem roadmap: a guiding document for manufacturers and suppliers, the capital markets, federal and state governments, and academia and the national laboratories, setting out how we plan to build the ecosystem and how each can contribute.
The semiconductor industry’s roadmap is the model: one shared view, for chipmakers and their suppliers, of what would be needed and when. A PV roadmap would say, for each input, where domestic capability is most valuable and where dependable allied partners can supply. It would rank gaps by supply risk, qualification time, economic viability and the consequences of disruption, pair each priority risk with a plausible mitigation, and state the investment and the policy support needed for a domestic supplier to earn a return. Identifying a gap is of little use if filling it is loss-making. The roadmap would not apply a purity test. For each input the test is critical mass: enough domestic capability to set specifications, qualify suppliers, hold the know-how and ride out a disruption while an alternative is qualified. Beyond that threshold, imports from dependable partners are healthy. They add capacity and keep domestic suppliers sharp on cost and quality.
It should also look for inputs whose demand extends beyond solar. For example, high-purity graphite serves crystal growers, fluidized-bed reactor liners, battery anodes and the nuclear restarts now being financed; silane feeds TOPCon and heterojunction cells as well as silicon-anode batteries; flat glass serves automotive and architectural markets. A supplier with several customers is a stronger supplier, and such connections help decision makers see how the pieces fit together.
We envision a living document, reviewed at least annually, that guides investors and policy makers toward dependable, long-term industrial policy. The Inflation Reduction Act supported a select group of value-chain segments and left the supply chain incomplete; Section 232 (Proclamation 11052) has since acknowledged that solar manufacturing is a matter of national security. When the last round of incentives was written, industry did not speak with one voice, and decision makers who hear contradictory messages act on none of them. A single PV manufacturing roadmap gives the industry a common reference with government, for example when Section 45X is revisited or substantial transformation is defined for PV products.
For each priority gap, the roadmap should explain the operating need, the capability available today, a feasible remedy, the investment and time required, the parties needed to deliver it and the measures of success, and it should separate what better engineering and operations can achieve from what depends on financing, demand and public policy.
The roadmap would not be a technology roadmap and does not seek to compete with the existing International Technology Roadmap for Photovoltaics (ITRPV). We encourage U.S. manufacturers and suppliers to take part in the ITRPV, which complements the ecosystem roadmap proposed here.
First, invite participation. We have not shopped this proposal around; we are putting our names on it and asking the industry directly whether a shared roadmap makes sense and which gaps it should address first. Participation is open to every manufacturer and supplier that wants a sustainable domestic base, each with an equal voice; no one is obliged to join, and we will not single out companies. Those who join early will shape the agenda.
Second, publish a synthesis for review. Over the coming weeks we will consolidate responses into a preliminary map of needs, existing capabilities and ranked gaps, each priority risk paired with a plausible mitigation, and make clear where views converge, where they differ and what evidence is still needed. Our goal is to share initial findings just before RE+ 2026 in Las Vegas, the week of November 16.
Third, let participating companies select the first actions. Where support is sufficient, develop a small number of proposals, each with an accountable industry lead, committed participants, a budget, a timeline with milestones and success measures. Expressions of interest should become explicit commitments before a program launches. Companies retain their own technology choices and commercial decisions. The organizational form should follow the work industry is prepared to support, drawing on the experience of SEMATECH and other collaborative efforts.
A horizon helps. By 2030, we should see qualified American cells, made from American polysilicon and wafers, in American modules, a supply base with critical mass at every step, competitive delivered costs and customers placing repeat orders.
We would like to hear from as many of you as possible. Do the justification and objective above resonate with you? Which two or three gaps most affect your ability to manufacture competitively? Where is a domestic source essential, and where are imports from dependable partners healthy? What capabilities already exist, what remedies would you suggest, and what could you contribute? The next step is to turn the concerns of individual companies into shared priorities for the entire U.S. PV manufacturing sector, and then into actions that participating companies are prepared to support. Reach us through our LinkedIn pages or by email.
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pv magazine USA hosts its multi-day virtual event on U.S. solar and energy storage, covering domestic manufacturing, distributed energy and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting AI-driven power demand.
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This, in turn, has put more than 800 MW of new solar into construction for Zelestra’s customers across the country.
The credit facilities were provided by Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), BBVA and Societe Generale. Reclamation, which takes its name from the land beneath it, reclaimed from former coal mining operations, is underpinned by a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Meta and is due to come online by the end of 2027.
The project is already under construction and is expected to support approximately 200 jobs at peak construction.
“Passing $1 billion in US project financing this year is a milestone we are pleased to share with our lenders and our customers” said Sybil Milo Cioffi, Zelestra’s US CFO. “Reclamation is a major project that will deliver many benefits to our customer, and to the wider community. We are pleased that CIBC, BBVA and Societe Generale are backing our ambition. These partnerships enable us to keep building at the pace this market needs.”
Zelestra continues to expand its US platform with multi-technology solutions built around the growing energy needs of hyperscalers and corporate customers. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, the company is developing a pipeline of approximately 16 GW across key US markets.
For additional information:
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Solar Power World
By SPW | October 8, 2026
Solar projects are built to generate clean energy, but construction and operations can also generate materials that need to be managed responsibly. At a solar site in Maysville, Georgia, broken and damaged solar panels created a need for a responsible recycling solution, bringing in Green Clean Solar, a Georgia-based, woman-owned company specializing in solar waste management, recycling, and landfill diversion.
Green Clean Solar
Rather than allowing broken panels and other solar-related materials to become landfill waste, Green Clean Solar developed a recovery and recycling solution to collect the damaged panels, coordinate transportation, and ensure the materials were directed toward responsible downstream recycling.
The project highlights an increasingly important issue facing the rapidly growing solar industry: what happens to the panels that don’t make it to the end of their useful life?
For Emilie O’Leary, founder and CEO of Green Clean Solar, the answer is simple: they shouldn’t automatically go to a landfill.
“We love seeing new solar projects being built across the country, but we also have to acknowledge that broken panels are part of the process,” said O’Leary. “Panels can be damaged during transportation, handling, construction or other phases of a project. When that happens, we need to have a plan. These panels still contain valuable materials, and they deserve an opportunity to be recovered and recycled.”
The importance of responsible solar recycling is shared by the customers Green Clean Solar serves. Parker Persons, project engineer with Inman Solar, explained why recycling damaged modules is an important part of their sustainability strategy.
“Solar is built on sustainability, and we hold our equipment to that same standard,” he said. “When modules across our portfolio are damaged, we recycle them. This allows us to recover valuable materials for reuse while keeping potentially hazardous materials, such as lead and cadmium, out of landfills. Those recovered materials can then be put back to productive use, supporting a more circular economy. Working with Green Clean Solar has helped us achieve those goals.”
The Georgia project is an example of the type of boots-on-the-ground solar waste management Green Clean Solar provides to commercial and utility-scale solar projects. The company works with developers, EPCs, asset owners, utilities, and other industry partners to manage solar waste generated throughout a project’s lifecycle, including:
Green Clean Solar coordinates the collection, palletizing, loading, transportation, and responsible downstream recycling or reuse of materials. The company’s approach is focused on landfill diversion and circularity, helping solar companies understand where their waste goes and what materials can potentially be recovered.
“There is a misconception that recycling solar panels is only something we need to think about when a solar farm is being decommissioned,” O’Leary said. “That’s not true. Recycling needs to be part of the conversation from the very beginning of a project. If you have broken panels sitting on a construction site, that’s solar waste that needs a responsible solution today.”
Green Clean Solar
Green Clean Solar works with recycling and recovery partners to help ensure valuable materials such as glass, aluminum and metals can be recovered whenever feasible rather than being unnecessarily sent to landfills.
For O’Leary, this is about more than recycling a broken panel. It’s about changing how the solar industry thinks about waste.
“We’re building an incredible clean-energy industry, but clean energy shouldn’t create a waste problem that we ignore,” she said. “If we’re going to call solar sustainable, we have to be willing to deal with the waste that comes with it. That’s where Green Clean Solar comes in.”
Green Clean Solar believes the future of solar sustainability will depend on looking at every component as a potential resource rather than simply waste.
The company continues to tour and work with solar recycling facilities and downstream partners across the country, exploring opportunities to recover materials and develop stronger circular-economy solutions for the solar industry.
The Georgia project demonstrates that responsible solar recycling doesn’t have to wait for a major disaster or the end of a solar farm’s life. Sometimes, it starts with something as simple as a stack of broken panels sitting on a job site.
“Every broken panel is a decision point,” said O’Leary. “We can throw it away, or we can do something better with it. I believe the solar industry is ready to choose better.”
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A solar farm near Taunton can remain operational until 2068 following a vote by local councillors.
Higher Knapp solar farm lies to the south of Higher Knapp Farm, located in the small hamlet of Knapp within the parish of North Curry, east of Somerset’s county town.
The facility has been generating electricity since 2013, with the original planning permission setting its operational limit at 30 years – meaning it would have to be dismantled and the land returned to its original use by 2043.
But Somerset Council’s planning committee west (which handles major applications within the former Somerset West and Taunton area) has now approved an extension to this permissions, meaning it can continue to generate clean power for a further 25 years.
The solar farm is currently accessible by two means: an access track on Knapp Road near the existing farm buildings, and a public footpath which runs along its western boundary and emerges onto Knapp Hill.
In addition to extending its operational lifespan, the council’s planning officers have requested that additional landscaping be put in place during the next planning season (i.e. the winter of 2027/28) to provide better screening at the boundaries of the site.
Under the revised permission, the solar farm would have to be completely dismantled by March 31, 2068 or within six months of its ceasing operation (whichever comes sooner) – with the land having to be returned entirely to its former condition by June 30, 2068.
Both Creech St. Michael Parish Council and local division councillor David Fothergill vehemently opposed the extension, with the latter arguing it “fundamentally undermines the temporary nature of the land allocation for solar farms” and would therefore set a potentially distressing legal precedent.
Councillor Frances Nicholson (Conservative, Dulverton and Exmoor) took a different views, welcoming the additional landscaping as part of any extension.
She said: “I’m particularly pleased to see the renewal of the condition around landscaping.
Councillor Frances Nicholson (Conservative, Dulverton and Exmoor) (Image: Somerset Council)
“What’s important is the element which requires maintenance of the landscaping – if that wasn’t present last time, we’ve remedied that now.”
Councillor Gwilym Wren (Independent, Upper Tone) said he found the proposal “quite troubling” and shared Mr Fothergill’s concerns about the loose use of the word ‘temporary’.
He elaborated: “All these solar farms were sold to the local communities and committees on the basis that they were temporary.
“It was going to be 30 years, that crept up to 40, we’re now looking at 55.
“I would submit these are pretty permanent, so long as solar generation is going to be a source of energy. I think the whole ‘temporary’ argument has completely fallen away.”
Councillor Gwilym Wren (Independent, Upper Tone) (Image: Somerset Council)
Councillor Dave Mansell (Green, Upper Tone) disagreed, stating: “The impact of this in landscaping terms is minimal.
“I’m not saying solar farms can go anywhere – they do need to be in the right locations – but there is a view that they’re a very positive sight.
“I have to say, in my eyes, we’re doing something positive to save our future and make a better world. That is seriously important.
“We need more of this sort of thing to contribute to our energy needs. We need more battery energy storage alongside it, but it does make a good contribution.”
After around an hour’s debate, the committee voted to approve the plans by six months to none, with two abstentions.
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The Owensboro Times
News
By Ryan Richardson
October 9, 2026 | 12:15 am
Updated October 8, 2026 | 11:16 pm
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Daviess County Fiscal Court approved two ordinances Thursday establishing new restrictions on large-scale solar energy projects, including limits on acreage, increased setbacks, and stricter financial requirements intended to protect neighboring properties and taxpayers.
The solar ordinances, developed over more than a year of discussions involving county officials, planning and zoning staff, and residents, address both where large-scale energy facilities can be built and what developers must do to protect surrounding properties, farmland, and public infrastructure.
Judge-Executive Charlie Castlen said the county’s goal was not to prohibit solar development entirely, but to establish safeguards for the community.
“We were asked at the very beginning to just ban industrial solar farms,” Castlen said during Thursday’s meeting. “We cannot do an absolute ban. What we can do is put in restrictions that are protective of our community, and that’s what we’ve tried to do.”
One ordinance amends Articles 8 and 14 of the Owensboro Metropolitan Zoning Ordinance, incorporating recommendations approved unanimously by the Owensboro Metropolitan Planning Commission on Aug. 13.
The amendments establish several restrictions on large-scale solar developments and merchant electric generating facilities, including:
The 300-acre limit applies to the primary project development area and does not include the required buffer areas, meaning the total land associated with a project could be larger.
The zoning changes also broaden the terminology previously used for large solar energy systems to include merchant electric generating facilities, which can encompass other forms of electric generation.
The second ordinance establishes a separate set of county regulations addressing construction, operations, environmental protections, and the eventual removal of solar facilities.
Castlen previously explained that the county worked with a group of residents who researched regulations in other communities and submitted recommendations. Some were incorporated into the zoning amendments, while others were placed in the separate county ordinance.
“Among the additional requirements are transportation plans, road use agreements, stormwater management measures, and financial guarantees to cover potential road damage and restoration costs.”
Developers must provide an irrevocable letter of credit or escrow account sufficient to cover potential road repairs during construction, operation, and decommissioning. The amount would be determined by the county engineer and could be adjusted as costs change.
Projects must also include plans to protect agricultural land, minimize soil compaction, control erosion, and restore affected property after operations end.
The ordinance requires quarterly water quality testing at applicable discharge points, along with fire prevention and emergency response plans developed in coordination with local agencies.
Developers would be responsible for the costs of necessary fire protection equipment and annual training for emergency responders.
Under the new regulations, decommissioning plans must be updated every three years, with financial assurances intended to cover the cost of removing equipment and restoring the property if a developer fails to fulfill its obligations.
Although both solar ordinances passed, the zoning amendments did not receive unanimous support.
Commissioner Chris Castlen voted against the zoning changes, saying he believes additional work is necessary before he can support them. He voted in favor of the separate county regulations.
Chris Castlen thanked the residents, planning and zoning staff, and county officials who contributed to the process, saying the regulations should balance property owners’ rights with protections for their neighbors.
“I think this shows it’s important that we have the guidelines that we approve that not only protect the rights of the property owners but also protect the neighbors’ rights and the overall beauty and practicality of our countryside and the farms that we have,” he said.
He described the ordinances as a good start but said more work was needed on the zoning amendments.
October 9, 2026 | 12:15 am
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Modat and NCSC-NL, the Dutch government’s cybersecurity center, found 8,547 internet-facing systems at wind farms and solar parks in 35 countries in and around the EU that should not be reachable from the internet. The systems range from login screens to a turbine control page that offers a Stop button to anyone with a browser.
Operators in Spain, Greece, Italy and Germany account for most of the confirmed systems. The real number is higher. A system only made the list once the team could link it to a specific solar or wind site.
Europe’s renewables do have one defensive advantage on the ground. Solar parks and wind farms scattered across the continent make a poor target for bombs, drones or saboteurs, and the International Energy Agency has linked Ukraine’s push toward decentralized power to energy security. The authors put the catch this way: “Physically, decentralised renewable energy is a very hard target. But in cyberspace, there is no there there.”
Modat found the devices with machine-learning clustering, which groups similar systems automatically, so new device types turn up without someone first writing a rule to detect them. Some of the solar and wind devices were ones the team had not known to look for.
One wind turbine shows what the exposure looks like. Its web dashboard displays live power, wind speed and rotor data, and its control panel offers Start, Stop and Reset buttons. One menu item further sits the web server of the Siemens ET 200SP PLC, the industrial controller that runs the turbine. A map page gives away the turbine’s location, and aerial imagery of that spot shows the neighboring turbine, the service buildings and the access road.
That page runs one machine. Other systems in the data set sit a level higher and control several turbines or a whole farm, so one exposed system can stand for far more generating capacity than a single turbine. Two wind park login pages named their sites outright. One of them noted that the default username is root in all newer releases.

