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AUSTRALIA’S NATIONAL SCIENCE AGENCY
Over 2.2 million Australian homes and businesses now have a rooftop PV system. What does a summer of smoke, dust and hail mean for solar power generation in Australia?
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By Kate Cranney ,  Chris Fell ,  Gregory Wilson 31 March 2020 7 min read

This summer, smoke from bushfires blanketed towns and cities across Australia. At the same time, dust storms descended on western New South Wales, with dust clouds “so thick they blocked out the sun”. And in Canberra, hailstorms lashed the city, damaging cars, infrastructure and solar panels.
What does this smoke, dust and hail mean for Australia’s solar power plants, and the two million homes fitted with solar panels? How much energy will residential solar panels produce when you can barely see the sun?
Before we look at renewable energy, it’s worthwhile noting that extreme weather events also affect conventional energy generators.
Summer is a challenging time for the reliability and security of coal power generating units.
A 2019 report[Link will open in a new window] by The Energy Security Board stated that “… weather events are now more severe, especially over summer, and the thermal generator fleet is ageing and increasingly less dependable.” For instance, in early 2019, during a heatwave in Victoria, a substantial portion of the state’s coal generation was offline, with faults at a coal plant in the Latrobe Valley.
Add to this the damage to infrastructure. Recent bushfires destroyed or damaged electricity infrastructure, including power poles, lines and substations, this includes interstate links. Early this year, thousands of homes and businesses were without power when fires destroyed poles and wires in New South Wales and Victoria. ‘Mega-fires’ also narrowly missed[Link will open in a new window] the Mount Piper Power Station and the Springvale Coal mine.
With this in mind, let’s look at the respective impacts that smoke, dust and hail have on solar energy production.
Since widespread bushfires began in October 2019, parts of Australia have been blanketed with smoke.
Bushfire smoke causes elevated particle levels in the atmosphere. Smoke from bushfires is made up of gases, water vapour and particles so small they’re not visible to the human eye (the NSW Health Department and EPA estimates some particles are smaller than 2.5 microns in size, which is about three per cent the diameter of a human hair).
These extreme aerosol events can significantly reduce the power generated by solar photovoltaic (PV) plants.
“Simply put, anything that blocks out the sun will reduce the amount of energy that your panels will produce,” explains Principal Research Scientist Dr Gregory Wilson (Head of Solar Technologies). Solar energy production can also be affected by the ash, which can leave a thin layer of grime on the surface of panels.
Solar monitoring company Solar Analytics found that rooftop PV system output in Sydney and Canberra dropped by 15–45% on heavy smoke haze days. “On New Year’s Day, when Canberra choked under highly hazardous smoke haze with an air quality index more than 3400, solar PV output in the capital plummeted by a costly 45%. Analysis of solar PV sites in Sydney on December 10 showed a 15% drop in production, and on December 21 this rose to a hefty 27% drop.”
In 2014, CSIRO researchers calculated the impact of the smoke aerosols produced by controlled burns outside of Canberra on solar PV power production at one of CSIRO’s solar monitoring stations. While this was a relatively minor local council-controlled burn, the researchers still found it measured a peak reduction of 27% when the smoke plume obscured the sun.
In 2019, Dr Wilson monitored the solar production at CSIRO’s Newcastle Energy Centre; the image of the Energy Dashboard below shows three peaks over three days. The smoke haze drifts across on midday on one (December 4) and remains, reducing the peak solar power output by about 25%. With over 300kW of solar PV panels installed Newcastle on-site, the haze impacted our renewable generation.
“At our Energy Centre, where there’s a nice ocean breeze, on the hazy days we still saw a significant loss in the energy production from our solar panels: it was down 10 to 30%, compared to last year.”

“When a thick layer of dust accumulates on a solar PV system it can have a significant impact on output,” explains Principal Research Scientist, Dr Chris Fell (PV Performance Laboratory).
“Like smoke, dust storms fill the air with particles that scatter sunlight away from the ground, meaning less solar energy where it’s needed. Unlike smoke though, dust storms contain larger particles that typically fall out and cover everything in sight.” See image below.

The severity of the dust fallout problem depends on many factors; in particular the composition of the dust, proximity to the ocean, and the weather conditions at the time. Sandy dust is less likely to adhere, whereas clay-like dust is more of a problem. Wind tends to remove some freshly deposited dust, whereas still conditions, particularly if concurrent with high humidity and salt air, can enhance dust adhesion. When light rain occurs at the same time (e.g. the ‘mud rain’ that has recently been seen in Melbourne) the result can be the rapid formation of heavy ‘soiling’, as it is known in the industry.
“Perhaps the most important impact of bushfires and dust storms on Australia’s energy grid relates to their unpredictability,” explains Dr Fell.
“As the penetration of utility-scale solar systems (solar PV farms) on the grid increases, the stability of our electricity supply is becoming more and more dependent on operators of these facilities providing accurate forecasting of the power they will inject (into Australia’s electrical grid).”
A recent survey of solar PV farms by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) saw several farms report that the recent conditions had adversely impacted either their energy output or their ability to forecast energy generation.
Modern solar PV panels are highly stable in the outdoor environment, but one of their weaknesses is large hail – normally anything above 25mm in diameter. Large hail contains much more destructive energy than small hail (less than 25mm) since larger stones are both heavier and reach a higher terminal velocity before reaching ground level.
Although the surface of the solar PV panel is a thick layer of toughened glass, the high-impulse (short and sharp) impacts generated by high-velocity hailstones are very challenging to withstand – without making the panel both heavy and expensive.
The hailstones that hit Canberra’s CSIRO site, in January 2020, were golf ball-sized, weighing about 20 grams each. As this weather becomes more frequent with climate change, product performance will need to reflect this, and it may be worthwhile re-visiting Australian’s Standards for solar PV panel construction.