Redacted login page on a wind park, with aerial imagery of the site (Source: Research report)
Solar accounts for 7,942 of the systems, across 34 countries. Spain alone has 2,766, or 35 percent. Add Greece (1,860), Italy (753) and Germany (672), and those four countries hold 76 percent of the solar total. Wind accounts for 605 systems across 23 countries, with Germany (212) and Italy (192) making up 67 percent. Spain, the solar leader, has 11 on the wind side.
The smaller wind figure is less comforting than it looks. The wind farms in scope run from 10 megawatts to more than 4,500, and some of the exposed wind systems control several turbines at once.
Lithuania bars entities from countries it considers national security threats, including China, from remotely controlling solar parks, wind farms and storage above 100 kW. Asked whether other countries should copy that rule, Thomas Plank, CEO of Tributech, said:
“Restricting remote control by high-risk vendors is a reasonable national security step, but it addresses who connects, not what happens once they do. Most of the systems in this report are exposed regardless of where the vendor is based, and a European vendor with a stolen maintenance account gives an attacker the same access.”
Plank said wind and solar parks now rely on dozens of remote links to outside parties, and that some of those links will be compromised. “Once an attacker is inside, the network can’t tell a legitimate stop command from a malicious one,” he told Help Net Security.
“Every command that reaches a turbine or inverter should be checked for who sent it, whether that sender is authorized for that specific asset and action, and whether it arrived unchanged,” Plank said. “That protection applies to every vendor equally, whatever their origin.”
NIS2, the EU’s cybersecurity directive, requires the management bodies of essential and important entities to approve and oversee cybersecurity measures and makes them liable, whether systems are run in-house or outsourced. For a CIO whose turbines and inverters are maintained remotely by the manufacturer, Plank said:
“Start with a complete list of every remote connection: who connects, from where, to which assets, and whether they can only read data or also change how assets operate. Many operators can’t produce that today.”
From there, he would have CIOs require individual vendor accounts with strong authentication and no shared credentials, plus access limited to specific assets and actions, with the right to send commands split from the right to monitor. Operators should keep their own record of every command and configuration change, verify data and commands without leaning on the vendor’s systems, and get incident notice in time for NIS2’s 24-hour early warning.
“For the board, this turns into a few clear questions: how many external parties can change how our assets operate, can we prove every change was authorized, and can we trust the data our decisions are based on?”
The authors’ first step for operators is shorter. Take admin interfaces off the internet immediately, plan and monitor as if an attacker is already inside, and keep the option of running sites by hand.

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The solar PV and battery storage sectors supported 982,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs in the European Union in 2025, according to SolarPower Europe’s new EU Solar Jobs Report 2026. Solar accounted for 874,000 jobs, while battery energy storage systems (BESS) – included in the association’s study for the first time – accounted for another 108,000.
Employment was driven by deployment growth. The EU added 69 GW of solar capacity in 2025, while battery installations reached 27 GWh. Of all solar and storage jobs, 44% were direct positions and 56% were indirect jobs linked to supply chains and related activities.
Solar employment rose 1% year on year to 874,000 FTEs. Installation and deployment accounted for 742,000 jobs, or 85% of the total. Operations and maintenance reached a record 78,000 jobs, while manufacturing accounted for around 37,000, or just 4% of solar employment, with inverter production representing 90% of manufacturing jobs.
Germany was the EU’s largest solar employment market, with approximately 165,000 FTEs, followed closely by Spain. Italy ranked third, with around 85,000 jobs. Together, the three countries accounted for nearly half of EU solar employment.
The report also points to a shift in market structure. For the first time since the report series began in 2021, utility-scale PV slightly overtook rooftop solar in employment, accounting for 50.2% of jobs.
A similar shift toward larger projects occurred in storage. Utility-scale systems accounted for more than half of new battery capacity installed in 2025 and generated nearly half of deployment-related jobs.
SolarPower Europe expects EU solar employment to fall to 766,000 FTEs by 2030, from 874,000 in 2025. The decline will be concentrated in deployment, where employment is projected to fall 22% as annual installations stabilize and productivity improves.
The projected decline in employment will come despite continued growth in the EU solar fleet. SolarPower Europe expects installed capacity to rise from 411 GW in 2025 to 739 GW in 2030. As a result, operations and maintenance employment is projected to increase from 78,000 to 109,000 FTEs.
Manufacturing employment could also increase, reaching 49,000 jobs if announced industrial projects are realized. Jobs in decommissioning and recycling are projected to nearly double, from 16,000 to 30,000 FTEs.
Deployment’s share of solar employment is therefore expected to fall from 85% in 2025 to 76% in 2030. Manufacturing, operations and maintenance, and decommissioning and recycling would collectively account for nearly one-quarter of solar jobs.
The report identifies several priorities for 2026, including maintaining solar skills within industrial and labor policies, improving SME access to training funding, updating training programs to include digital and technical skills, and implementing the training and installation requirements of the revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED III).
SolarPower Europe also calls for greater coordination between European training programs and for skills development spanning solar, storage, grids, heat pumps and e-mobility. It recommends expanding apprenticeships, career guidance and pathways for workers transitioning into the sector.
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The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now!
Available in print and digital – get your copy today!
Monday, October 12, 2026
10:00 am – 11:00 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
pv magazine USA hosts its multi-day virtual event on U.S. solar and energy storage, covering domestic manufacturing, distributed energy and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting AI-driven power demand.
pv magazine hosts its four-day virtual event on European solar and energy storage, exploring market opportunities, solar-plus-storage business cases, technical quality, and cybersecurity in the years ahead.
pv magazine Session returns to NetZero Milan as Knowledge Partner, organizing and moderating a two-hour conference on the evolving global solar supply chain.
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Join pv magazine for an expert session exploring quality, technology and the challenges of scaling India’s solar industry.
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Some areas were further warned of reduced pressure and temporary cutoffs.
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A power failure in Lanzarote, Spain knocked desalination plants offline, threatening the local drinking water supply.
According to Canarian Weekly, on Oct. 3, roughly 51,700 customers lost power after a 5:44 a.m. incident involving the 66-kilovolt network at the Mácher substation in Tías. By 5:48 a.m., another failure at the San Bartolomé and Punta Grande substations had caused a generation loss, pushing the total number affected to about 73,600.
About 39,000 customers still lacked electricity at 6:47 a.m., even as crews worked to restore power. Playa Blanca, which is supplied through Fuerteventura, was lucky enough to avoid outages.
The grid failure also caused desalination plants serving Lanzarote and La Graciosa to shut down, interrupting drinking-water output. Some areas were further warned of reduced pressure and temporary cutoffs. 
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The outage is a reminder that going solar is one of the best ways to boost energy resilience — not to mention save money on utility bills. Homeowners can use EnergySage to get free solar installation estimates and compare quotes.
Even after electricity began returning, water output could not rebound immediately because the desalination plants had to complete startup and stabilization procedures before ramping back toward normal production.
While the plants were being restored to operation, water crews adjusted the distribution system to stretch existing reserves and manage stored supplies.
Because the blackout was disrupting essential services, the Canary Islands Government activated a PLATECA pre-alert for Lanzarote at 7:15 a.m. Officials did not immediately identify the original cause of the electrical failure as work continued on the power and water systems.
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Authorities used the emergency declaration to coordinate with essential-service operators and monitor the outage’s impact. In the meantime, residents and businesses were urged to conserve water and avoid nonessential use until production recovered.
For households thinking about resilience after an outage like this, adding battery storage to a solar setup is one of the best ways to protect your home during outages, save money on energy, and go off-grid. Homeowners can explore EnergySage for information about home battery storage options, including competitive installation estimates.
Tools that make solar shopping easier can also help people prepare for disruptions. With EnergySage’s solar map, homeowners can see the average cost of a home solar panel system by state, along with details on solar panel incentives for each state. Together, those resources can help homeowners get the best price for rooftop solar panels and access available incentives. With EnergySage’s help, the average person can save up to $10,000 on solar purchases and installations.
Related coverage has documented other major outages.
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• Across the Balkans, power outages struck several nations as heat strained aging grids.
• In Cuba, the power grid collapsed multiple times after Hurricane Oscar, halting daily life.
• In Puerto Rico, hundreds of thousands without power exposed how fragile the island’s system remains.
• In São Paulo, blackouts as utility companies struggled left residents demanding accountability.
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The former chief executive of a company that supplies roof mounting racks for solar panels has set up a rival firm, it has been claimed in the High Court.
Solrmount Ltd is seeking orders against its former CEO, Christian Jensen, his wife Cathrine Elisabeth Feerup and a new business they set up called Roof Professor Ltd.
On Thursday, Judge Brian Cregan granted orders to Marcus Dowling, for Solrmount, compelling the defendants to preserve any Solrmount physical property in their possession as well as all computer files and information of the company.
The application was made with only the Solrmount side represented at the hearing and was adjourned to next week when the application for declarations and orders in relation to profits or money received by the defendants and alleged breaches of fiduciary duty are to be heard.
Dowling said the founder of Ireland’s largest supplier of solar panels, Failte Energy Solutions, trading as Failte Solar, had discussions with Jensen in 2024 about the sourcing of mounting racks. As things stood, these came from Germany but were sourced in China which it was decided they could do themselves.
Abhilash Borana Abhilash, founder of Failte Solar, said in an affidavit that as a result of discussions, they set up Solrmount, which is based in the Shannon Free Zone at Shannon, Co Clare.
Abhilash held 80 per cent of the shares through a holding company. Jensen and his wife, through a corporate vehicle, held 20 per cent. Jensen was also CEO of the company and his wife was employed by the business.
Jensen was not required to provide any capital but to supply his knowledge of mounting systems and work as an employee of the company, Abhilash said.
With the commercial, operational and market support provided by Failte Solar, Solrmount was a success, Abhilash said.
In the context of that success, he said Jensen began seeking more advantageous terms for him, his wife and their corporate vehicle.
Last July, Jensen resigned as CEO of Solrmount although issues had already arisen in relation to the business and his conduct, Abhilash said.
Earlier, in March, Abhilash said he was told by a Chinese supplier that Jensen had travelled to China in January when Jensen said he intended to set up a competing business.
Abhilash said he asked Jensen if he had any problems with Solrmount, but Jensen denied he was setting up a separate business.
Abhilash said the defendants attempted to solicit Solrmount’s customers and have also obtained orders from them.
He said CCTV footage showed that the day after Jensen resigned he attended Solrmount’s warehouse and loaded a van with goods. Jensen had no permission for this or to be in the building, Abhilash said.
He also said the “deceitful and fraudulent nature” of wrongdoing by Jensen, which, he alleged, included receiving “backhand personal benefits” and the clandestine establishment of a competing business while working as CEO of Solrmount, showed there was a real risk Jensen would destroy or delete evidence unless orders were made.
The matter was adjourned to next week.
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A controversial solar array just metres from family homes has moved a significant step closer after Wiltshire Council approved the final pre-construction planning conditions needed before work can begin.
The MOD says solar arrays like the one at Perham Down – home of the 22 Engineer Regiment – will help it hit Net Zero by 2025.
The council has formally discharged conditions around construction management, environment, and ecology for the scheme on land beside Lambdown Terrace at Swinton Barracks.
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Planners were told the former horse-grazing paddock is home to “an exceptional population of reptiles” including slow worms – a protected species.
The development was granted planning permission in August and will see thousands of ground-mounted solar panels installed.
Consultees from highways, ecology and public protection were satisfied that the submitted construction and environmental management measures met the requirements imposed when permission was granted.
The latest decision means construction can proceed in accordance with the approved plans, although ecologists have warned the site supports an “exceptional population of reptiles”.
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While they accepted the submitted mitigation measures, they recommended monitoring during construction because there remains a residual risk of reptiles being harmed if they re-enter working areas.
The solar farm forms part of the Army’s Project Prometheus programme, which aims to increase renewable energy generation across the defence estate and help meet the MOD’s 2050 Net Zero targets.
The 1.64-hectare site lies adjacent to Lambdown Terrace and close to military housing.
Wiltshire Council’s original officer report acknowledged that the development would have a noticeable visual impact on nearby households.
However, planners concluded that the renewable energy benefits outweighed the harm, particularly after the design was revised to reduce the number of panels, alter their orientation and introduce additional landscaping.
The plans proved controversial during consultation, generating 57 letters of objection and only three letters of support.
Residents raised concerns about the loss of open views, impacts on wildlife, construction traffic, noise, and the proximity of the solar array to family accommodation.
Despite those objections, planning officers concluded that the relatively modest scale of the development, highway controls, landscaping measures and ecological mitigation were sufficient to make the scheme acceptable.
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Swinton Barracks, opened as a military camp in 1915 and renamed in the 1970s after tank warfare pioneer Sir Ernest Swinton, remains one of the Army’s key engineering bases on Salisbury Plain.
The 22 Engineer Regiment provides armoured engineering support using specialist vehicles such as Titan bridge-layers and Trojan combat engineers.
Soldiers train for frontline operations and have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and Estonia.
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PV module prices in Europe have dropped across all technologies in September 2026, between 1.1% and 3.6%.
According to the latest PV Index report from online solar marketplace sun.store, TOPCon bifacial modules remain the cheapest with an average price of €0.114/Wp (US$0.128/Wp) and a monthly decrease of 1.3%.
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The price gap with TOPCon monofacial continues to narrow, with these averaging €0.12/Wp in September and a 2.3% decrease.
“The two TOPCon variants stayed apart this month, with bifacial the cheaper route for standard utility-scale modules by a narrowing margin”, said sun.store.
Full black modules have had the slowest monthly price decrease with a drop of 1.1% and an average price of €0.129/Wp in September 2026. It is also the most expensive type of module across all categories, given that black contact modules averaged €0.128/Wp last month, but their price decreased the most, by 3.6%.
When it comes to the supplier ranking over the three months to September 2026, the top five remains unchanged from last month with all five being Chinese module manufacturers. Trina Solar remains as the top supplier followed by Aiko and JA.
The report also covers prices of PV inverters with a mixed bag in price changes from the previous month. The smaller hybrid inverters, between 1-20kW, had a monthly price increase of 5.8% to €94.66/kW, while larger hybrid inverters decreased by 6.9% to €59.93/kW.
“Larger commercial units remain by some distance the most competitively priced part of the inverter market on a per-kW basis,” said sun.store.
Moreover, string and on-grid inverters above 20kW have experienced the highest price drop with a 10.5% decrease to €22.03/kW. According to the online solar marketplace this is mostly due to a shift in the mix of models trading, rather than a cut to any single product. In August, premium three-phase inverters carried a heavier weighting, while in September, the more competitive and larger commercial-scale models were favoured and thus tilted the price downwards.
Finally, the demand for solar modules in Europe continues to be below historic averages over the last three months, according to PV Index’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI). However, the number rose from 65 in August to 67 in September, slightly below the historical average of 68, which points to a steady demand, according to sun.store.
47% of surveyed buyers planned to buy more modules in October than September, 40% expect no change and 13% plan to buy fewer modules in the coming month.

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Toyo has held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the expansion of its solar module manufacturing plant in Humble, Texas, according to the company. The Japanese solar manufacturer said the expanded facility now has a nameplate capacity of 2GW, a milestone it described as significant for its operations in the state.
Toyo announced in June 2026 that it planned to add 1.5GW of heterojunction cell manufacturing capacity at the site, and this week confirmed it expects construction at the cell facility to be completed in the first quarter of 2028. Over the summer, the company agreed to sell more than 4.5 million shares for a total value of US$4.5 million to finance the expansion of its HJT cell production capability, a move made amid overall company revenue rises between the second half of 2024 and the end of 2025.
Speaking at the ceremony, held yesterday, Takahiko Onozuka, chairman and chief executive of Toyo, characterized the completion of the 2GW module expansion in Texas as an important milestone and identified cell manufacturing using HJT technology as the company’s next step.
Under secretary of commerce for industry and security Jeffrey Kessler attended the event and said the expanded plant fits into the current administration’s plans to incentivize the building of new domestic manufacturing facilities. Kessler attributed Toyo’s announcement directly to the current administration’s policies aimed at bringing manufacturing and jobs back to the United States.
Texas Democratic congressman Christian Menefee (TX-18), who also attended, commented that while Washington often appears divided, there is agreement that onshoring is of the utmost importance. He added that building jobs and production in the United States is crucial and that this is achieved through partnerships with allies doing the same work.
The expansion comes against the backdrop of trade scrutiny. Toyo was the target of the fifth investigation undertaken by the US government into anti-dumping and countervailing duties practices in the sector on 12 May. At the time, the company strongly rejected accusations that it circumvented AD/CVD orders, which it was claimed was achieved by exporting assembled crystalline silicon PV modules and cells from Ethiopia that contained wafers originating in China.
The following day, Rhone Resch, chief strategy officer at Toyo Solar, told PV Tech that all solar cells manufactured in Ethiopia currently use exclusively polysilicon supplied from the United States and Malaysia, and that the company’s wafers are processed in Southeast Asia.
The Department of Commerce, the US government body investigating Ethiopia-based solar cell producers, has yet to publish its preliminary determinations on the continuing case.
Interactive table based on the Store Companies dataset for this report.
This report is an independent strategic market study that provides a structured, commercially grounded analysis of the market for Solar Cells and Module in the United States. It is designed for battery and storage manufacturers, power-electronics suppliers, system integrators, EPC partners, developers, utilities, investors, and strategic entrants that need a clear view of deployment demand, technology positioning, manufacturing exposure, safety and qualification burden, project economics, and competitive structure.
The analytical framework is designed to work both for a single specialized storage or conversion component and for a broader renewable energy generation component, where market structure is shaped by chemistry, duration, project economics, system integration, safety requirements, route-to-market, and grid-interface logic rather than by one narrow customs heading alone. It defines Solar Cells and Module as Semiconductor devices that convert sunlight directly into electricity, manufactured as individual cells and assembled into modules (panels) for integration into solar power systems and examines the market through deployment use cases, buyer environments, upstream input dependencies, conversion and integration stages, qualification and safety requirements, pricing architecture, commercial channels, and country capability differences. Historical analysis typically covers 2012 to 2025, with forward-looking scenarios through 2035.
This report is designed to answer the questions that matter most to decision-makers evaluating an energy-storage, battery, renewable-integration, or power-conversion market.
At its core, this report explains how the market for Solar Cells and Module actually functions. It identifies where demand originates, how supply is organized, which technological and regulatory barriers influence adoption, and how value is distributed across the value chain. Rather than describing the market only in broad terms, the study breaks it into analytically meaningful layers: product scope, segmentation, end uses, customer types, production economics, outsourcing structure, country roles, and company archetypes.
The report is particularly useful in markets where buyers are highly specialized, suppliers differ significantly in technical depth and regulatory readiness, and the commercial landscape cannot be understood only through top-line market size figures. In this context, the study is designed not only to estimate the size of the market, but to explain why the market has that size, what drives its growth, which subsegments are the most attractive, and what it takes to compete successfully within it.
The report is based on an independent analytical methodology that combines deep secondary research, structured evidence review, market reconstruction, and multi-level triangulation. The methodology is designed to support products for which there is no single clean official dataset capturing the full market in a directly usable form.
The study typically uses the following evidence hierarchy:
The analytical framework is built around several linked layers.
First, a scope model defines what is included in the market and what is excluded, ensuring that adjacent products, downstream finished goods, unrelated instruments, or broader chemical categories do not distort the market boundary.
Second, a demand model reconstructs the market from the perspective of consuming sectors, workflow stages, and applications. Depending on the product, this may include Grid-connected solar farms, Commercial rooftop installations, Residential solar systems, Industrial self-consumption projects, Off-grid electrification, and Solar-powered consumer electronics and mobility across Power Generation (Utilities/IPPs), Commercial Real Estate, Industrial Manufacturing, Residential Construction, Telecommunications, and Public Infrastructure and Technology R&D and Pilot Lines, Capacity Planning and CAPEX Deployment, Supply Chain Sourcing and Qualification, Manufacturing Process Optimization, Quality Assurance and Certification, Sales Channel and Distribution Setup, and Project Design and System Integration. Demand is then allocated across end users, development stages, and geographic markets.
Third, a supply model evaluates how the market is served. This includes Polysilicon, Silicon Wafers (Mono Grown, Cast Multi), Solar Glass, Encapsulation Materials (EVA, POE), Backsheets, Frames (Aluminum), Silver Paste & Conductive Adhesives, and Specialty Gases and Chemicals, manufacturing technologies such as Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell (PERC), Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact (TOPCon), Heterojunction Technology (HJT), Interdigitated Back Contact (IBC), Bifacial Module Design, Half-Cell and Shingled Cell Interconnection, and Advanced Module Encapsulation and Framing, quality control requirements, outsourcing, contract manufacturing, integration, and project-delivery participation, distribution structure, and supply-chain concentration risks.
Fourth, a country capability model maps where the market is consumed, where production is materially feasible, where manufacturing capability is limited or emerging, and which countries function primarily as innovation hubs, supply nodes, demand centers, or import-reliant markets.
Fifth, a pricing and economics layer evaluates price corridors, cost drivers, complexity premiums, outsourcing logic, margin structure, and switching barriers. This is especially relevant in markets where product grade, purity, customization, regulatory burden, or service model materially influence economics.
Finally, a competitive intelligence layer profiles the leading company types active in the market and explains how strategic roles differ across upstream material suppliers, component and controls providers, OEMs, storage-system integrators, EPC partners, project developers, and distribution or service channels.
This report covers the market for Solar Cells and Module in its commercially relevant and technologically meaningful form. The scope typically includes the product itself, its major product configurations or variants, the critical technologies used to produce or deliver it, the core input categories required for manufacturing, and the services directly associated with its commercial supply, quality control, or integration into end-user workflows.
Included within scope are the product forms, use cases, inputs, and services that are necessary to understand the actual addressable market around Solar Cells and Module. This usually includes:
Excluded from scope are categories that may be technologically adjacent but do not belong to the core economic market being measured. These usually include:
The exact inclusion and exclusion logic is always a critical part of the study, because the quality of the market estimate depends directly on disciplined scope boundaries.
The report provides focused coverage of the United States market and positions United States within the wider global energy-storage and renewable-integration industry structure.
The geographic analysis explains local deployment demand, domestic capability, import dependence, project-development relevance, safety and approval burden, and the country’s strategic role in the wider market.
This study is designed for strategic, commercial, operations, project-delivery, and investment users, including:
In many energy-transition, storage, power-conversion, and project-driven markets, official trade and production statistics are not sufficient on their own to describe the true market. Product boundaries may cut across multiple tariff codes, several product categories may be bundled into the same official classification, and a meaningful share of activity may take place through customized services, captive supply, platform relationships, or technically specialized channels that are not directly visible in standard statistical datasets.
For this reason, the report is designed as a modeled strategic market study. It uses official and public evidence wherever it is reliable and scope-compatible, but it does not force the market into a purely statistical framework when doing so would reduce analytical quality. Instead, it reconstructs the market through the logic of demand, supply, technology, country roles, and company behavior.
This makes the report particularly well suited to products that are innovation-intensive, technically differentiated, capacity-constrained, platform-dependent, or commercially structured around specialized buyer-supplier relationships rather than standardized commodity trade.
The report typically includes:
The result is a structured, publication-grade market intelligence document that combines quantitative modeling with commercial, technical, and strategic interpretation.
Energy-Storage Market Structure and Company Archetypes
Leading US solar module producer; vertically integrated
Now part of Maxeon Solar Technologies (US HQ); premium residential/commercial
Key supplier for module-level power electronics
Major inverter supplier for residential/commercial
Swiss-origin but US-headquartered subsidiary; US production
US HQ for Hanwha's solar arm; large US factory in Georgia
Chinese parent but US-headquartered sales and distribution
US HQ for Chinese-based manufacturer; major importer
Canadian parent but US-headquartered operations
Chinese parent; US HQ for sales and service
Largest US residential solar company; not a module manufacturer
Acquired by Sunrun; still operates as brand
Major US solar-as-a-service provider
Produces modules at Gigafactory New York
US-based module producer; owned by OCI Company
Canadian-origin but US-headquartered subsidiary
Canadian-origin but US-headquartered manufacturing
Small US module assembler
Focus on aesthetic residential modules
Specializes in architectural solar glass
Acquired by SunPower; coating technology
German-origin but US HQ for sales; wafer technology
Acquired by Hanwha; US-based wafer technology
Focus on perovskite-silicon tandem cells
Acquired by First Solar; technology integrated
US cell and module producer; filed for bankruptcy, restarted
Former US manufacturer; assets acquired by SunPower
Small US module assembler
Part of Saint-Gobain; US HQ for solar roofing
Subsidiary of Standard Industries; US-based
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Temporary Liquid Trick Grows Near-Defect-Free Perovskite Crystals for Solar Cells and LEDs
Perovskite solar cells have long promised to shake up the energy world: they are cheap to make, can be printed from solution like ink, and in the laboratory have reached efficiencies that rival the silicon panels blanketing rooftops today. Yet one stubborn problem has kept them from fulfilling that promise at scale. The thin films at the heart of these devices are mosaics of countless tiny crystals, and the seams between those crystals are riddled with defects that bleed away precious energy. Now a team co-led by researchers at the University of California San Diego, working with collaborators at Princeton University and Sungkyunkwan University in the Republic of Korea, has unveiled an elegantly simple fix: a temporary liquid that melts its way through the crystallization process and then vanishes, leaving behind larger, cleaner, more orderly crystals. The work was published on October 8 in the journal Science.
The core insight of the new study is deceptively straightforward. Rather than fighting the defects that form as perovskite crystals jostle into place during fabrication, the researchers gave the crystals room to fix themselves. They accomplished this by mixing two additional salts, zinc bromide and methylammonium chloride, into the solution used to make the perovskite film. When the material was heated during processing, these two additives combined to form what chemists call a eutectic: a mixture that melts at a lower temperature than either of its individual components. This low-melting mixture turned liquid precisely where it was needed most, at the boundaries between the growing crystals.
That temporary liquid proved transformative. In a conventional perovskite film, crystals nucleate and grow rapidly, locking in a chaotic arrangement full of grain boundaries, the interfaces where misaligned crystals meet. These boundaries harbor structural and electronic defects that cause some of the energy captured from sunlight to be lost before it can be harvested as electricity. With the eutectic present, the boundaries between growing crystals became liquid-like, giving the crystals space to rearrange and grow into a more orderly structure. As heating continued, one of the additive ingredients, methylammonium chloride, evaporated away, while the zinc component remained concentrated around the crystal boundaries, where it helped neutralize the electronic defects that remained.
Study co-first author Connor Dolan, a chemical and nano engineering PhD alumnus from the lab of David Fenning, professor and the Francine Berman Endowed Chair in the Aiiso Yufeng Li Family Department of Chemical and Nano Engineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, described the approach as a new way of steering crystal growth. “We introduce a new way of tuning the growth of halide perovskites by developing an additive mixture that actively evolves during crystallization,” Dolan said. “What’s even cooler is that the end product removes performance-limiting defects at the edges of the crystalline grains.” The key word is actively: unlike static additives that simply sit in the film, this mixture changes state and composition as the material crystallizes, playing a different role at each stage of the process.
To understand exactly what was happening inside the film, the researchers turned to advanced X-ray imaging techniques capable of watching the process unfold at extremely small scales. What they saw confirmed the mechanism. The material around the crystal boundaries became disordered and liquid-like during heating, then re-ordered at the same temperature as the extra salt evaporated and crystal growth finished. The entire solid-liquid-solid transformation occurred at a single temperature, which the researchers find particularly intriguing. The treatment produced larger, better-ordered crystals with fewer structural defects and a more uniform distribution of the material’s chemical properties across the film, precisely the qualities that device engineers prize.
The improvements carried directly through to device performance. Solar cells and light-emitting diodes built with these eutectic-treated perovskites achieved efficiencies ranging from about 24 percent to 26 percent, placing them at the high end for perovskite-based devices. Just as importantly for real-world deployment, the solar cells retained most of their original efficiency after continuously operating for eight weeks under simulated sunlight, a durability result that addresses one of the most persistent criticisms of perovskite technology.
The physics behind those numbers is telling. In a solar cell, energy from sunlight excites electrons and leaves behind holes in the material, creating paired charge carriers known as electron-hole pairs. How long these pairs survive before recombining and releasing their energy as waste heat is a key indicator of how well a perovskite performs. “Perovskites made with the eutectic-forming additives had the longest lasting electron-hole pairs ever reported for any direct-bandgap semiconductor, which speaks to the promise of this approach,” Dolan explained. That claim is remarkable because it spans not just perovskites but an entire class of semiconductors, suggesting the material produced here has an unusually clean electronic landscape.
Perhaps the most encouraging sign for the field is that the method appears to be chemistry-agnostic. The researchers found that the approach worked across the different perovskite compositions they tested, rather than being a one-off trick for a single formulation. “It seemed like everything we tried worked!” Dolan said. “I’m hopeful that this mechanism has the chance to be really generalizable and provide a platform for further innovation in the perovskite community.” That generality matters because perovskite research is a sprawling enterprise, with hundreds of labs tweaking compositions of halide perovskites, a family of materials defined by their crystal structure rather than any single recipe. A growth method that improves all of them could become a shared foundation.
The broader context makes the advance especially timely. Unlike conventional silicon solar cells, which require energy-intensive, high-temperature processing of rigid wafers, perovskites can be processed from solutions and deposited as thin films, opening the door to simpler, lower-energy manufacturing and potentially flexible, lightweight panels. But scaling perovskite devices from small laboratory cells to full-size modules has been notoriously difficult, because efficiency tends to drop as the device gets bigger and the odds of encountering a defect multiply. Films with fewer grain boundaries and cleaner interfaces should, in principle, suffer less from this scaling penalty, which is exactly the problem the eutectic method targets.
The team is now exploring additional eutectic chemistries to better understand and control the crystallization process, hoping to generalize the curious solid-liquid-solid growth mechanism further. The work, detailed in the study “Volatile eutectics to tailor crystallization for perovskite optoelectronics,” was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. National Science Foundation, startup funds from Princeton University, the National Research Foundation of Korea, and the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology. If the strategy proves as broadly applicable as the early results suggest, the humble trick of adding a pinch of salt that melts and then disappears could become a standard tool for manufacturing the next generation of solar cells and LEDs, turning one of perovskite technology’s oldest weaknesses into a solved problem.
Subject of Research: Volatile eutectic additive engineering for defect reduction in halide perovskite crystallization for solar cells and LEDs
Article Title: A temporary melting liquid could help build better perovskite solar cells and LEDs
Article References: A temporary melting liquid could help build better perovskite solar cells and LEDs. (n.d.). Original publication
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: Not provided
Keywords: perovskite, solar cells, halide perovskites, eutectic, crystallization, grain boundaries, defects, LEDs, thin films, photovoltaics, UC San Diego, Science journal
News Source: Denise Maddox. (October 9, 2026). Temporary Liquid Trick Grows Near-Defect-Free Perovskite Crystals for Solar Cells and LEDs. Scienmag.
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Energies Media
On a flat, bone-dry plain outside Baku, where the Gobustan steppe meets the edge of the Caspian world, row upon row of panels now face south across 741 acres of state-designated land.
Nothing about the landscape suggests renewable energy.
Azerbaijan built its modern economy on petroleum, and the Garadagh district has long been industrial ground for the oil and gas supply chain rather than a site for capturing sunlight.
Yet on September 16, a 100 MW solar plant was formally energized there, logged against the national grid, and visited by a head of state for the ribbon cutting.
What makes Gobustan more than a capacity number is what it proves about the process that built it: this was the first solar project in Azerbaijan ever delivered through a competitive public auction, and the tariff it locked in is startlingly low for a first-of-its-kind deal anywhere.
The Garadagh district sits at sea level on the Absheron Peninsula, a tongue of flat land that juts into the Caspian. The sun angle there is generous, cloud cover is minimal for most of the year, and the open steppe offers unobstructed exposure from east to west. Shading is not a problem that engineers had to solve here.
What they did have to solve was the ground itself. The Gobustan plain is stony, semi-arid terrain, prone to dust loading on panel surfaces and to salt haze drifting in from the Caspian shore. Both reduce output relative to nameplate capacity, and both demand a maintenance regime calibrated to the site rather than a generic cleaning schedule. The soiling loss in this environment is one of the real engineering variables that the plant’s first operating season will measure against the projected 200 GWh annual output.
That output figure, if reached, would displace roughly 45 million cubic meters of natural gas a year from Azerbaijan’s domestic power mix, according to the country’s state news agency. The displacement is the point: every kilowatt-hour from Gobustan is a kilowatt-hour a gas turbine does not have to generate.
The Cabinet of Ministers designated the 300-hectare plot in the Pirsaat settlement of Garadagh in 2023, carved out of undeveloped state land and assigned specifically for a renewable energy facility. At 741 acres, the footprint is large enough to hold more than 560 American football fields end to end.
Beyond the panel arrays themselves, field inverters and transformers have been installed at the plant, and all cabling works have been completed, according to the official inauguration record. The grid connection runs into Baku’s distribution network, putting clean power directly into the capital’s supply.
The site carries one subtlety that confuses early reports. The plant’s name refers to the Gobustan plain, while the official inauguration record places the site at Pirsaat in Baku’s Garadagh district. The distinction matters for anyone tracking land designation, auction and commissioning documents, which all cite the Pirsaat plot. Both names describe the same installation.
Bidding took place in April 2024, and the Chinese firm secured the award in November 2024 with a price of $0.0354/kWh. That is 3.54 cents per unit of power, a figure that is competitive with mature solar markets in southern Europe and well below what a gas peaker in Azerbaijan would cost to dispatch.
The site was put up for auction for the construction of the solar power plant, with China’s Universal International Holdings Limited emerging as the winner in 2024. The Gobustan Solar Power Plant project is the first project implemented through an auction process in Azerbaijan, as well as the first project carried out by Universal Energy in the country.
The tariff result matters beyond Azerbaijan. It signals that competitive tendering, even in a market with no prior solar auction history, can attract international capital at prices that undercut gas-fired generation. Bringing Gobustan online raises Azerbaijan’s installed renewable energy capacity to 2,170 MW spread over 85 facilities, which equals 21.5 percent of the nation’s overall energy capacity. That share is rising quickly: a 445 MW Bilasuvar solar project is also under development alongside the state oil company’s green subsidiary.
Gobustan’s panels feed into a national grid that was architected around dispatchable, fuel-burning generation. Solar is intermittent by nature, and gas and oil make up two-thirds of Azerbaijan’s GDP, making it one of the top ten most fossil fuel-dependent economies in the world. Integrating variable renewables into that grid without new storage or demand-management infrastructure is a real constraint, not a theoretical one.
The 200 GWh annual target from a 100 MW plant implies a capacity factor of roughly 23 percent, which is credible for this latitude and this terrain, but not generous. Any sustained dust accumulation that cuts panel output by even five percent erases a meaningful slice of the projected gas savings. The plant’s cleaning logistics across 741 acres of stony scrubland are one of those hidden operational costs that only show up after the first full summer cycle. For how autonomous cleaning technology is already changing that calculation at large-scale farms, see what five robots accomplished across two Australian projects in a single season.
None of that undermines what September 16 recorded. It simply maps the gap between a commissioning ceremony and a steady-state operating plant, a gap that every utility-scale solar project must close over its first operating year.
Azerbaijan is not just generating power for domestic use. It has ambitions to export clean electricity westward into Europe through the Black Sea cable corridors, and every megawatt of domestic solar that displaces gas frees up more of that gas for export revenue while simultaneously reducing the country’s carbon intensity. The Gobustan tariff of 3.54 cents per kWh sets a price anchor for the next round of Azerbaijani auctions, and developers watching from the region will note it carefully.
What remains open is whether Azerbaijan can replicate the auction model at larger scale and faster pace. The government has signaled targets of 1.5 GW of new renewable capacity by the end of 2027, a number that would require many more Gobustans in quick succession. The question of how quickly a transmission grid built on gas-fired certainty can absorb that volume of variable generation is one that grid planners in Baku have not yet answered publicly. For a broader picture of how similar gaps are being measured globally, an open-source model tracking renewable growth against long-term power demand offers a useful frame.
What the Gobustan plain did deliver, on a measured date, is straightforward: 100 MW of panels, on 741 acres of stony Caspian steppe, connected to the grid for the first time in a country that built its wealth on the fuel those panels are beginning to displace. That is the record.
Hugo is an engineer with strong technical expertise. Multilingual from an early age, his writing combines technical clarity with a strong interest in science and energy.
Hugo is an engineer with strong technical expertise. Multilingual from an early age, his writing combines technical clarity with a strong interest in science and energy.
Hugo is an engineer with strong technical expertise. Multilingual from an early age, his writing combines technical clarity with a strong interest in science and energy.