Over 2.2 million Australian homes and businesses now have a rooftop solar PV system—over 220,000 of which were added in 2019. This can be higher than 70 per cent in some urban areas, on free-standing residential homes, according to the Australian PV Institute‘s latest report to the International Energy Agency. Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) forecasts that, by 2040, rooftop solar PV systems on households and businesses will supply a quarter of the country’s energy needs.
The scale and number of medium-scale[Link will open in a new window] and large-scale solar PV plants also continues to grow. “Not only did 2018 produce a record number of projects being completed, but it also delivered the six largest solar farms in the country…. The amount of large-scale solar installed around the country more than quadrupled in 2018, increasing from 382 MW in 2017 to 1824 MW in 2018,” reports the Clean Energy Council.

The full impact of extreme weather events on solar farms is uncertain. Looking to the future, the amount and type of aerosols will need to be considered in the analysis of solar PV power, to obtain accurate forecast scenarios and improve the grid integration, especially during extreme weather events.

Extreme weather and Australia’s energy grid

In the face of climate change, extreme weather events will continue to cause damage to energy infrastructure. Renewable solar PV infrastructure is just as susceptible to extreme bushfires and wild storms as fossil fuel and nuclear power infrastructure.

But this summer has been a reminder of the benefits of decentralised energy production and improved energy storage. By having distributed renewable energy at home, like solar PV panels and battery storage, homeowners can minimise power outages (like blackouts) that happen after wild weather and catastrophic bushfire events.

There’s also an opportunity to revisit Standards for solar PV panels to withstand more extreme hail, and to explore new, tougher designs.

CSIRO researchers are ensuring that solar energy continues to be a reliable power source and one that we can harness to transition to a lower emissions future.

The full impact of extreme weather events on solar farms is uncertain. Looking to the future, the amount and type of aerosols will need to be considered in the analysis of solar PV power, to obtain accurate forecast scenarios and improve the grid integration, especially during extreme weather events.

In the face of climate change, extreme weather events will continue to cause damage to energy infrastructure. Renewable solar PV infrastructure is just as susceptible to extreme bushfires and wild storms as fossil fuel and nuclear power infrastructure.
But this summer has been a reminder of the benefits of decentralised energy production and improved energy storage. By having distributed renewable energy at home, like solar PV panels and battery storage, homeowners can minimise power outages (like blackouts) that happen after wild weather and catastrophic bushfire events.
There’s also an opportunity to revisit Standards for solar PV panels to withstand more extreme hail, and to explore new, tougher designs.
CSIRO researchers are ensuring that solar energy continues to be a reliable power source and one that we can harness to transition to a lower emissions future.
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Battery energy storage system prices are tracking downward globally, but the extent of the relief depends heavily on geography, cell architecture, and tightening policy constraints. According to Intertek CEA’s ESS Price Forecasting Report (Q3 – 2026), U.S. DC block prices are projected to decline roughly 15% to 30% by 2030. However, import markets are poised to capture steeper reductions exceeding 40%, propelled by Chinese manufacturers shifting production from standard prismatic cells to larger formats.
The widening cost delta between domestic deployments and global import trends stems from an intersection of trade barriers, raw material shifts, and manufacturing bottlenecks. Intertek CEA’s companion ESS Supply, Technology, and Policy Report (Q3 – 2026) details how supply concentration in China, delayed factory timelines, and evolving tax incentives are re-architecting procurement strategies for project developers.
Supply concentration and trade headwinds ahead of 2027
Global lithium-ion battery shipments among major suppliers tracked in Intertek CEA programs reached approximately 230 GWh in Q2 2026, marking an 18% quarter-over-quarter increase. This surge was largely driven by pre-stocking activity ahead of China’s scheduled elimination of its remaining value-added tax rebate on battery products, which takes effect on January 1, 2027. CATL maintained its dominant market position, accounting for over 25% of total shipment volumes among profiled companies, with all top-10 vendors based in China and commanding a combined market share exceeding 65%.
At the same time, policy pressures on imports are intensifying. New U.S. trade rules, compounded by potential tariffs targeting overcapacity and forced labor risks, threaten to complicate imported supplies and introduce strict compliance hurdles for Advanced Manufacturing Production Credits under Section 45X. Projects utilizing components tied to China-linked entities face heightened vulnerability, as stringent definitions of covered foreign entities cast uncertainty over long-term project bankability and tax credit qualification.
Domestic manufacturing realities and the Korean cathode alternative
Building a localized U.S. supply chain continues to face execution timelines. While South Korean manufacturers are moving to anchor domestic capacity, exemplified by LGES adding 33 GWh across three factories and Samsung SDI planning the startup of its LFP line in Indiana, approximately 11% of announced 2026 U.S. production capacity is at risk of slipping into 2027. Delays stem from line conversions, qualification hurdles, and capital constraints among newer market entrants.
To circumvent compliance hurdles, South Korean cathode active material producers such as L&F, POSCO, and EcoPro have announced roughly 23 GWh of LFP cathode capacity for 2026. Because cathode active material represents a primary barrier to Section 45X compliance, procuring South Korean materials, which could potentially meet nearly 40% of U.S. domestic demand if fully realized, threatens to split the market into distinct pricing tiers based on tax credit eligibility.
Commodity costs and emerging tech: Sodium-ion’s uphill climb
On the commodity front, lithium prices have pulled back roughly 15% quarter-over-quarter, stabilizing near $20 per kilogram and helping offset cost pressures across anodes, copper foils, and current collectors. However, the impending removal of China’s tax rebate is expected to soften the pace of cost deflation heading into 2027.
Emerging alternatives like sodium-ion are drawing industry focus, highlighted by offerings such as Hithium containerized sodium-ion solutions boasting extended service lives and minimal augmentation requirements. Although sodium carbonate raw material costs represent a fraction of lithium carbonate, processing the required precursor inputs remains constrained to smaller production scales. Until domestic cell manufacturing depth for sodium-ion matures, the technology is unlikely to meaningfully alter near-term U.S. storage economics.
AI data centers drive a surge in lithium-ion backup demand
Beyond utility-scale grid applications, artificial intelligence infrastructure is emerging as a major consumer of lithium-ion technology. U.S. lithium-ion imports for rack-level battery backup units designed for AI data centers reached 5,529 metric tons between January and July 2026, surging 131% year-over-year. Concurrently, imports for centralized uninterruptible power supply systems hit 10,723 metric tons, up 77% over the same period, driven by rapid lead-acid replacements and high-power demands from emerging AI computing clusters.
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The next time you visit Victoria Square, look beyond the shop windows and the famous dome. Above the bustle of shoppers, restaurants and retailers, a new solar installation is putting the centre’s rooftop to work.
Northern Ireland renewables company Solmatix has completed a 150-panel solar PV installation at the Belfast shopping and leisure destination, helping it generate its own electricity and reduce reliance on power purchased from the grid.
The 72.75kWp system is expected to produce approximately 51,071kWh of renewable electricity each year, helping to power Victoria Square’s common services.
Solmatix has completed one of its most high-profile projects yet(Image: Solmatix)
It represents the first phase of the landlord’s multi-year renewable energy plan and an investment in the future of one of the city’s most recognisable landmarks.
It also brings a practical question into focus for other businesses: could the space above your head help reduce the costs beneath it?
Victoria Square's solar PV installation is expected to be a valuable asset for the centre(Image: Solmatix)
For many organisations, the roof is simply part of the building. Yet, with the right solar PV installation, suitable rooftop space can become an asset that generates electricity for use below.
Shops, offices, warehouses and manufacturing facilities all need power to operate. Generating some of that electricity on site can reduce the amount a business needs to buy from the grid, helping lower running costs and improve energy efficiency.
The opportunity is particularly relevant where daytime electricity demand overlaps with solar generation. Instead of buying every unit of power, a business can use electricity generated on its own roof.
However, a good commercial solar project starts with understanding the business, rather than simply filling the available space with panels.
Roof condition, structural suitability, electricity consumption, operating hours and grid requirements all help determine the right approach. The financial case will also depend on installation costs, tariffs and how much of the electricity generated can be used on site.
Solmatix works with businesses to assess those factors and design a system around their premises and energy needs, with support through installation and ongoing maintenance.
The work was carried out "safely, efficiently and with minimal disruption"(Image: Solmatix)
At Victoria Square, delivering the project involved much more than installing panels.