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Mostly clear skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 61F. Winds light and variable..
Mostly clear skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 61F. Winds light and variable.
Updated: October 8, 2026 @ 11:35 pm
The 100-bed mansion in Marlborough, Wiltshire, known as Tottenham House. (SWNS)
(SWNS)
(SWNS)
(SWNS)

The 100-bed mansion in Marlborough, Wiltshire, known as Tottenham House. (SWNS)
By Tom Bevan
A billionaire has been given the green light to build a 40-acre solar farm on his land after winning a planning dispute with neighbors.
Hedge fund owner Chris Rokos has been renovating a 100-bed mansion in Marlborough, Wiltshire, known as Tottenham House.
His representatives also submitted plans to Wiltshire Council to turn 40 acres of his 4,500-acre Savernake Estate into a solar farm that were approved despite concerns from locals.
The project “seeks to ensure Tottenham House and Estate’s long-term and sustainable future” by supplying the mansion and its outbuildings with “a sustainable form of power and water to enable its functional operation.”
It had been described by one neighbor in objections as a “substantial visual and historical intrusion.”
(SWNS)
But Rokos can now move forward after Wiltshire Council approved key construction details for the project.
Council planners have partially discharged a planning condition covering construction and environmental management, allowing work on the solar array itself to begin.
The plans for the huge solar farm were initially met with criticism from both neighbors and the local parish council.
And while some praise Rokos’ overall regeneration efforts, fears were also expressed that the huge number of panels would negatively impact the “area of outstanding natural beauty.”
The proposed plot, situated on the northern boundary of the extensive plot, is currently used as pasture for dairy cows and for producing silage.
The site adjoins a public footpath which runs between the hamlet of Durley and St Katharine’s Church and elementary school – though it is shielded from view by trees.
Once operational, the ground-mounted panels are expected to generate around 794,600 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to meet a significant share of the estate’s energy needs.
(SWNS)
About 44 percent of the electricity produced will be used on site, with the remainder exported to the local grid.
The scheme forms part of efforts to secure a more sustainable future for Tottenham House, one of Wiltshire’s most significant historic properties, which has undergone extensive restoration in recent years.
Despite being located within the estate’s historic parkland, planners concluded the benefits of the project outweighed any harm to the heritage setting.
The array will be screened by existing woodland and new planting designed to reduce its visibility, while the panels will be mounted on screw piles rather than permanent concrete foundations. This means the installation could be removed in the future if required.
The land will also remain in agricultural use, with grazing able to continue around the panels.
The solar project was originally approved as part of a wider package of works that also includes a large water storage lagoon, a new utility water connection and landscape improvements across the estate.
While construction of the solar array can now proceed, further environmental management details will still need to be approved before work begins on other parts of the wider development, including the water lagoon and associated infrastructure.
Several neighbors objected to the initial plans.
(SWNS)
Among them was nearby resident Richard Frics who said: “The restoration of Tottenham House is clearly a very desirable step in reversing the degradation of a Grade 1 Listed mansion, which was on the register of Heritage Assets at Risk.
“The creation of a solar PV array has not previously been mooted and it is in respect of this element of the latest planning application that we wish to lodge our objection.
“We understand that the ground mounted PV array will cover ‘a little over one hectare of ground’.
“Not only will it be situated in an AONB but also a Grade 2* Registered Park and Garden next to a Capability Brown landscape.
“In addition it will be in direct view of the Grade 2* listed stable block. The glare from a three-acre block of glass will massively change the outlook from this protected historic building.
“The proposal will erode the special qualities of this Heritage Landscape. It will also set an undesirable precedent for future planning applications elsewhere in the country.”
Another neighbor Mark Colquhoun added that he commended the overall restoration, which he described as “an exemplary project.”
But he described the solar farm as a “substantial visual and historical intrusion.”
He added: “To place modern energy infrastructure here undermines the character and legibility of this protected setting, contrary to national and local heritage policies.”
The former owner of Tottenham House, the Earl of Cardigan David Brudenell-Bruce, sold the 4,500-acre Savernake Estate to a developer in 2014 for £11.25 million ($15.1 million) after it had been in the same family for 200 years.
Tottenham House was part of the Savernake Estate, which dates back to the Norman Conquest when it was a royal hunting forest.
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South Korea’s Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment (MCEE) has unveiled its KRW1,000 trillion (US$747 billion) Korean Green Transformation (K-GX) industrial strategy.
A national briefing was held yesterday, 7 October, at the Korean Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Seoul, with key contents of the strategy presented by speakers, including the Korean Republic’s Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hyung-Il and MCEE minister Kim Sung-Hwan.
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Aimed at driving investment and competitiveness in the manufacture and supply chain development of low-carbon technologies, the K-GX strategy also supports the government policy goal of reaching 100GW of renewable energy generation capacity in South Korea by 2030.
The government has selected 10 green industries in which to strengthen domestic production and enhance national competitiveness in those fields. Presentations were given on each industry, followed by presentations from four major domestic companies participating in those sectors.
Sectors:
The projects’ aims are to enhance self-reliance in clean energy supply chains, decarbonise national industries, electrify all modes of transportation and increase residential-scale adoption of clean energy technologies. 
The companies:
Hanwha QCELLS – tandem perovskite solar cell technology
POSCO Holdings – steel industry decarbonisation
LG Electronics – expansion of ‘GX’ strategy into residential sector
Samsung Electronics – expansion of ‘GX’ strategy into residential sector
Public money will be invested over a 10-year period, while private-sector investments totalling KRW220 trillion will be committed to the signature projects. Public money comprises KRW200 trillion in fiscal funds and KRW790 trillion in climate finance, MCEE said.
According to MCEE announcement materials, “bold tax incentives and regulatory improvements will be implemented in parallel” in the early stages of the K-GX strategy’s implementation.
Domestic production tax credits will be introduced for technologies including solar PV, wind and battery storage, leveraging the expansion of climate finance funding. Special regulatory zones and fast-track licensing support will be established for core GX technology companies.
The government recognises that grid constraints have held back a rapid expansion in renewable energy adoption that Korea is otherwise seeing.
The southwestern Honam region, for example, will not be able to offer hosting capacity on transmission and distribution (T&D) networks for new grid-connected energy projects until after 2034.  
Just before the end of September, Minister Kim Sung-Hwan announced the MCEE’s Power Grid Innovation Plan at a State Council Meeting.
The plan would see the Korea Republic’s electricity grid and corresponding regulation undergo redesign through five strategies:
Flexible grid connections, where new generators will be prioritised based on available grid capacity and not the rated capacity. Non-firm access rules will be implemented, under which solar PV output can be temporarily curtailed to manage the system.
Currently, distribution lines may only host 14MW of solar capacity. This will increase to 16MW for non-firm access, while the hosting capacity at substations can be increased from 50MW to 60MW. In Honam, this could result in a 2.6GW expansion of grid hosting capacity without the need for T&D expansion, MCEE said.
Non-wires alternatives (NWA), whereby battery energy storage systems (BESS) play a role in deferring the need for T&D upgrades, will also be pursued. A familiar term for regular readers of Energy-Storage.news, this has been seen in various other markets, particularly at the distribution level, but also on a grand scale with projects like Germany’s transmission system ‘GridBoosters’.
Energy storage systems (ESS) will be deployed at strategic locations on distribution networks and at substations to mitigate grid congestion resulting from abundant daytime solar generation.
An additional 3GW of solar could be connected via distribution networks in grid-constrained areas and around 1.6GW at substations through this initiative, MCEE claimed.
Managing ‘fictitious and delayed’ projects awaiting connection through inspections of queues has already enabled 9GW of reserved grid capacity to be reclaimed, the Ministry said. Grid connection rights for delayed projects, including offshore wind, will also be deferred until the projects are ready for construction and connection, in an initiative that could free up a further 10 GW of hosting capacity in Honam alone.
Overhaul of grid connections for renewable energy will result in renewables being given priority dispatch over fossil fuels, reversing the current paradigm. The national grid could add a further 20GW of renewable energy capacity as a result. Meanwhile, as has also been seen recently in European markets such as Germany, grid connection rights will move from being issued on a first-come, first-served basis to prioritising a competitive bidding process from January 2027, enacted in tandem with reforms to the Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS).
The cost-sharing system for renewable energy grid connections is also changing: developers connecting projects to the distribution grid currently pay for necessary network upgrades. Subsequent developers’ projects benefit from that initial investment.
Going forward, national power and grid company KEPCO will instead make the initial infrastructure upgrade investments. Subsequent developers then share the ongoing costs of upgrades.
“This plan is about making the most efficient use of the power grid we have now, rather than waiting for new grid infrastructure to be built,” Minister Kim Sung-Hwan said.
Also last month, the MCEE opened its latest Central Contract Market procurement for energy storage, seeking resources totalling 1,180MW. To date, three Central Contract Market procurements have been held since 2023, resulting in 1,196MW of capacity awards.
Opened on 22 September, the procurement aims to support the deployment of 1,000MW of storage on the South Korean mainland and 80MW on Jeju Island by February 2029.
The tenders align with the national 2025 Basic Plan on Electricity Supply and Demand, which targets a generation capacity of 157.8GW, incorporating a 22% reserve margin, by 2038. That includes 115GW to 121GW of renewable energy.
By that time, Korea’s peak electricity demand is projected to reach 129.3GW by 2038 and the government aims for the share of carbon-free electricity to have reached 70.7% by that time, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).        
Machine translation of Korean language materials was used for portions of this article.

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Construction underway on a nearly $100 million solar farm in Orangeburg County  WLTX
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Man accused of stealing solar panels, possessing meth in Hazelwood  FOX 2
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pv magazine: How do you see the global PV supply chain evolving over the next 12–24 months, particularly in terms of pricing, capacity and supply-demand balance?
Edurne Zoco: The global PV supply chain will remain oversupplied over the next 12–24 months, even as consolidation slowly picks up. China alone has more than 900 GW of annual cell production capacity, while global demand is about 590 GW, so capacity will only gradually exit the market. Technology shifts will help reduce capacity. We expect continued consolidation and low global prices, but increasingly divergent prices across regions. Trade barriers, local-content rules and security concerns are shifting the industry from “cost-first” to “resilience-first.” From suppliers’ perspective, access to protected markets has become a key driver of pricing resilience and margins, and market access now matters as much as production costs.
Is Chinese overcapacity affecting cells and modules, inverters and batteries alike?
Yes, but each segment is at a different stage. Solar is furthest along: average margins at leading module makers fell from about 9% in 2023 to negative levels in 2025. Inverters face steady price pressure, with shipments growing but revenue remaining flat. Batteries are earlier in the cycle and still profitable. Manufacturing capacity is expanding rapidly, and cells and storage hardware already face stronger price competition. BESS is not yet where solar is, but some of the same pressures are emerging. The supply of the most in-demand, high-quality cells remains tight.

The dynamics shaping global PV supply chains – including solar modules, inverters, and battery energy storage systems – will be discussed during the “Decoding solar supply chains” session at the NetZero event in Milan on Oct. 21.
The session will examine the forces reshaping clean energy supply chains, from manufacturing and sourcing strategies to shifting trade and regulatory requirements. It will also explore what these developments mean for companies procuring solar and energy storage equipment in an increasingly complex global market.
Join us in Milan to hear from industry experts and take part in the discussion on the future of solar supply chains.
What is driving module prices, and are today’s levels sustainable?
The main drivers are excess capacity, low utilization, technology changes, Chinese tax and efficiency policies, and fragmented trade rules. Manufacturers are cutting older production lines, using less silver and silicon, and moving toward higher-efficiency products. China’s consumption tax is expected to add only a marginal cost to PV capex, with suppliers expected to absorb most of it due to weak domestic demand.
Rather than a single global price recovery, prices are likely to diverge: commodity markets will remain under pressure, while protected markets will pay premiums for compliant, locally produced or traceable modules.
Current prices are not sustainable for most manufacturers. This is the main reason many module producers are diversifying into the production of other components or increasingly into services and software to capture additional value beyond hardware.
How are technology shifts affecting supply chains, procurement and inventory risk?
China’s new efficiency standards, effective from January 2027, effectively phase out older PERC technology, accelerating the shift to TOPCon, back-contact and next-generation cells. China is also exempting perovskite, tandem and other emerging technologies from the consumption tax through 2028. R&D is becoming more important as China shifts competition from scale toward technology and efficiency.
This increases the risk of existing stock becoming obsolete, and suppliers may sell non-compliant modules at low prices before the deadline. Buyers should look beyond price to technology roadmaps, warranties, traceability and suppliers’ financial strength. This is especially relevant in Europe, where excess inventory continues to delay a more comprehensive market reset.
What are the key inverter trends, and where are the biggest risks?
Inverter volumes continue to grow while prices fall. Nine of the top 10 suppliers are Chinese. The biggest risk is now regulatory and political rather than technical. The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) restriction on new foreign-made inverter models favors vertically integrated, foreign entity of concern (FEOC)-compliant manufacturers. The risk is that switching models late in a project can trigger new interconnection studies.
In Europe, the EU has removed funding eligibility for inverters from “high-risk” suppliers in EU-funded projects. To mitigate risks, manufacturers will need to consider localization plans, supply chain compliance with regulations such as the Cybersecurity Act, and exposure to protected markets. All of these factors will increasingly determine pricing and growth.
Inverter suppliers will increasingly need to support grid stability and resilience. The ability to provide grid-forming capabilities is becoming a must-have feature for manufacturers serving utility-scale applications. Inverter suppliers are also expanding into new end markets, such as data centers, through solid-state transformers (SSTs). While many inverter suppliers have been very active in front-of-the-meter energy storage applications, data centers represent a high-growth opportunity given significant power volatility and the need for equipment that can respond rapidly to load swings.
As battery storage becomes increasingly integrated with solar, how is the battery supply chain changing, and what should buyers watch regarding pricing, technology, availability and supplier bankability? Is overcapacity becoming an issue?
Value is shifting from cells to systems, software, integration and services, while solar manufacturers are moving into storage. Battery storage will become one of the energy transition’s most important value pools, attracting more solar manufacturers. As cells become commoditized, competition is shifting toward software, integration, safety, bankability and energy services, while AI data center demand is opening up new growth opportunities.
Overcapacity is emerging, but headline figures overstate it. Our data shows that leading producers are operating near full capacity, and supplies of mainstream, high-quality 314 Ah cells have remained tight since the second half of 2025. BESS is less concentrated than solar, but buyers should watch cell-format availability, product qualification and, above all, supplier strength, as consolidation is likely in this segment too.
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The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now!
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Monday, October 12, 2026
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pv magazine USA hosts its multi-day virtual event on U.S. solar and energy storage, covering domestic manufacturing, distributed energy and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting AI-driven power demand.
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Solar Power World
By Kelly Pickerel | October 8, 2026
Solar and storage system construction has begun for Project Sterling in Mohave County, Arizona. ContourGlobal is building the 509-MW solar and 1.4-GWh storage project, for which Tesla has already signed a PPA.
“Arizona’s sun has been shining on this land for billions of years. Project Sterling will put it to work by turning sunlight into electricity and storing part of that energy for delivery after sunset. Our teams engineered the project around the specific needs of our customer, enabling it to deliver reliable clean power for up to 16 hours a day,” said Antonio Cammisecra.
Local construction teams will carry out civil works, road construction and site logistics to install more than 760,000 solar modules and over 300 battery storage containers.
The project sits just off a historic stretch of Route 66 between Topock and Kingman, where infrastructure that once supported America’s westward expansion now gives way to infrastructure designed to power its next phase of growth. To access the site, the company is building Polaris Road, a 5.2-mile route connecting historic Route 66 with the solar and storage project.
Kelly Pickerel has more than 15 years of experience reporting on the U.S. solar industry and is currently editor in chief of Solar Power World. Email Kelly.

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SolarPower Europe has forecast that the EU solar workforce will decline from 874,000 FTEs in 2025 to 766,000 by 2030, despite growth in operations and maintenance, manufacturing, and recycling employment.
The European Union’s solar workforce is expected to decline by 12% by 2030 as annual solar deployment stagnates around current levels and productivity gains reduce labour requirements, according to the EU Solar Jobs Report 2026.
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The report estimated that total solar employment would fall from 874,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers in 2025 to 766,000 FTEs in 2030 under its Medium Scenario.
The decline is expected to be driven almost entirely by the deployment segment, where employment was projected to fall by 22%, from 742,000 FTEs in 2025 to 578,000 FTEs in 2030.
The report said the projected decline did not represent a contraction of the solar industry itself but reflected a transition from a period of rapid market expansion towards a more mature market with slower installation growth.
Other segments of the solar value chain were expected to expand through 2030.
Operations and maintenance (O&M) employment was projected to increase from 78,000 FTEs in 2025 to 109,000 FTEs in 2030 as cumulative EU solar capacity grew from 411GW to 739GW.
Manufacturing employment was expected to rise from 37,000 FTEs to 49,000 FTEs if announced industrial projects were successfully delivered, while employment in decommissioning and recycling was forecast to almost double from 16,000 FTEs to 30,000 FTEs.
Deployment is nevertheless expected to remain the dominant source of solar employment, accounting for approximately 76% of jobs in 2030.
The share of jobs in manufacturing, O&M, repowering and recycling was expected to increase by nine percentage points, with those activities together representing almost a quarter of EU solar jobs by 2030.
The EU solar sector continued to expand its workforce in 2025 despite a more challenging market environment and slower deployment growth in several Member States.
Solar employment increased by 1% in 2025, compared with 0.5% growth in total employment across the EU-27.
The report said solar employment therefore grew at twice the rate of the wider EU labour market.
Employment growth was slower than during the sector’s exceptional expansion in previous years, but jobs continued to be created across the solar value chain, including manufacturing, project development, installation, O&M and end-of-life activities.
The report linked the continued employment growth to solar’s role in Europe’s energy security, competitiveness and decarbonisation objectives, as well as the sector’s contribution to clean-tech employment across the EU.
It said solar employment was generated across both local service industries and advanced manufacturing, with a skilled workforce remaining important as the EU accelerated electrification based to a large extent on solar power.
The 2026 edition of the EU Solar Jobs study, which included battery energy storage systems (BESS) for the first time, found that the combined solar and storage sectors supported 982,000 jobs across the EU.
The EU solar sector alone employed 874,000 FTEs in 2025, up 1% from 865,000 FTEs in 2024 and 5.8% above the previous forecast of 826,000 FTEs. The higher-than-expected figure followed solar installations reaching 69GW, compared with the earlier estimate of 64GW.
Direct employment accounted for 383,000 FTEs, or 44% of the total, while indirect employment represented 491,000 FTEs, or 56%.
Deployment remained the largest employment segment, accounting for 742,000 FTEs, or 85% of total solar employment. O&M employment reached 78,000 FTEs, or 9%, while manufacturing supported around 37,000 FTEs, down 3,000 from 2024.
Decommissioning and recycling accounted for 16,000 FTEs, or around 2%.
Inverter manufacturing remained the largest source of EU solar manufacturing employment in 2025, supporting approximately 33,000 FTEs, or 90% of the total. EU inverter manufacturing capacity increased 4% during the year, with around 10-15 manufacturers active, most of them in Germany. SMA inaugurated a new 20GW factory in 2026, with space for 60GW, while Sungrow planned a 20GW factory in Poland.
Module manufacturing employment fell to around 2,000 FTEs from 3,500 in 2024, despite EU annual nameplate capacity increasing 13% to 10.6GW, mainly driven by the ramp-up of Enel’s 3SUN factory in Italy. Strong import competition, weak demand and low margins continued to weigh on producers, with Aleo Solar closing its German facility and Photowatt ceasing operations in France.
Module manufacturing became the second-largest source of solar manufacturing employment following a downward revision to polysilicon employment. Polysilicon accounted for around 4%, or approximately 1,400 FTEs, with German polysilicon producer Wacker Chemie the only active EU producer. The revised methodology assumed 14GW of solar-grade silicon production and a lower utilisation rate.
Cell, wafer and ingot manufacturing remained limited, supporting fewer than 500 FTEs, or roughly 1% of EU solar manufacturing employment. 3SUN reached approximately 1.8GW of operational cell capacity in 2025, while Azur Space and Oxford PV maintained specialised cell activities in Germany. NexWafe continued developing its epitaxial wafer technology and commercial-scale facility in Bitterfeld, Germany, while Meyer Burger’s insolvency was a setback for EU cell manufacturing.
Moreover, Germany remained the EU’s largest solar employer in 2025, with around 165,000 direct and indirect FTEs, equivalent to 19% of total EU solar employment.
Spain ranked a close second with just under 165,000 FTEs.
The narrow employment gap existed despite Spain installing 3.9GW less of solar capacity than Germany during the year, reflecting the methodology used to estimate employment.
Employment was estimated from total solar investment, with the labour component isolated and converted into FTEs using country-specific labour costs. Lower average wages in Spain meant that a comparable level of investment supported more jobs than in Germany.
Spain also had a higher indirect-employment multiplier, meaning each direct solar job supported more jobs elsewhere in the economy.
Germany retained a clear lead in direct employment, with approximately 93,000 FTEs compared with 76,000 in Spain. Spain supported 88,000 indirect FTEs, compared with 72,000 in Germany, bringing total employment in the two markets to similar levels.
Italy remained the EU’s third-largest solar employer, with approximately 85,000 FTEs, while France and Romania followed with approximately 80,000 and 64,000 FTEs, respectively. Poland, with 63,000 FTEs, and Bulgaria, with 35,000 FTEs, completed the top seven.
The geographical distribution of solar employment continued to be shaped primarily by deployment volumes and labour costs, with markets combining high annual installations and lower labour costs tending to support more FTEs.
The report set out seven priorities for European solar and storage workforce policy.
The first was to keep solar skills at the centre of workforce and industrial policy, with persistent shortages in critical solar occupations treated as a structural challenge even as total employment stabilised.
The second was to make skills funding accessible to renewable energy SMEs by creating clearer access to existing EU and national funding and simplifying the cost and administrative requirements associated with training.
The third was to modernise training for a digital, integrated and quality-driven solar sector, including updated equipment, curricula and teaching capacity reflecting current technologies and work practices.
The fourth was to deliver Action 13 of the Electrification Action Plan with solar at its core, with practical cooperation between solar, storage, grids, heat pumps and e-mobility while maintaining technology-specific quality and safety requirements.
The fifth was to fully implement RED III training and installer-gap requirements, using Article 18 to improve certification, workforce intelligence, training capacity and corrective action where shortages persisted.
The sixth was to connect EU skills initiatives into one delivery framework, including existing programmes and partnerships, to reduce duplication and improve access to training resources and competence frameworks.
The seventh was to build attractive, inclusive and high-quality pathways into solar careers, including apprenticeships, career guidance and regional transition pathways.
Germany is expected to remain the EU’s largest solar employer in 2030, with 153,000 FTEs, or 20% of total employment. Italy is projected to rise 24%, from 85,000 FTEs in 2025 to 105,000 in 2030, overtaking Spain, which is forecast to fall to around 102,000 FTEs from 165,000.
Romania is expected to reach nearly 74,000 FTEs, while Poland and France are projected to decline to approximately 53,000 and 43,000, respectively. Portugal, Greece and the Netherlands are forecast to reach around 29,000, 22,000 and 21,000 FTEs. Germany, Italy and Spain are expected to account for around 361,000 FTEs, or 47% of total EU solar employment.
Rooftop solar is expected to regain a modest employment lead by 2030, accounting for 52.7% of jobs compared with 47.3% for utility-scale solar, reversing the 2025 split of 49.8% and 50.2%, respectively.
Spain is expected to remain the most utility-scale-oriented market, although its share was projected to fall from 85% to 76%. Romania is forecast to reach 52% utility-scale employment, while Italy is expected to rise from 42% to 47%. Germany, France and Poland are projected to retain a strong rooftop focus, with rooftop employment reaching 54%, 64% and 66%, respectively.