Working in the heart of Belfast required detailed planning around retailers, visitors, deliveries and surrounding traffic. Solmatix managed the process from system design and the grid application through to installation, testing and commissioning.
The team coordinated approvals, permits, traffic management and temporary road to crane lift equipment onto the roof from Chichester Street.
Crane operations and associated installation activity took place during the early hours and outside the centre’s principal trading periods, helping minimise disruption.
Niki Alderdice, Director and Head of Project and Building Consultancy in Belfast at Lambert Smith Hampton, said: “This represents a significant investment in the future of Victoria Square and an important first step in the landlord’s longer-term plans for carbon reduction at the centre.”
He added that Solmatix worked closely with all parties to deliver the installation “safely, efficiently and with minimal disruption”.
For business owners considering solar, the project demonstrates how careful planning can help renewable energy installations fit around the demands of an operational building.
Installation on top of Victoria Square(Image: Solmatix)
Victoria Square is part of a much wider Solmatix story across Belfast city centre and beyond:
Together, these projects show how renewable energy can become part of the places we use every day, often without us noticing.
As you work, travel, explore and shop, rooftops across Belfast are already doing more.
Solmatix operates throughout the UK and Ireland
Established in 2008, Solmatix designs, installs and maintains commercial and residential renewable energy systems across the UK and Ireland.
The same starting question applies whether you manage a commercial property or own a home: what could your roof do for you?
With a system designed around your building and electricity needs, suitable rooftop space could help reduce purchased electricity and give you greater control over how you power your premises.
Discover what is possible for your business or home at solmatix.com. Make your roof work for you.
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© 2025 THE COOL DOWN COMPANY. All Rights Reserved. Do not sell or share my personal information. Reach us at hello@thecooldown.com.
“They mean we take back control of our energy bills, and our independence.”
Photo Credit: iStock
A large share of people moving in the United Kingdom now want self-generating homes, with nearly two-thirds saying they are looking for a property that can produce most or all of its own energy.
Cooling is moving up the wish list too, suggesting many buyers are weighing electrification features before purchase.
According to The Independent, Rightmove research found that only 8% of U.K. movers said they would prefer to stay fully on the grid, while 53% said high energy prices have made them more interested in technology such as solar panels, batteries, and heat pumps. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they wanted their next home to provide most or all of its own energy.
Heat resilience is also shaping decisions. The report found that 45% of movers say their home struggles in hot weather, and 22% place air conditioning among their top three priorities. After 2026’s record-breaking summer heat, 87% said a home’s ability to stay cool matters to them.
That helps explain why many shoppers are making heating and cooling upgrades an upfront buying decision. Palmetto can help homeowners understand their HVAC options and lower energy bills with newer, more efficient HVAC systems and heat pumps, while its Comfort Plan network can connect them with vetted installers.
Features tied to home electrification appear much more often in listings than they did in 2022. Since 2022, newly listed homes mentioning solar panels are up 94%, mentions of electric car chargers are up 79%, and mentions of heat pumps have jumped 151%, The Independent reported, citing Rightmove.
Demand is 61% higher for homes with solar panels and 83% higher for homes with heat pumps, reinforcing the idea that buyers increasingly treat electrification as part of a home’s value.
Cooling interest is climbing on the same trajectory. Rightmove searches for homes with air conditioning rose 104% compared with the same period in 2025, and 61% of movers said they were considering adding air conditioning at home.
With energy prices through the roof, there’s never been a better time to go solar — and EasyHome can help you find the best prices from the best installers in your area.
EasyHome takes the guesswork and headaches out of energy upgrades by showing you estimated savings from a network of vetted local partners. To get started, just enter your ZIP and share a few details about your home — seeing your estimate is really that easy.
Efficiency ratings show the housing market is improving. Rightmove’s figures, cited by The Independent, showed that 61% of rental homes and 49% of homes for sale have an energy performance certificate rating of C or above.
The difference is especially stark in new construction: 89% of new builds have an EPC rating of A or B, compared with 6% across the rest of the housing stock. For homeowners who can’t afford upfront costs, Palmetto’s Comfort Plan offers $0 down options that can cut heating and cooling costs by up to 50% and include 12 years of maintenance.
Homeowners can also pair solar panels with electric appliances, including efficient HVACs, to push utility costs even lower. EnergySage offers free tools to compare solar options and competitive bids from local installers without sharing contact information unless you choose to proceed, and it can help homeowners save up to $10,000 on solar installations.
“This Rightmove Green Homes report shows a massive shift in consumer sentiment around electrification at home,” Greg Jackson, founder and CEO of Octopus Energy, said, according to The Independent. “Greener homes are not only cheaper to run, they also reduce our reliance on a system still controlled by global fossil fuel markets. They mean we take back control of our energy bills, and our independence.”
These stories look at why solar, batteries, and other electrification features are playing a bigger role in homebuying decisions. 
• Across the U.S., buyers are finding that homes with solar panels can sharply cut monthly costs.
• In the U.S., 3 in 4 homeowners now see solar panels as a strong investment.
• For many households, panels and batteries are a hedge against grid volatility.
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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Sri Lanka’s First Agri-PV Pilot Demonstrator opens in Kandy  Ceylon Daily News
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Jackery has its Halloween Sale running past the upcoming holiday through November 3 with up to $2,060 savings on power stations, 2x points for members, and even some bonus extra savings on orders over $1,500 won from a crossword game here. One notable option for travelers and emergency preppers alike is the HomePower 2000 Plus v2 2,048Wh Power Station with 2x 200W solar panels down at $1,479 shipped, which matches the price we’re seeing at Amazon. Down from $1,839, discounts on this bundle have mostly kept above $1,659 since the model launched back in June, with the $360 markdown here only beaten out by a dip to $1,430 back during June’s Prime Day event. You can find the standalone station for $1,069 shipped during this sale, or head below to see all the other offers while the savings last.
One of Jackery’s latest 2026 v2 releases, the HomePower 2000 Plus v2 power station brings along a 2,048Wh starting LiFePO4 capacity, which can be further scaled up to 12kWh with expansion batteries. It has eight connection ports (4x ACs, 2x USB-Cs, 1x USB-A, and a DC car port) that deliver a steady power supply up to 2,400W and can surge higher up to 4,800W. There are five recharging options, with this headlining bundle getting you halfway to its 800W maximum solar input. From there, you can plug it into a standard wall outlet, a gas generator, or charge as you drive from either a car auxiliary port or with the DC to DC 600W alternator charger.
You can also find more sales from alternate brands over in our dedicated power stations hub here.