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An international team of 73 researchers has established a set of best practices for assessing the performance and reliability of indoor photovoltaic cells, aiming to bring greater clarity and consistency to a field currently characterised by fragmented and differing standards.
The guidelines aim to improve measurement consistency across laboratories and accelerate the transition of indoor PV technologies from research to commercial applications.
“Our study presents the first field-wide consensus on how to evaluate the performance and stability of indoor photovoltaics designed to harvest energy from indoor lighting. Bringing together experts from academia, metrology institutes and industry across 22 countries, the researchers outline a comprehensive framework for standardised measurements,” corresponding author Thomas Brown told pv magazine.
“Key recommendations include how to select appropriate indoor reference light sources, spectra and intensity levels, based on analyses of lighting markets and regulations to ensure that testing conditions accurately reflect those encountered by devices in real-world indoor environments. The study also establishes best practice protocols for assessing  long-term stability – an area that has received little attention in previous testing practices,” he added.
The scientists explained that, although the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) introduced its first technical specification for measuring indoor photovoltaic efficiency in 2023 – IEC TS 62607-7-2:2023 – variations in indoor lighting still complicate consistent performance assessments. To address this, the group proposed a single reference spectrum and illuminance level as the best-practice benchmark, while also recommending alternative testing conditions that account for the diversity of lighting environments found in buildings. The framework also covers measurement procedures, calibration and masking, while introducing core stability tests that were previously lacking.
The group recommended moving toward standardised lighting conditions to make indoor PV performance measurements more consistent and comparable. With fluorescent lighting being phased out globally, the researchers identified white LEDs as the most appropriate reference technology for indoor PV testing. While the current IEC best-practice reference is the 5,000 K LED B-4 spectrum, they proposed the 4,000 K LED B-3 spectrum as a future standard. The recommendation reflects current market trends, with 4,000 K lighting particularly prevalent in commercial and other non-residential environments.
The researchers also recommended the use of light-tight test chambers with controlled reflections, pseudo-collimated LED illumination and measurement equipment capable of detecting the very low currents produced by indoor PV cells. They said light intensity can be adjusted electrically, optically or by changing the distance between the lamp and device, with electrical power control generally preferred despite potential spectral variations.
They also recommended using LED sources that closely match the reference spectrum, allowing sufficient time for the sources to stabilise and ensuring uniform illumination across the measurement area. For accurate calibration of illuminance and irradiance, they suggested using reference cells, spectroradiometers or luxmeters, with reference cells considered the best-practice approach. They also recommended instruments with calibration traceable to national metrology institutes and measuring absolute spectral irradiance whenever possible. Careful masking of PV cells was also defined as “essential,” particularly for small devices, to minimise errors caused by stray light and edge effects.
For stability testing, the team’s primary recommendation is a light-soaking test at 1,000 lx, where degradation can be observed more readily, while higher illuminance levels can be used for accelerated ageing studies. Additional protocols include dark-storage testing and light-dark cycling to assess degradation, recovery and performance under realistic indoor operating patterns.
As indoor PV degradation can be slow, the researchers also recommended at least 1,000 hours of ageing when a device does not reach 80% of its initial efficiency, with higher illumination levels used to accelerate degradation. Ultimately, they described real-world field testing as “essential” for developing accelerated protocols capable of reliably predicting the lifetime and degradation behavior of different indoor PV technologies.
The proposed guidelines are described in the paper “Best practices for measuring the performance and stability of indoor photovoltaic devices,” published in Nature Energy. “The authors believe the publication marks a milestone for a community that has grown quickly alongside the spread of low-power electronics and indoor PV technologies. By establishing common practices now, the consensus statement lays the foundation for standard testing, paving the way for more complex methods across a wider range of lighting conditions,” the group concluded.
The international team included scientists from Italy’s Tor Vergata University, Spain’s Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Japan’s Toin University of Yokohama, Germany’s Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH and Australia’s Edith Cowan University, among others.
From pv magazine Global
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Jinko ESS advances 220MWh hybrid battery energy storage portfolio in Germany  Energy-Storage.News
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It’s not exactly trash to treasure, but an old landfill behind Harpswell’s current Transfer Station could be the site of a solar array that powers several nearby municipal buildings.
The person behind the idea, Harpswell Neck resident Jeffrey Wootan, told the Anchor that with electrical costs trending up, “We should be looking seriously at practical opportunities to reduce energy costs.”
His detailed proposal estimates the project would cost about $350,000, but he calculated that it would pay for itself in under nine years and produce almost $1.75 million in revenue over 30 years.
Wootan estimated that electricity rates climb more than 3% each year, based on data from the last two decades. The town also could sell renewable energy credits for the power generated, which Wootan said could produce about $5,000 in annual profit.
Two town bodies, the Energy and Technology Committee and the Resiliency and Sustainability Committee, have heard presentations by Wootan, who has worked in the solar industry for several decades.
Select Board member David Chipman attended those meetings and seemed enthusiastic about the idea. He said he plans to take a proposal to the rest of the board in the hope of getting it to voters at the next Town Meeting, in March 2027.
The proposal is to install five rows of panels on the north end of the capped landfill behind the transfer station.
When a landfill is closed, it is capped, or covered with layers of soil, gravel and other materials. The site looks like a meadow covering a small hill in the middle of dense woods.
Compared to burning fossil fuels, which is how the majority of New England’s power is produced, Wootan said that relying on solar power would avoid releasing about 1,440 tons of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, over 30 years. Wootan compared that amount to what more than 300 cars would emit driving for a single year.
Wootan told the Energy and Technology Committee on Sept. 15 that the location is ideal for a solar array. Its orientation allows panels to face due south, the direction that receives the most sunlight, and the surrounding trees are far enough away that they only block about 1% of the available sunlight. Better still, he said, the town already owns the land, and the site isn’t likely to be used for another purpose.
“It’s a perfect location,” Chipman said at the meeting.
The panels would produce about 200 megawatt-hours of electricity per year, which would cover the electricity usage at the Town Office, the Recycling Center and Transfer Station, and the garage used by on-call paramedics. Wootan arrived at the number after determining from electrical bills that the town uses about 210 megawatt-hours annually. The town currently buys solar credits for its electrical usage, saving 15% on the market rate.
The amount of electricity produced by solar panels decreases as they age. Wootan estimated that the array would lose one-quarter of a percent in efficiency each year, meaning the array would lose almost 8% efficiency over 30 years. But Wootan said many farms continue operating after their planned lifespan, continuing to generate electricity even as the efficiency is slowly declining.
The landfill site has room to add more panels, too, according to Wootan. And there’s a second capped landfill southwest of the Transfer Station that could also house panels. That leaves room to add solar that could be used to power planned town buildings, like the central fire station.
Wootan said electricity from a solar farm on those sites could be sold to households, but Energy and Technology Committee Chair Howard Marshall expressed some hesitation about introducing complications to the discussion at this point.
Wootan believes the project could be completed in 2027 if voters approve the expenditure in March. He offered to write a request for proposals from contractors and to manage the construction.
In 2024, Harpswell voters rejected a proposal from the company ReVision Energy to lease 5 acres of Mitchell Field for 25 years to build a solar farm. The Select Board voted unanimously not to recommend that proposal, citing low revenue potential and an apparent lack of community support for a solar farm in a busy town park.
Sam Lemonick is a staff reporter at the Harpswell Anchor. He can be reached at [email protected].
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Sizing the Sun: New Study Maps the Energy Limits of Stratospheric Airships
High above the weather, where the atmosphere thins into the near-vacuum of the stratosphere, a class of vehicles promises to linger for months or even years, watching over disaster zones, relaying communications, and carrying scientific instruments far cheaper than satellites. The stratospheric airship, a solar-powered behemoth buoyed by helium and driven by electric propellers, has long been one of aerospace engineering’s most tantalizing dreams. Now, a new study published in the journal Aerospace Systems by Lili Zhang, Yupeng Zhang, and Pingfang Zhou of Shanghai Jiao Tong University has taken a major step toward turning that dream into an engineering blueprint, by systematically mapping exactly how much solar panel area and battery capacity such a vehicle needs to survive the night, the seasons, and the latitude.
The central challenge facing any long-endurance airship is brutally simple: it must generate enough electricity during the day to power its propulsion, its payload, and its housekeeping systems, while simultaneously storing enough surplus energy in batteries to keep flying through the long hours of darkness. Unlike an aircraft that can land and refuel, a stratospheric airship is expected to remain on station indefinitely, making its energy budget a matter of survival. Undersize the solar array or the battery pack, and the vehicle loses altitude as its batteries drain, eventually descending into denser air, higher winds, and mission failure. Oversize them, and the added weight demands more lift, more structure, and more power just to carry the energy system itself, a self-defeating spiral that designers must carefully avoid.
To untangle this problem, the research team built a comprehensive energy system model that captures the full chain of energy conversion aboard the airship. At the front end of the chain sits the solar radiation environment itself, which varies with the sun’s angle, the day of the year, and the airship’s operating latitude. That incoming radiation feeds the photovoltaic array draped over the airship’s upper surface, whose output depends on the incidence angle of sunlight on the curved envelope and on thermal effects that alter cell efficiency. The generated power then splits between the loads that must be served continuously, principally propulsion to hold position against stratospheric winds and the payload’s instruments, and the battery bank that absorbs surplus energy by day and releases it by night. The researchers formulated the energy balance constraints that tie all of these elements together, ensuring that over every charge-discharge cycle the books balance exactly.
What makes the new work distinctive is its treatment of energy management strategies as a first-order design variable rather than an afterthought. How an airship spends and stores its energy, the authors show, fundamentally reshapes the design space. The team considered multiple strategies, including a maneuverable wind resistance approach, a Position Energy Storage strategy, a Position Potential strategy, and a fixed-speed approach, each representing a different philosophy for how the vehicle should respond to the daily and seasonal rhythm of solar input. For each strategy, they systematically analyzed the feasible combinations of photovoltaic area and battery capacity, extracting the feasibility boundaries that separate workable designs from those that will inevitably run out of energy.
The results reveal a clear and quantifiable trade-off at the heart of airship design. Increasing the photovoltaic area reduces the battery capacity required for overnight operation, because more sunlight is harvested during daylight hours. But the relationship is not linear: the marginal benefit of each additional square meter of solar cells diminishes as the array grows. Beyond a certain point, adding panel area yields only modest savings in battery mass, while the panels themselves add weight and drag. This diminishing-returns curve gives designers a rational basis for choosing a balanced point on the trade-off surface rather than simply maximizing one component or the other. The feasibility maps produced in the study effectively serve as a design chart, allowing engineers to read off which combinations of solar area and battery capacity will keep a given airship aloft under specified conditions.
Perhaps the most striking finding is how dramatically the choice of energy management strategy alters the shape of the feasibility boundary itself. Under the maneuverable wind resistance strategy and the Position Energy Storage strategy, the boundary curves exhibit steep slopes in the region of small photovoltaic areas, along with noticeable curvature variations and inflection characteristics over certain ranges. In practical terms, this means that for airships with modest solar arrays, these strategies impose sharply rising battery requirements, making the design highly sensitive to small changes in panel area. By contrast, the Position Potential and fixed-speed strategies produce smoother, approximately linear boundaries, offering more forgiving and predictable design margins. The implication is significant: the software and control logic that govern how an airship manages its power are not merely operational details but structural constraints that should be fixed early in the design process, because they determine where the feasible region lies.
The study also delivers a sobering message about geography and the calendar. Seasonal and latitudinal conditions exert a powerful influence on energy availability, and therefore on the entire sizing problem. At higher latitudes and during winter, reduced solar radiation drives a notable increase in the battery capacity needed to survive the longer nights and weaker sun. An airship sized for a comfortable summer deployment at mid-latitudes could find itself energy-starved if redeployed northward in January. Conversely, spring, summer, and autumn conditions at mid-latitudes offer the broadest feasible capacity region, giving designers the most freedom and the lightest energy systems. For mission planners, this means that the operating envelope of a stratospheric airship cannot be specified independently of its energy hardware; the two must be co-designed with the intended deployment season and location firmly in view.
These findings arrive at a moment of renewed global interest in the stratosphere as an operational domain. Sitting between conventional aviation and orbital spaceflight, the stratosphere offers persistent surveillance, telecommunications relay, and Earth observation capabilities at a fraction of the cost of satellites, with the added advantage that payloads can be recovered, upgraded, and relaunched. Yet the history of stratospheric airship development is littered with programs that stalled on precisely the kind of coupled problem this study addresses: vehicles that were heavy enough to be robust but too heavy to fly, or efficient enough by day but helpless by night. By providing a rigorous, quantitative framework that links energy management strategy, component sizing, and environmental conditions, the Shanghai Jiao Tong team has given the field a tool for avoiding those classic failure modes.
The methodology itself is also noteworthy for its generality. Because the model spans the full energy pathway, from solar radiation through photovoltaic conversion to propulsion, payload consumption, and battery storage, it can be adapted to different airship geometries, different mission profiles, and different hardware assumptions. The energy balance constraints and feasibility boundaries are extracted systematically rather than through ad hoc case studies, meaning the approach can be reused as a standard sizing procedure as designs evolve. As battery chemistries improve and flexible thin-film photovoltaics push conversion efficiencies higher, the same framework can be re-run to reveal how technological progress enlarges the feasible design space and pushes long-endurance missions toward higher latitudes and harsher seasons.
For now, the study’s practical takeaway is a disciplined one. There is no single correct size for an airship’s energy system; there is only a feasible region whose shape depends on how the vehicle will fly, where it will operate, and when. Designers who ignore the coupling between energy management strategy and capacity allocation risk building vehicles that work beautifully in simulation and fail in the thin, cold air of the stratosphere. By charting that feasible region with care, Zhang, Zhang, and Zhou have turned one of aerospace engineering’s most persistent sizing puzzles into a solvable design problem, bringing the prospect of solar-powered airships that never need to come home one step closer to reality.
Subject of Research: Capacity sizing and feasibility analysis of solar-powered energy systems for long-endurance stratospheric airships under multiple energy management strategies
Article Title: Capacity sizing and feasibility analysis of stratospheric airship energy systems under multiple energy management strategies
Article References: Zhang, L., Zhang, Y., & Zhou, P. (2026). Capacity sizing and feasibility analysis of stratospheric airship energy systems under multiple energy management strategies. Aerospace Systems. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42401-026-00550-6
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1007/s42401-026-00550-6
Keywords: stratospheric airship, photovoltaics, battery capacity, energy management strategy, energy balance, solar radiation, capacity allocation, long-endurance flight, feasibility boundary, latitude effects, seasonal variation, aerospace engineering
News Source: Faith Mcneil. (October 8, 2026). Sizing the Sun: New Study Maps the Energy Limits of Stratospheric Airships. Scienmag.
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TOYO has completed its Humble, Texas, expansion, raising the factory’s annual production capacity to 2 GW  
It plans to add a 1.5 GW HJT cell line at the Texas site by Q1 2028 with a $357 million investment 
TOYO is also evaluating cell technology for potential space applications 
Japanese solar PV manufacturer TOYO has completed the expansion of its US solar module manufacturing facility in Humble, Texas. This expansion has raised the plant’s annual nameplate capacity to 2 GW. Phase I of the module line started operations in October 2025.  
The company has secured close to $240 million in binding US solar module supply agreements through H1 2027, since mid-June 2026. Deliveries are already underway. The contracts cover utility-scale, commercial & industrial, and community solar and data center applications, claims the manufacturer.  
TOYO acquired the Texas industrial facility from Solar Plus Technology in November 2024, with capacity to host 2.5 GW of module production. Back then, it had unveiled plans to expand the plant to 6.5 GW by 2029 (see TOYO Solar Buying 2.5 GW Texas Module Manufacturing Fab). 
It plans to add a 1.5 GW heterojunction (HJT) cell production line at the site, with completion expected in Q1 2028. The company will build it with a $357 million investment. The fab will mark its foray into US solar cell production (see TOYO Announces 1.5 GW US HJT Solar Cell Factory).  
This expansion is aligned with the company’s strategy to build a vertically integrated US manufacturing platform. In the long run, it aims to operate 3 GW of HJT cell production and 6 GW of ingot and wafer manufacturing capacity in the US. 
Currently, TOYO operates a 4 GW solar cell factory in Ethiopia, and another 2 GW in Vietnam. Speaking at its Analyst Day, TOYO said its Ethiopian cell production uses wafers made in Indonesia and plans to shift to US-made wafers. The company said it does not use Chinese-origin wafers in its Ethiopian cells, and that its polysilicon supply is entirely non-Chinese, with about 70% sourced from the US. 
TOYO is seeking clarification from the US Department of Commerce (DOC) that cells produced in Ethiopia using non-Chinese wafers and US-origin polysilicon should fall outside the scope of the circumvention inquiry. 
TOYO was referring to the DOC’s circumvention inquiry into solar cells and modules from Ethiopia, which followed a petition by the Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade (AASMT) alleging the use of Chinese-origin wafers in Ethiopian production. 
TOYO also said its near-term outlook remains affected by US trade and regulatory uncertainty, including a Section 232 investigation that addresses imports of polysilicon and downstream solar products. It has not provided specific H2 2026 revenue or net-income guidance, but expects to remain EBITDA-positive. 
In its Analyst Day presentation, TOYO said it is conducting early-stage evaluation of ‘space-qualified’ solar cells, including HJT and HJT-perovskite tandem technologies. Its analysis shows potential for higher efficiency and radiation resistance, but the company said the technology remains at the R&D stage and is not yet a commercial business line.
TaiyangNews 2024

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Building-Integrated Photovoltaics Market to Top $68 billion by 2030 at 22% CAGR, Led by Asia Pacific, China  EIN News
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The thread also highlighted a less glamorous issue: where a system like this can actually go.
Photo Credit: Fogstar
A post in r/SolarUK is getting attention for an unusually large home battery package: a Fogstar 10 kW hybrid inverter matched with 64.4 kWh of storage that the homeowner said could keep the house running for close to a week.
In the post, the homeowner said that before settling on Fogstar, they had nearly chosen a Sunsynk Elite system and felt Sigenergy was “a bit too pricey,” adding that the Fogstar option looked “way better priced.” 
Its biggest tradeoff may be the amount of space and support it requires. As the original poster put it: “coming in at over half a tonne, I can’t put it on my decking.”
Adding battery storage is one of the best ways to protect your home during outages, save on energy costs, and move closer to going off-grid. Exploring EnergySage can be a smart place to start for home battery storage information, including competitive installation estimates.
EnergySage has teamed up with the electrification brand Qmerit to guarantee you get the best price on home battery storage solutions. Another option is Pila, which offers excellent battery backup choices, including plug-and-play batteries priced at a fraction of what a whole-home backup system would cost.
Replies to the OP from people who own the smaller 32-kWh version suggested the system can have value even without solar panels. Those commenters said off-peak charging combined with Agile Export can still work financially, making the battery useful for managing power bills as well as for backup.
For a battery this large, outage protection is only part of the appeal. It may also let a household charge when electricity is cheaper, use that stored energy later, and possibly export power during higher-value periods.
The thread also highlighted a less glamorous issue: where a system like this can actually go. Since the homeowner said the unit weighs more than 1,100 pounds and can’t be placed on a deck, the decision isn’t just about sticker price or storage size — it also involves structure, placement, and available room.
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Solar panels can save you more than $50k over their 25-year lifespan, and EnergySage can help you save as much as $10k on installation. Which begs the question — isn’t that worth an email or two?
The comments describe a strategy some U.K. homeowners are already using: combining battery storage with off-peak tariffs and Agile Export. Based on what 32-kWh owners shared in the thread, storage economics don’t always hinge on maximizing solar generation.
While 64.4 kWh may sound attractive, the OP’s “over half a tonne” warning shows how installation limits can influence what is practical.
“Why would you not buy this setup?” the OP asked. “I mean, I can last almost an entire week on battery alone.”
These articles give a broader look at what home batteries can do. 
• Homeowners are finding that cheaper home batteries can cut bills and pay back within years.
• Palmetto and SunPower are helping homeowners install home backup batteries without major upfront costs.
• Yotta Energy is transforming home energy storage with a modular battery design for rooftops.
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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An aerial photo taken on October 8, 2026 shows an integrated fishery and photovoltaic project in Anji county in East China’s Zhejiang Province, framed by high-speed trains nearby. Rural distributed solar projects reflect Anji’s push for green, low-carbon growth that pairs ecological and economic gains. Photo: VCG
Tourists visit the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests at the Temple of Heaven, where the landmark shines …
People watch a partial solar eclipse at the Basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde on August 12, 2026 in …
Workers carry out offshore operations at the CNNC Tianwan tidal flat photovoltaic (PV) demonstration project in Lianyungang, East …

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Cuba’s Fuel Crisis Turns the Island Into a Solar Test Case  Yahoo Finance
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Cuba is turning into a solar-powered island because of the U.S. naval blockade that is preventing fuel from reaching it. Imports of solar tech from that same U.S. are surging despite the decades-old U.S. embargo on Cuba, and strengthening the case for solar energy—in the absence of any alternatives.
Bloomberg earlier this week cited U.S. Census data showing that exports of solar cells and modules from the U.S. to Cuba topped $6.3 million over the first seven months of the year. This is an annual increase of a whopping 1,070%, while solar imports from China are down by as much as 83% from a year earlier, according to the data.
China is still Cuba’s largest supplier of solar panels and modules, the report noted, but now the United States is emerging as an alternative for individual households and businesses on the island. It is a bit of an ironic situation given President Trump’s attitude to all alternative energy technologies and the fact this attitude prompted action that reduced subsidies for these technologies.
Some would argue this is the right way to examine the commercial viability of technology such as wind and solar. In the absence of a generous subsidy regime, Cuba is being forced by the U.S. blockade—and the embargo—to find alternative ways to generate electricity in order to continue functioning, even barely. And thanks to loopholes in the blockade’s regime, Cubans can buy solar modules from the United States. Related: U.S. and Russia Discuss Reviving Russian Gas Sales to Europe
Indeed, “It is somewhat ironic that Cuba could become an important export market for renewable energy for US companies,” John Kavulich, president of the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, told Bloomberg. “Especially considering the White House’s less-than-favorable stance toward renewable energy.”
There are now 144 solar installations in Cuba, with a combined capacity of 1,418 MW, which represents 20% of the nation’s total electricity needs, according to President Miguel Diaz-Canel. However, as one researcher from the University of Texas Energy Institute told Bloomberg, this solar expansion is not being done right.
The reason, according to Jorge Pinon, is that Cuba is not adding utility-scale battery storage to back up the panels during the night and cloudy days. In that, however, Cuba is not that dissimilar from Europe, where solar panel capacity significantly exceeds battery storage capacity. Besides, battery storage equipment is among the many goods that U.S. companies are banned from exporting to Cuba under the U.S. sanctions regime for the island nation. In other words, Cubans do not really have a choice in the battery matter.
This fact provides further evidence that solar technology without battery backup is far from the optimal option for an alternative to hydrocarbons—which is something that European solar-heavy countries have been discovering recently. Negative electricity prices resulting from excess capacity with no battery backup are hurting the profitability of the industry, and earlier this year caused the bankruptcy of the company operating the largest unsubsidized solar installation in Portugal. That installation operated for five years without battery backup.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is not letting up. This week, U.S. forces seized $3 million worth of biofuel that was en route to the struggling island. The fuel was distributed across 90 separate shipments, Reuters reported, adding that the U.S. government is allowing small fuel shipments to reach Cuba in a bid to encourage opposition to the Cuban government.
Apparently, this time there were too many of those. Cuba produces about 40% of the crude it needs for its fuel consumption, which has also helped keep it afloat, as previous suppliers get scared off by U.S. threats of massive tariffs if they continue supplying fuel to the island. Now, they have been replaced by the U.S. itself and its solar panels.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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“Sooner the better, especially if you work from home with ac.”
Photo Credit: iStock
A paid-off home, $30,000 in cash, and a desire to shrink long-term living costs pushed one Australian Reddit user to ask whether going big on solar, battery storage, and eventually an EV made sense.
The replies on the r/DeinfluenceMeAUS subreddit largely came from people who had already electrified their households, and many said the economics could work.
Posting in a Reddit thread, the 33-year-old software engineer said he was considering “going all in on lowering my future expenses and have a frugal lifestyle until I die just so I can retire early.”
There was less concern about a quick payoff period. He added that “I just want to make sure my expense stays under 3k per month, (2k if doable).”
“Solar is a no-brainer, sooner the better, especially if you work from home with ac,” a user reacted.
Instead of offering only general encouragement, several commenters shared their own numbers. One said rooftop solar often pays for itself in about four years, while batteries usually take longer unless the system can join a virtual power plant, or VPP, and earn money when the grid pulls from stored energy.
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They also estimated that electricity, fuel, and wood-heating costs together dropped from around $11,000 annually to about $1,750.
Another response came from Queensland, where a two-person household said it runs off-grid with 30 kilowatt-hours of battery storage, charges an EV “most days,” and especially values having a “zero power bill” when finances are tight.
For the homeowner, part of the appeal was that lowering their bills could offer some financial protection if they were made redundant at work.
People in the thread also noted that the return on investment depends heavily on the property itself. One commenter said a roof-mounted system may warrant reroofing first unless the existing roof can be shown to have around 20 to 25 years of life remaining. That same person also said buyers should factor in maintenance, possible insurance increases, and the gradual loss of efficiency over time.
Other commenters pointed to very different payoff timelines. One said their solar setup came with a 20-year warranty and looked set to pay for itself in about 3.5 years. Another described a larger system with batteries, 13.2 kilowatts of panels, and two EVs that avoids “$7k or more in costs per annum” and can also bring in revenue.
Before purchasing anything, the most repeated advice was to do the math. 
One commenter told the original poster: “You’re an engineer, you know how to calculate stuff. Do that first.” 
Another suggested listing every household energy cost to identify where electrification would save the most money. A more structured suggestion was to order a NatHERS assessment to find the biggest savings.
Automation and system design came up as well. The thread’s overall sentiment was clear. 
“Nobody who’s done it will de-influence you,” a commenter stated
Homeowners considering solar as a long-term cost-cutting move can look to examples of how others have approached the same math. 
• One retiree called solar an investment in their retirement years after installing panels to cut bills.
• On Reddit, solar owners urged a homeowner to do some math before chasing passive income.
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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Muscatine Power and Water (MPW) and Konisto, a Colorado-based solar energy system service, break ground on MPW’s first utility-scale solar array, Muscatine Solar One, on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 8. The 24-megawatt solar facility will span 230 acres at MPW’s Grandview Avenue water wellfield and provide approximately 53 million kilowatt-hours of energy annually.
A model of what the solar panels will look like at Muscatine Solar One at Muscatine Power and Water’s Grandview Avenue water wellfield.
Muscatine Power and Water and its Choose Green solar partners — Grain Processing Corporation, HNI Corporation, Ruveon and the City of Muscatine’s Waste Pollution Control — broke ground on Muscatine Solar One on Thursday afternoon.

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Muscatine Power and Water (MPW) and Konisto, a Colorado-based solar energy system service, break ground on MPW’s first utility-scale solar array, Muscatine Solar One, on the afternoon of Thursday, Oct. 8. The 24-megawatt solar facility will span 230 acres at MPW’s Grandview Avenue water wellfield and provide approximately 53 million kilowatt-hours of energy annually.
A model of what the solar panels will look like at Muscatine Solar One at Muscatine Power and Water’s Grandview Avenue water wellfield.
Muscatine Power and Water and its Choose Green solar partners — Grain Processing Corporation, HNI Corporation, Ruveon and the City of Muscatine’s Waste Pollution Control — broke ground on Muscatine Solar One on Thursday afternoon.
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My Nottingham News

Free solar panels are being offered to Nottingham based community groups in an initiative which could cut their fuel bills significantly.
Nottingham city community centres are being invited to take part in a competition to win the installation on their building worth up to £60,000 – at a time when rising energy prices are often a major part of their running costs.
The solar panels are being offered to a local community group or centre with a building and roof suitable for a solar panel installation.
The installation is being offered by YES Energy Solutions as part of their Warm Homes Local Grant contract with Nottingham City Council.
This money may be used on one project or divided between separate groups depending on applications.
YES Energy Solutions operate as Community Interest Company and as part of their Social Value commitment to the communities of Nottingham, they are looking to invest in the free installation of Solar PV to a suitable community building. To ensure they find a suitable community group to support, they are asking for applications from across the city of Nottingham to apply.
The competition will close to entries on Friday 30 October.
Applications will be assessed against their ability to demonstrate clear and measurable benefit to the local Nottingham community, both now and in the future. Funding is intended for community-focused organisations.
The solar panels will be installed in the New Year and will help reduce energy bills for the community centre.
To be in with a chance of having the solar panels installed on your community building, applicants should send in a maximum of 300 words on how and why they meet the following criteria and why they feel they are deserving of the funding.
Through the Warm Homes Local Grant (WHLG) funding, which runs until 2028, Nottingham City Council aims to support around 400 homes, helping residents who are in, or at risk of, fuel poverty by reducing energy bills and improving comfort and wellbeing.
The social value part of the contract aims to offer wider support to communities across the city – for example by brining the Energy Advice Van to events such as the Beach in the City over summer to offer 1-1 energy Advice.
Emma Williams, Delivery Manager at YES Energy Solutions, said: “Our partnership with Nottingham City Council over the past three years has demonstrated the power of working together with a shared purpose.
“As we look ahead, we are excited to see how our Community Interest (CIC) investment can strengthen communities and deliver meaningful benefits for residents across Nottingham.”
Councillor Sam Lux, Executive Member for Climate, Energy and Nature at Nottingham City Council, said: “The twin crises of cost of living and climate change mean there has never been a more critical time to expand renewables.
“Nottingham City Council is forging ahead with its nationally leading decarbonisation agenda and will never turn down an opportunity like this to support our communities.
“This project will make a long-lasting difference for the successful applicant and we couldn’t be happier to work with our trusted partner, YES Energy Solutions.”
YES Energy Solutions will design and install a solar array and possible battery (depending on suitability) for the community centre building. The solar asset will be transferred to the property owner following installation and will therefore be wholly owned by the building owner.
For more information on the competition and to apply, please visit the Nottingham City Council website.

© Nottingham City Council 2024

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“Made in Europe” isn’t an unusual tag in large-scale battery systems, but last week, at an open day held at Maxxen Energy’s facility in Aydın, Türkiye, an almost no-limits event was held for its factory that began operations in 2026 in a 20,000-square-meter containerized battery manufacturing facility.
Speaking on site during media tours and detailed interviews, Ruben Valiente, Maxxen’s Managing Director, staff, and leadership from parent company Kontek Energy, offered a rare, transparent look into the strategy, supply chain realities, and automated assembly powering their 20,000-square-meter containerized battery manufacturing plant.
Maxxen, which is headquartered in Switzerland, produces two main products: its 5 MWh DC Box container, and offers an optional MV Power Station dubbed MV Box, with a power output of 2.5 MW, 5.0 MW or 10 MW, and facility certifications include TÜV Accredited, ISO 27001, LEED Certified (100% self-sustained).
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The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now!
Available in print and digital – get your copy today!
Monday, October 12, 2026
10:00 am – 11:00 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
pv magazine USA hosts its multi-day virtual event on U.S. solar and energy storage, covering domestic manufacturing, distributed energy and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting AI-driven power demand.
pv magazine hosts its four-day virtual event on European solar and energy storage, exploring market opportunities, solar-plus-storage business cases, technical quality, and cybersecurity in the years ahead.
pv magazine Session returns to NetZero Milan as Knowledge Partner, organizing and moderating a two-hour conference on the evolving global solar supply chain.
Get your ticket at a discounted rate with pv magazine.
Join pv magazine for an expert session exploring quality, technology and the challenges of scaling India’s solar industry.
Lunes, 19 de octubre de 2026
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Friday, October 23, 2026
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Zelestra, a Spain-based renewable energy company, has closed $350 million in green project financing credit facilities for its 203 MW Reclamation solar project in Gibson County, Indiana. The facilities have been provided by Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, BBVA and Societe Generale, and CIBC has acted as the left-lead arranger. The project has taken its name from the land beneath it, since the site in southwest Indiana has been reclaimed from former coal mining operations. Construction of the plant is already under way. Meta is to buy the electricity from the plant under a long-term power purchase agreement, and the plant is due to come online by the end of 2027. The close has also taken Zelestra past $1 billion in US project financing in 2026. That financing is helping the company to put more than 800 MW of new solar capacity into construction across the United States.
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The not-for-profit provider serves 38 communities in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
Photo Credit: iStock
To see whether cheaper midday power shifts household habits, Clean Power Alliance is rolling out a two-year program that gives more than 4,000 Southern California homes a $0 per kilowatt-hour generation rate from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.
Participants in Clean Power Alliance’s TOU-SMART pilot will be placed on a rate that removes the generation charge during the daytime super-off-peak period, per a CPA press release. 
The not-for-profit provider serves 38 communities in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
CPA says households could save hundreds of dollars annually by moving some electricity use from overnight hours or the 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. on-peak period into the daytime window. 
To encourage that shift, generation charges will remain higher in the evening and increase slightly during the 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. off-peak period.
Participants will also receive bill protection. 
If TOU-SMART costs more than a customer’s previous TOU-D-PRIME rate, CPA will credit the difference at the end of each 12-month period. Customers can leave the program at any time.
“TOU-SMART is about putting an idea into practice and learning from what happens in the real world,” CPA CEO Ted Bardacke noted.
Crushed by your monthly electric bills? Palmetto can take care of you with an exclusive solar offer for Southern California residents.
Palmetto’s home energy savings plans deliver all the benefits of going solar with zero upfront investment. For a limited time, special rates in Southern California can unlock bill savings of up to 40% — and you can get a custom quote in seconds without sharing your email or phone number.
“We’re giving thousands of customers a meaningful financial incentive to use electricity when solar power is abundant, and what we learn from this pilot can help CPA develop new innovative rates and programs that can make clean energy more affordable.”
Midday is typically when California has the most solar power on the grid, making electricity cleaner and often less expensive. 
For homeowners, going solar is one of the best ways to save money on home energy, and Palmetto is currently running an exclusive offer for Southern California residents that allows customers to save an average of 40% on their electric bills with $0 down.
Researchers will also study what better encourages people to shift their electricity use to midday hours: messages about saving money or messages about environmental benefits.
CPA began refining the study in fall 2025 with Professor Magali Delmas of the UCLA Anderson School of Management and the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. 
The research will also examine how responses vary based on the use of EVs, pool pumps, heat pumps, housing characteristics, and climate conditions.
The program targets activities that can be rescheduled, including daytime EV charging, earlier laundry and dishwashing, pool pump operation, and shifting heating and cooling away from the costlier evening period. 
For pilot households, CPA’s generation charge falls to zero during the 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. window.
Home EV charging customers may have additional savings opportunities if they enroll in CPA’s EV SmartCharge program alongside the pilot, which also includes bill protection and lets participants opt out.
With Palmetto‘s help, the average Southern California resident can save 40% on their electric bills, which can add up to thousands of dollars per year. That special offer also comes with $0 down, making it easier for households to start saving while daytime solar is even cheaper.
Delmas said the project could help answer questions utilities have been trying to solve for years. 
“We will be able to measure whether the rate and the accompanying behavioral messages shift electricity use into midday hours, which framings work best and whether the effects persist over two years,” she explained. 
“Findings on those questions can inform how utilities and policymakers design the daytime rates that are coming as solar becomes an ever larger share of the grid.”
Similar efforts are underway elsewhere to lower household electricity costs. These stories look at local programs in California, Ohio, and Massachusetts that help residents save through rooftop or community solar.
• In California, a city is turning rooftop solar into relief for low-income homes.
• On Cape Cod, officials say energy burdens are reduced by more than 50% thanks to solar.
• In Ohio, lawmakers are weighing a plan for residents to lower utility bills through community energy.
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.
© 2025 THE COOL DOWN COMPANY. All Rights Reserved. Do not sell or share my personal information. Reach us at hello@thecooldown.com.