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Pico Solar Photovoltaic Market Growth: Powering Affordable and Accessible Clean Energy Solutions  openPR.com
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Over the five trading sessions ending October 23, the Sensex declined 1.60%, or 1,192 points, to close at 73,123. The benchmark index ended lower in four of these five sessions. During this period, around 123 stocks in the BSE 500 index declined in each of the five sessions. Of these, we identified 13 stocks that fell between 15% and 25% over the same period. (Data Source: ACE Equity)”

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AUSTRALIA’S NATIONAL SCIENCE AGENCY
Australia installed its highest ever number of rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) panels in 2020, according to Clean Energy Regulator data analysed by energy efficiency experts from Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO.
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13 May 2021 News Release
Data from the Clean Energy Regulator analysed by CSIRO shows that in 2020, around Australia, over 362,000 rooftop solar PV installations were issued with small-scale renewable energy scheme certificates (STCs) under the Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme. 
This is an increase of 28 per cent from 2019, when 283,991 installations were issued STCs, with the majority of installs under the scheme being residential, and a smaller number for commercial and industrial properties.
CSIRO Chief Executive Dr Larry Marshall said the analysis showed a strong appetite for science-led innovation in Australia.
“CSIRO has analysed and projected energy futures for more than two decades, and over that time we have accurately forecast and tracked the reduction in cost of renewables, and the development of battery storage options, including our own UltraBattery,” Dr Marshall said.
“Science has made renewables cost competitive with conventional power, letting market forces take over to drive a global transition to lower emissions. 
“Australia’s solar advantage creates an economic opportunity for us on the world stage and an environmental benefit for the globe – even better when it’s powered by Australian science and research.”
CSIRO researchers use the Clean Energy Regulator data as the best indicator of PV installations around Australia, and is just one of the five sources of data collated by CSIRO’s Australian Housing Data Portal.
Senior Experimental Scientist Michael Ambrose is part of a team that uses a vast array of data to track the progress in residential sustainability efforts.
“The solar PV installation data shows how quickly PV systems have been taken up across Australia and the increasing size of the PV arrays,” Mr Ambrose said.
The states with the highest number of solar PV systems installed in 2020 were: New South Wales (with 108,922), Queensland (86,912), Victoria (71,798), Western Australia (47,653) and South Australia (35,599).
Individual postcodes leading the charge in 2020 were:
Australia has the highest uptake of solar globally. Clean Energy Regulator data shows that more than 2.68 million rooftop solar power systems have been installed in Australia in total, as of 31 December 2020; that means one in four homes have solar panels on their roof.
“Australia is one of the sunniest places on the planet. We lead the world in PV capacity on a per capita basis at 591 watts per person which is almost eight times the worldwide average,” Mr Ambrose said.
Launched in 2019, the Australian Housing Data Portal centralises a vast amount of energy efficiency data that underpins key decision making, training and awareness.
Updated monthly, the portal contains data across states and climate zones and can be further broken down by design (e.g. dwelling class and floor area), construction (e.g. type of walls and roofing) and fixtures and appliances (e.g. solar PV and heating/cooling systems).
Clean Energy Regulator’s Executive General Manager Mark Williamson said that 3 gigawatts (GW) of rooftop solar PV capacity was installed nationally in 2020, a 40 per cent increase on the 2.2 GW installed in 2019, and this is trending higher in 2021 with an expected 3.5 to 4 GW of capacity. The growth in capacity has been driven by increasing system size, with the average system now between 8 and 8.5 kilowatts.
“Sustained low technology costs, increased work from home arrangements and a shift in household spending to home improvements during COVID-19 played a key role in the increase of rooftop solar PV systems under the SRES,” Mr Williamson said.
See information on small-scale installations for each Australian postcode.
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India’s Solar PV Capacity Reaches 168 GW, Accounts for 30.3% of 554 GW Total Installed Power Capacity  SolarQuarter
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With thousands of kilometres of power transition lines needed across the Australian continent, on Indigenous land, our people can and should play a strong role in the process.
This is the perspective of Karrina Nolan, director of the First Nations Clean Energy Network speaking at its national symposium in Djilang (Geelong) in April.
“If proponents engage with our communities earlier, not when something’s designed, then the benefits really are genuine and long-term,” Ms Nolan told National Indigenous Times, adding self-determination on local benefit is critical.
This goes for large-scale and long term projects, ownership of assets and broader economic opportunity and also cases where communities just want cheaper power bills and more reliable power, she explained.
The Federal Government has committed $70 million in investment over three years from 2025 via the First Nations Clean Energy Program.
Grants are available for clean energy projects.
During the symposium Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen announced $10 million available for up to two Indigenous organisations to support projects with an expected capacity over 1 MW, beyond feasibility and towards financial close.
Communities across the country are already seeing benefits from local projects.
Scott McDinny, with Original Power, says at home in Borroloola, the build of a solar 2.1 megawatt solar PV (photovoltaic), 6.2 megawatt battery microgrid will reduce frequent power outages. It will also create jobs.
Original Power is an Indigenous-led not-for-profit supporting communities with the delivery of renewable energy projects.
“It’s a big project,” he said, for a community currently relying on diesel generation, and looking at a much more reliable connection.
In Marlinja, Aleeta Dixon has been working to build her community’s microgrid solar project for the last five years.
The solar system means more, and cheaper power, she said.
The symposium’s conversations canvassed equity and co-ownership pathways, regional and remote energy equity, investment opportunities, utilities, policy, and community benefit options.
Five years ago, there were 150 people at the first national symposium, First Nations Clean Energy Network’s Cissy Gore-Birch said. 2026 saw 500 people attend.
“Leaving no one behind” was a common theme, Ms Gore-Birch said.
As was government commitments and the role First Peoples play in clean energy, she said.
“It’s about bringing people together First Nations people of this country to talk about the issues around our communities, our regions, our states, and territories…to share knowledge and understanding of how fast this space is moving,” Ms Gore-Birch said of the symposium.
Some in the network are new to clean energy works, while others are 20 years in, already making community energy solutions a reality, Ms Nolan said.
This extends to mitigating potential damage to sacred sites, economic wealth opportunities, and being reliable stakeholders on long-term projects.
This work is about lifting “the aspiration of our community to be part of the transition” Ms Nolan said.
Government needs to meet them and understand the collective benefits available, she added.
The First Nations Clean Energy Symposium was hosted at Nyaal Banyul Geelong Convention and Event Centre from August 18-20.

Disclaimer: This function is AI-generated and therefore may mispronounce.
Disclaimer: This function is AI-generated and therefore may mispronounce.

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The benefits of small anaerobic digestion (AD) systems for on-farm energy use, or indeed for export to the grid, has been a subject of much discussion recently.
Local Power Ltd has a keen interest in agri-based large-scale biomethane and, with their Austrian partners Biogest, have a Power Compact small-scale AD solution available for farms.
With an expected 50% grant to be announced soon, the solution does make sense for a few farmers, but a very careful on-farm assessment needs to be made to avoid a costly mistake.
With Local Power’s solar PV and battery storage generation solutions, it is much easier to do the analysis, and to design and install a solution that is bankable and delivers on performance and economic expectations.
And the recent budget has seen significant improvements to the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) grants available to farmers for solar PV and battery storage investment.
For almost all farmers, solar PV makes absolute sense.
Feel free to get in touch with Local Power to see how the improved grants can help you slash escalating energy bills for generations to come.
However, the situation is much less clear when it come to small scale AD.
There are a number of complex factors to consider in the case of small-scale AD, that when properly assessed, narrow down the pool of suitable farms considerably.
Firstly, there is the issue of on-farm energy usage: when it occurs; what ESB network grid connection agreement is in place; and what has to happen by way of upgrade and investment before you can progress with an AD project.
All of this needs to be carefully considered and assessed.
And if a farm does not have a three phase supply, then small scale AD is a non-runner, according to Local Power.
Will you need to increase your grid connection agreement, and what will that add to monthly charges?
Will you have to factor in battery storage, and how much, to ensure that as much of the generation as possible is used on the farm?
This is much more easily assessed when designing a solar PV and battery storage system.
An AD unit generates a specific amount of kWh of electricity 24/7, so unless your farm has a constant energy demand (e.g., a pig farm or horticulture), a grid connection agreement to export electricity will be critical.
Doing an economic analysis on what you might be paid in the future for export to the grid is a risky business, as nobody can predict what the utilities will pay unless some type of long-term grid agreement is secured in advance.
Unfortunately, such agreements are not currently available in the market.
However, there is a government-supported scheme, Renewable Energy Support Scheme (RESS), which may deliver up to 13c/kWh for up to 15 years.
This may be worth progressing if on-farm AD is on your agenda.
However, from any analysis Local Power has done, the bulk of the electricity generated needs to be used in the farm business for small AD to make any sense.
Then there is the issue of feedstock availability and management.
On most – but not all – Irish dairy farms, slurry is available for no more than six months of the year.
What impact does this have on supplying feedstock 12 months of the year, and what infrastructure has to change or be built to accommodate storage of the digestate at the end of the AD process?
On the other hand, with solar PV, all you need to do is keep an eye on the app to ensure it is operating as expected.
How much time will be required to feed, manage and maintain the AD plant every week, who does it, and what expertise is required?
How much are the likely annual maintenance and repair bills, and what is the impact on economics?
With solar PV, maintenance is low, with no moving parts, and cleaning the panels every couple of years is the main issue to deal with.
Have a look at the substrate matrix link below, which is an example of generation output for a 100kW Biogest Power Compact from a combination of cattle slurry supplemented with maize or grass silage.
The first thing to note here is that the slurry value is based on a typical European farm set-up where livestock are indoors 24/7, 365 days a year.
In reality, very few farms will be able to run a farm-based AD plant without substantial silage/maize feedstock available daily to deliver the kWh of electricity expected.
Pig farms have slurry 24/7, but the % dry matter and gas potential are limiting factors, and hopefully this will be addressed when an economic dewatering solution for pig slurry is available.
There are a number of larger scale robotic dairy farms with cows in 24/7 and these may very well fit the bill for small-scale AD, as well as large-scale beef finishers, pig producers, and horticultural set-ups where there is a constant flow of wastes available.
So, in summary, we see potential for small AD on a limited number of Irish farms, where the combination of farm type and size, feedstock availability (slurries, crop waste, etc.), energy use profile, and grid connection align to make the project economically viable.
Local Power Ltd, with our partners Biogest, will do the analysis and provide a quick and honest assessment on the viability of small AD for your farm.
Unfortunately, for most the advice will be to look at an alternative option, such as solar PV and battery storage, to address your on-farm energy costs going forward.
For more information on the best options available to farmers to deal with escalating energy costs, call Local Power Ltd anytime.
We look forward to hearing from you.
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Emmvee Photovoltaic Power CMD DV Manjunatha Donthi estimates that India needs around 100 GW of effectively usable solar-cell manufacturing capacity, significantly higher than the roughly 41 GW currently cited by the industry.
Demand from utility-scale, rooftop, commercial and industrial (C&I), and hybrid power projects could widen the gap between announced manufacturing capacity and actual domestic supply, Manjunatha said, highlighting the need for timely capacity expansion.
Emmvee’s ₹5,500-crore integrated manufacturing expansion is entering the equipment-installation phase, with most critical machinery orders placed and deliveries expected by November. The company targets commissioning a 6 GW module plant by December and an additional 6 GW of solar-cell capacity by next March. Once completed, its annual module and cell capacities are expected to reach 16.3 GW and 8.9 GW, respectively.
Emmvee also plans to invest ₹5,000-5,500 crore in phased backward integration into ingot and wafer manufacturing, with 5 GW targeted for FY29 and a further 4 GW in FY30. The project is expected to be funded largely through internal accruals, subject to regulatory clarity and market conditions.
D.V. Manjunatha Donthi, CMD, Emmvee Photovoltaic Power, said the company’s capex plans represent an important step in deepening backward integration, strengthening domestic sourcing and supply-chain resilience, and building a more competitive business for the long term.
The company’s order book stood at 10.4 GW at the end of Q2 FY27, supported by new order inflows of approximately 1.5 GW during the quarter. Around 70 per cent of the order book comprised Domestic Content Requirement (DCR)-linked orders, reflecting demand for domestically manufactured solar equipment.
Emmvee reported revenue from operations of ₹3,131.9 crore in H1 FY27, up 45 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y), while EBITDA increased 47 per cent to ₹1,105 crore and net profit rose 79 per cent to ₹762 crore.
Net debt-to-equity stood at 0.12 times as of September-end. Cash generated from operating activities during H1 FY27 reached ₹410 crore, compared with ₹121 crore in the year-earlier period.
With ALMM List-II already in effect, Emmvee expects a further extension of the December transition deadline for specified open-access and net-metering projects to be unlikely. The company has also secured inclusion of its G12R TOPCon cells in ALMM List-II.
Published on October 28, 2026
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Beyond Efficiency: What Indian Module Manufacturers Are Looking for in Solar Cells  SolarQuarter
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Perovskite solar cells are attracting strong interest because they combine high power conversion efficiency with potentially low manufacturing costs. Laboratory efficiencies have already exceeded 27%, but conventional flat panel designs lose performance as the sun moves across the sky, because changing angles of incidence increase reflection losses and reduce light penetration into the absorbing layer.
A research team has now presented a simulation led device concept called angle robust photovoltaics. Instead of relying on trackers to keep panels facing the sun, the design uses a hemisphere core shell perovskite solar cell architecture with a textured rounded cone front surface. The geometry is intended to capture sunlight from many directions while supporting balanced charge collection.
The textured surface scatters incoming light in multiple directions and triggers hybridised Mie resonances within the perovskite layer. According to the researchers, this spreads the optical field more evenly through the device, producing more uniform carrier generation. The hemisphere shape also creates symmetrical pathways for electrons and holes to travel from the outer surface to the core, which supports extraction and reduces recombination losses.
Three dimensional optoelectronic simulations indicate that the structure retains broadband absorption above 95% across incidence angles from 0° to 50°. The modelled device achieves a maximum power density of 28.25 mW/cm², with power output variance below 0.02. The study reports that output fluctuation falls from 0.83 to 0.02, a decrease of 97.59%.
The findings suggest a route to more consistent solar electricity generation across the day and across seasons without the moving parts, capital cost and maintenance burden associated with tracking systems. For African energy projects, where reliability, land use and lifecycle costs are central considerations, such tracker free designs could become relevant for utility scale plants, commercial rooftops and building integrated photovoltaics.
The work remains simulation based, so laboratory fabrication, durability testing and real world performance validation will be needed before the concept can be assessed for commercial deployment. Even so, the researchers describe it as a device level pathway to stable photovoltaic output and more cost effective solar energy harvesting.
Link to the full paper HERE 
Author: Bryan Groenendaal