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Sungrow has patched a vulnerability in its iSolarCloud platform that allowed access to platform accounts without the required authentication, following research by German cybersecurity company Jakkaru.
The vulnerability was reported to Sungrow on Aug. 22 by an independent security researcher working with Jakkaru. Sungrow said it reproduced the attack and deployed an emergency patch across all iSolarCloud levels on Aug. 25, with the underlying cause fully resolved the same day.
Jakkaru Managing Director Marlon Starkloff confirmed that Sungrow responded promptly after being notified of the vulnerability. He said the flaw affected the company’s cloud infrastructure rather than a specific inverter model or product series, potentially exposing all inverters connected to iSolarCloud.
Jakkaru conducted the investigation as an independent research project and not on behalf of another company. The cybersecurity firm also works with PV companies on security testing and penetration tests, although Starkloff said most of its customers cannot be identified publicly. Its disclosed customers include Fox ESS, while the company has also investigated inverters from APsystems.
Jakkaru said it regularly examines inverter manufacturers, including large suppliers such as Sungrow, Huawei and SMA. Starkloff said the company selected Sungrow for closer investigation partly because it is one of the world’s largest inverter manufacturers.
A follow-up test by Jakkaru in mid-September confirmed that the vulnerability could no longer be reproduced, according to Sungrow.
Sungrow also said an examination of platform logs covering the period during which the vulnerability existed found no evidence that anyone other than the reporting researcher had exploited it. The company said it found no evidence of customer data leaks, service interruptions or unauthorized manipulation of customer systems.
Starkloff said the underlying security architecture could present a broader issue for inverter manufacturers. He said vulnerabilities involving authentication bypasses that provide administrator-level access could potentially occur in other systems, even if the specific Sungrow vulnerability is not directly exploitable elsewhere.
Sungrow said cybersecurity is a high priority and that critical functions, including firmware updates and device controls, require additional authentication protections such as password verification and two-factor authentication. It said the vulnerability therefore could not be used to carry out unauthorized mass operations on connected devices.
The company has also commissioned an independent security assessment by NCC Group and said it will implement further improvements based on the assessment’s findings and recommendations. Sungrow said it supports mandatory and verifiable security requirements for platforms that manage distributed energy systems at scale.
Starkloff said a coordinated shutdown of a large number of PV plants could potentially be achieved through access to the cloud interface, but described a malicious firmware update as a more realistic scenario. He said an attacker could potentially upload firmware designed to shut down an inverter at a predetermined time.
A similar scenario was demonstrated in 2024 through the SolarFlareSec research project, whose findings are publicly available.
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The new issue of pv magazine Global is out now!
Available in print and digital – get your copy today!
Monday, October 12, 2026
10:00 am – 11:00 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
pv magazine USA hosts its multi-day virtual event on U.S. solar and energy storage, covering domestic manufacturing, distributed energy and the growing role of solar-plus-storage in meeting AI-driven power demand.
pv magazine hosts its four-day virtual event on European solar and energy storage, exploring market opportunities, solar-plus-storage business cases, technical quality, and cybersecurity in the years ahead.
pv magazine Session returns to NetZero Milan as Knowledge Partner, organizing and moderating a two-hour conference on the evolving global solar supply chain.
Get your ticket at a discounted rate with pv magazine.
Join pv magazine for an expert session exploring quality, technology and the challenges of scaling India’s solar industry.
Lunes, 19 de octubre de 2026
16:00 – 17:00 CEST, Berlín, París, Madrid
Friday, October 23, 2026
11:00 am – 12:00 pm CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid
Monday, October 26, 2026
10:30 am – 11:30 am CEST, Berlin, Paris, Madrid

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Update 10/08: Anker SOLIX is continuing the exclusive prices you see below on its E10 system units as part of its Prime Deals Encore Sale.
Alongside the Anker SOLIX Prime Deals Encore Sale on power stations, there is also the separate sale for its E10 Whole-Home Backup System units with FREE gifts. Things start with the base package of a Power Module and a single battery getting a FREE metal pad and AC generator adapter ($268 value) at $3,799.05 shipped, after using our exclusive code 9TO5DEALS5 at checkout, beating Amazon by $800. Originally $5,799 when it released in February, it starts from a lower $4,299 rate since the brand made permanent price cuts in May, and since then we’ve mostly seen it discounted to $3,999, though there was a one-time fall to this same all-time low rate during June’s Prime Day. Now, that all-time low price is coming back around, thanks to our exclusive code, giving you a combined $500 markdown. You can browse all the additional offers for this system down below.
As I mentioned, this Anker SOLIX E10 Sale has some FREE gift thresholds for the larger units. Orders of $10,000 or more score a FREE additional battery (6kWh) for your setup, while orders over $15,000 get two FREE 440W solar panels. From there, just remember to use our exclusive bonus savings code 9TO5DEALS5 at checkout to score the best deals during this event.
***Note: we have not factored in the exclusive bonus savings into any of the prices below, so again, be sure to use the code once you’ve got what you want in your cart.
You can also find the brand’s E10 add-on accessory deals on the main sale page here, or head over to our dedicated power stations hub for even more sales from multiple brands. There’s also all the continuing deals from the last few days on power stations, EVs, tools, more in our updated Fall Prime Day Green Deals hub.

Here’s all the extended Fall Prime Day Green Deals: EVs, power stations, tools, and much more [Updated]

Anker’s Prime Deals Encore Sale offers 2,048Wh C2000 Gen 2 station + 400W panel at exclusive $1,330, more from $900

Get 2x 1,024Wh DELTA 3 Classic power stations at $889 in latest EcoFlow flash sale ($309 off), more from $599

EcoFlow’s Fall Prime Day Sale drops 3,072Wh DELTA 3 plus power station to $1,438, more from $279 (Up to 58% off)

Grab Jackery’s 3,584Wh HomePower 3600 Plus power station with $861 exclusive savings to new $1,038 low

Jackery’s full Fall Prime Day Sale drops 3,584Wh HomePower 3600 Pro Max power station to new $1,664 low ($435 off), more

Mango’s Prime Fall Sale takes up to 72% off Power E CATL station, bundles, and accessories starting from $79

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
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As the solar industry pushes for greater output and leaner manufacturing, pushing performance limits requires more than just cutting expenses. True market success depends on ensuring that next-generation designs can endure decades of field operations without unexpected degradation.
At the TaiyangNews Reliable PV Module Design Online Conference, René Schüler, Head of Product Marketing Europe at DMEGC Solar, will speak on: From Customer Needs to Long-Term Performance: The Design of DMEGC’s Infinity RT Modules.
The conference will bring together leading module manufacturers, material and component suppliers, testing organizations, and other industry experts to discuss the latest module products and design concepts, material choices, quality considerations, and reliability challenges, from cells, glass, encapsulants, backsheets, and interconnection technologies to complete module architectures.
It will take place on Thursday, October 15, 2026, from 09:30 to 13:00 CEST. Register for free here.
Chinese infrastructure developer China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) has achieved full-capacity grid connection for its 1 GW desert-control PV project in Minfeng, Hotan, Xinjiang. Located on the southern edge of the Taklamakan Desert, the project includes 272 km of 35 kV collector lines and a 220 kV step-up substation. Clean electricity is transmitted via a 220 kV overhead line to an expanded bay at the 750 kV Minfeng substation before entering the ultra-high-voltage power grid. The project is expected to generate more than 1.18 billion kWh of clean electricity annually and save approximately 355,000 metric tons of standard coal each year.
Solar mounting system manufacturer Clenergy supplied 477 MW of its SolarTerrace MAC zinc-aluminum-magnesium ground-mounting systems for the project, designed to withstand high wind loads and resist corrosion.
PV cell and module manufacturer EGING PV has disclosed progress in its pre-restructuring process, with industrial investors Ningbo Ruilian and SolarSpace agreeing to extend the lock-up period for shares received through the restructuring from 36 months to 60 months. The investors also pledged not to sell the shares after the lock-up expires unless the company reports positive net profit attributable to shareholders excluding non-recurring items in its latest annual report. The two investors committed to subscribe to at least 455 million new shares for a total of RMB 819 million in April 2026 (see China Solar PV News Snippets).
Under an earlier agreement, Ningbo Ruilian is expected to become EGING PV’s controlling shareholder once the restructuring is completed. The Changzhou Intermediate People’s Court has so far only registered the company’s pre-restructuring filing and has not formally accepted the restructuring case.
EGING PV has been subject to a delisting-risk warning, designated ‘*ST,’ after reporting negative net assets at the end of 2025 (see China Solar PV News Snippets). Its net assets stood at negative RMB 244 million in its 2026 interim report, and the company warned that uncertainty remained over the formal acceptance of the restructuring and the risk of delisting.
Integrated PV manufacturer Trinasolar and Intel have launched a pilot project to explore integrated power-and-computing technologies and commercial models for AI data centers (AIDCs). The initiative will combine Trinasolar’s prefabricated power cabins with Intel’s computing cabins to develop coordinated solutions for high-performance computing facilities.
Trinasolar has presented an 800 V high-voltage DC power supply solution for AIDCs, using prefabricated HVDC/solid-state transformer (SST) integrated cabins to support megawatt-scale racks. Trina Storage has also introduced a solution that combines grid-forming energy storage with AI-based dispatch to coordinate wind, solar, storage, and grid resources across time and geography, addressing the mismatch between variable renewable generation and continuous computing demand.
Trinasolar also plans to validate and refine the integrated hardware and software system through a self-developed data center demonstration project.
Solar glass manufacturer Xinyi Solar and its renewable energy subsidiary Xinyi Energy have jointly announced plans to inject two utility-scale PV projects totaling 250 MW into the XYE New Energy REIT and seek a listing on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The exchange has accepted the application, and the fund is expected to raise about RMB 1.62 billion through its public offering.
The underlying assets comprise the 100 MW Sanshan project in Wuhu and the 150 MW Xiaonanjing project in Lu’an, both in Anhui province. Xinyi Energy plans to subscribe for 40% of the fund’s units as a strategic investor. Following the listing, the 2 project companies will no longer be consolidated into Xinyi Energy’s financial statements, while its subsidiaries will continue to provide operations and management services and receive related fees and fund distributions.
PV ribbon manufacturer Yubang New Materials, which operates under the YourBuddy brand and was formerly known as YOURBEST, has announced that its board has approved a proposal to terminate its Anhui project for 20,000 metric tons of annual PV ribbon capacity. The project was funded through a convertible-bond offering and had a planned investment of RMB 441.73 million, including RMB 356.73 million from the offering. As of September 15, 2026, Yubang had invested RMB 182.85 million and plans to permanently use the remaining RMB 184.51 million in raised funds to replenish working capital.
The company attributed the proposed termination to temporary supply-demand imbalances across the PV industry, pressure on PV ribbon profitability, and rapid changes among solar cell technology routes, which have increased uncertainty over demand for the products planned under the project. It added that existing capacity can meet market demand and that further investment could result in underutilized capacity and below-target returns.
Yubang also recently revealed that its controlling shareholder, Suzhou Juxinyuan Enterprise Management Co., Ltd., and actual controllers Feng Xiao and Min Lin are planning a change of control (see China Solar PV News Snippets).
TaiyangNews 2024

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LGI, an Australian landfill gas and renewables company, has agreed to buy two operating solar PV power plants in Queensland with 42MW of export capacity for AU$22 million (US$15.3 million).
The ASX-listed company will also lift its medium-term pipeline target to more than 120MW, up from the 80MW it previously announced.
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LGI recovers biogas from landfills to generate electricity and carbon credits, and it also operates battery storage. It dispatches its assets through its own software, the Dynamic Asset Control System (DACS), to optimise returns across energy and carbon markets.
LGI is buying 100% of the two solar PV power plants from IIG Solar Assets Pty Ltd, which acts as trustee for the IIG Solar Asset Trust, with no debt attached. Completion is expected on 9 October, no shareholder approval is required, and the purchase will be funded from cash and LGI’s existing debt facility.
The Chinchilla solar PV plant, near Baking Board, has 19.9MWp installed and 14.7MW of export capacity. It began operating in 2019 and has 31 years left on its land lease.
The Brigalow solar PV power plant at Yarranlea has 34.5 MWp installed and 27.3MW of export capacity. It began operating in 2021 and has 33 years left on its lease.
Together, the generation power plants have 54MW installed against 42MW of export capacity. They generated 20,981MWh and 33,229MWh in 2025, respectively, and both sold entirely at spot prices.
The price works out at about AU$0.5 million per MW of export capacity, which LGI says is below the cost of developing comparable assets from scratch. The company said it assessed multiple solar assets over the past year as valuations softened in line with energy prices.
LGI estimates the power plants will add annual earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of AU$2.1 million to AU$4.0 million at current electricity prices.
The range depends on how quickly it realises revenue and implements DACS, and it expects about AU$1.6 million in the 2027 financial year, assuming a nine-month contribution.
LGI plans to bring operations and maintenance in-house. Chief executive Jarryd Doran described the power plants as “proven, operational assets acquired well below replacement cost”.
Because installed capacity exceeds export capacity, LGI says the surplus could be used to charge battery storage systems at either site. Preliminary studies on adding battery storage systems have started at both projects.
The new target combines the 80MW pipeline with the 42MW of solar. LGI’s investor presentation splits the total as 26MW of biogas, 42MW of solar and 57MW of battery energy storage.
LGI says electricity demand in the National Electricity Market (NEM) is growing due to electric vehicles (EVs), industrial electrification, and data centres, while ageing thermal generation approaches the end of its life. It also says distribution-connected projects avoid transmission bottlenecks.
Solar output is already running into grid limits. Utility-scale solar curtailment fell to about 22% in September from 26% a year earlier, while Queensland set a September record of about 645GWh of utility solar output. Spot prices averaged below AU$65/MWh across all NEM states over the month.
Policy on data centre demand remains unsettled. Queensland and the Northern Territory opposed a national agreement in July that would require large new data centres to fund additional renewable energy generation.
Investor sentiment is mixed. A survey for the Clean Energy Investor Group found that 65% of respondents expect Australia to miss its 82% renewable energy target for 2030, and 77% said the investment landscape had worsened. Transmission delays were the top challenge cited.

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Officials with Toyo Co. held an Oct. 6 ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the completion of the company’s manufacturing facility expansion in Humble, according to an Oct. 7 news release. 
Toyo is a global solar energy company that designs, manufactures, and sells solar cells, photovoltaic modules and related components across the solar power supply chain, according to the company’s website. 
With the expansion, the facility—which opened in October 2025—now has the capacity to produce 2 gigawatts of solar modules annually, per the release. 
“Completing our 2 GW module expansion in Texas is an important milestone for Toyo,” Toyo Chairman and CEO Takahiko Onozuka said in a statement. “We thank our employees, the Humble community, and our partners in the United States and Japan for their support.”
Toyo officials said the company is in the midst of another expansion at the site that will include the construction of a heterojunction cell line, which will further increase the facility’s capacity to produce solar modules. 
Expansion completed Oct. 6
6115 Greens Road, Humble
www.toyo-solar.com
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The energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh approved the project, which is a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project.
October 8, 2026
Island Green Power has received a development consent order (DCO) for its 500MW Green Hill Solar Farm in Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes.
The energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh approved the project, which is a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) due to its generating capacity of over 100MW. It will also feature a 500MW battery energy storage system (BESS).
It is the third solar NSIP that Island Green Power (IGP) has had consented, behind the 600MW Cottam Solar Project, consented in 2024, and the 480MW West Burton Solar plant, approved in days after the last energy secretary Ed Miliband took the seat. Green Hill is the second solar NSIP approved since Fahnbulleh has been secretary.
Macquarie-backed IGP has been focused on West Burton, with it receiving a Contract for Difference (CfD) in AR7. Cottam is anticipated to have a firm grid connection date toward the end of 2028, meaning it will be IGP’s next fous.
Related:Octopus invests in 43MW of Irish solar projects
It has other projects, including Lime Down Solar Farm and Light Valley Solar Farm, currently at the examination phase at the Planning Inspectorate, which are expected to be built out pre-2031, alongside Green Hill.
Molly Green
Section Editor, Informa
Molly joined the team in 2024 and has led coverage on the UK sites. Now shifting to a more global view, Molly is interested in how legislation shapes market dynamics, covering the intersection of policy design, investment patterns, and energy transition pathways.
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Copyright © 2026 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.

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Posted on: October 8, 2026

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