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ENNA Solar acquires Romanian Medgidia project: 166 MWp of solar and 612 MWh  energynews.pro
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From ESS News
Japanese major Toshiba is pairing a 2 MW / 667 kWh high-power SCiB battery with a 2 MW / 15.33 MWh capacity-type system at a substation microgrid in Mongolia.
In an announcement, Toshia said it had begun manufacturing the power-type battery energy storage system, and preparing an energy management system (EMS) for the Darkhan substation in northern Mongolia, operated by state-owned transmission operator National Power Transmission Grid (NPTG).
Scheduled to enter operation in December 2027, the installation is funded through a Japanese government grant aid package. 
While single battery architectures are widely used, the Darkhan project embraces a two-battery hybrid approach. According to system specifications, the microgrid links a 10 MW solar PV plant with a 2 MW / 667 kWh power-type battery supplied by Toshiba and a 2 MW / 15.33 MWh capacity-type battery. 
The SCiB unit is then a 20-minute (3C) asset that may assist in managing high-frequency solar ramp control, while the companion battery, with its longer-duration 7.66-hour system is able to assist with peak shifting. Toshiba, in a supplied diagram, indicates the 15.33 MWh bulk battery isn’t Toshiba-made and is likely sourced from a third-party LFP supplier.
Toshiba is supplying the power-type unit using its SCiB rechargeable lithium-ion cells, which utilize a lithium titanate oxide (LTO) anode.
In theory, the system will reduce cycling stress on the 15.33 MWh capacity-type battery, reserving the latter for renewable peak shifting and supply-demand balancing.
This dual-system architecture is by no means alone in Asia. Hybrid storage plants are mixing flow batteries with conventional chemistries, and high-cycle assets or supercapacitors are co-located with energy-dense batteries to separate sub-second ramp control from multi-hour dispatch.
Toshiba’s EMS will forecast solar generation and power demand to coordinate both battery systems, while enabling remote monitoring and control from NPTG’s headquarters and its Darkhan branch.
Mongolia aims to increase the share of renewable energy in its total installed generation capacity to 30% by 2030.
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Australia allowed its head start in solar manufacturing to dwindle away. (Getty: Brendon Thorne)
Every day of the year, Australia installs about 1,000 rooftop solar systems; those black rectangles appearing on rooftops everywhere represent billions of dollars spent on silicon, glass and a little bit of metal.
Given we have the highest uptake of solar in the world, you might expect that some of these panels would be made here.
But with a few exceptions, that's never the case.
Twenty years ago it was different: Australia appeared set to be a global player in the small but promising industry of manufacturing panels that could extract energy from the sun.
And then everything changed.
Australia installed 362,000 rooftop solar systems last year, an increase of 28 per cent on 2019. (ABC News)
The world started wanting solar panels and Australia stopped making them.
Now, with Australia relying more and more on solar to meet its energy needs, there are calls for that to change.
So, how did Australia lose its head start, and can it claw its way back?
If you go searching for the remains of Australia's solar manufacturing industry, you'll eventually find yourself at an investor-focused real estate agency in the Sydney suburb of Homebush.
On this site once stood the largest solar factory in the southern hemisphere.
A solar-powered security vehicle patrols the streets of the Sydney Olympic Games athletes' village in 2000. (Getty: Matt Turner)
Over 20 years ago, the Harbour City was preparing to host the Olympic Games and the BP Solar factory was in full swing, making solar cells that were assembled into panels and then installed at the athletes' village, promoted as one of the largest solar suburbs in the world.
Here was a trumpeted example of Australian ingenuity; the technology had been developed in consultation with the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and its photovoltaics research team, which was famous for breaking record after record for solar cell efficiency.
The UNSW team that made the first 20 per cent efficient silicon cell in 1985. Many in the photo went on to found or work for Chinese solar manufacturers. (Supplied: Martin Green)
"The factory was big on the global scale at the time," says Nigel Morris, a solar industry veteran who worked for BP Solar in those years.
"We were serving the domestic Australian market and exporting to South-East Asia as well."
But less than a decade after the 2000 Olympic Games, the factory closed.
Many of the leading lights of the UNSW research team moved to China, where they set up the country's first solar PV factories.
From a standing start at the turn of the century, China now accounts for about 70 per cent of global solar panel production.
Australia accounts for about a third of 1 per cent.
The story of how this happened begins with a UNSW PhD student who would go on to become known as "the sun king": at one time China's richest man and the first billionaire in solar.
"Zhengrong kickstarted it all," says Martin Green, a UNSW professor who is a legend in the world of solar cell research.
"The solar boom in China was largely an Australian initiative."
In 1989, a young engineering graduate named Shi Zhengrong moved to Sydney from Shanghai, as a foreign-exchange scholar.
Shi Zhengrong celebrates after being presented an award for economic achievement in 2006. (Getty: China Photos)
The UNSW research team was breaking records for solar cell efficiency and had just invented a cell design that, some 30 years later, would become the global commercial standard.
"I went to knock on Martin Green's door and he came out and I said, 'Can I find a job here?'," Dr Shi recalls, on a WeChat call from China.
"That was the way I came into solar."
Dr Shi completed a PhD under Professor Green in record time and then stayed on in Sydney to do more research.
He took a gamble in 2000, moving back to China to found a solar manufacturing company, Suntech.
At the time, China produced no solar panels.
"I've been asked many times, why did I start the business in China, not Australia?" Dr Shi says.
"When I was in Australia, I was just a scholar and a student. I really didn’t have much confidence in running a business over there.
"Also the cost of labour in Australia is fairly high."
The 2002 opening of Suntech's first solar module production line, which was also the first in China. Professor Green is in front with Dr Shi behind in suit and tie. (Supplied: Martin Green)
Solar panels, it turned out, could be made much more cheaply in China.
In the years that followed, other UNSW solar graduates followed Dr Shi, starting their own factories in China.
In 2005, Suntech listed on the New York Stock Exchange and raised $US420 million, making Dr Shi a billionaire.
"When I started Suntech, I didn't expect it to develop so fast," Dr Shi says.
SunTech being listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2005. Dr Shi is in the centre and Professor Green is back left. (Supplied: Martin Green)
The listing heralded the start of a Chinese solar boom.
In the six years to 2011, American investment flowed and Chinese solar production grew by a factor of 200; the country's share of global production increased from 14 to 60 per cent.
"There were all these little tinpot companies founded on hope and a shoestring," Professor Green says.
"Through US listings, they got hundreds of millions of dollars and grew to major players overnight.
Suntech's headquarters in Wuxi are covered with solar panels produced in its factory. (Getty: Lucas Schifres)
To this day, Australian graduates working in the Chinese solar industry talk shop on a WeChat group with 300 members, Professor Green says.
Many of these graduates are top executives.
"Seven of the top 10 Chinese solar manufacturers have Australian graduates at the level of chief technology officers or higher."
China's solar panel industrial boom has driven the price of solar panels through the floor, reduced household energy bills, and pointed the way to deep emissions cuts through mass electrification.
The average cost per watt for a solar panel in 2006 was around $8.50 per watt. By 2019, this cost had fallen to just $0.52 per watt.
"The stiff competition between cashed-up Chinese companies sort of accelerated everything by decades," Professor Green says.
UNSW solar expert Professor Martin Green. (Supplied: UNSW)
But as Chinese production was booming, Australia's was faltering.
Cheap Chinese panels largely wiped out the local solar manufacturing industry.
"From 2005-2008, everything went wild," says Renate Egan, a UNSW solar expert who worked in Australian solar manufacturing in the noughties.
BP Solar sold the Homebush factory in 2009, unable to compete with the Chinese factories' economies of scale.
Australia could rapidly get most of the way to net zero emissions by using existing technology to electrify "low-hanging fruit", according to some experts.
Mr Morris remembers the "death knell" of Australian solar manufacturing being largely ignored by government.
"BP Solar struggled to get money," he says.
"They struggled to get interest from government at various points in time."
Dr Egan agrees there was little government support; Australia allowed its manufacturing head start to dwindle away.
"We did miss an opportunity," she says.
"We were building detention centres when we could have been investing in module manufacturing."
Standard solar panels, or modules, consist mostly of an aluminium frame, a glass sheet, about 60 silicon solar cells, and a junction box.
BP Solar made the solar cells and assembled them into modules.
The only commercial-scale solar module manufacturer in Australia today is a small company in Adelaide named Tindo Solar, which imports all of the components and assembles them into modules.
A module being assembled at Tindo Solar. (Supplied: Tindo Solar)
Its new 150MW facility will produce about 350 panels a day. 
(By comparison, the world's largest solar module production plant in Hefei, China is 60GW, or roughly 400 times larger than the Adelaide facility).
Though it's hard to compete on price alone, there is demand for an Australian-made product, Tindo chief executive officer Shayne Jaenisch says.
In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, when supply from China was disrupted, companies concerned about supply chain security looked for panels made closer to home.
"We went from 64 companies contacting me to buy panels to over 1,000 in just over a year," Mr Jaenisch says.
"The whole landscape for us has changed."
About a third of Australian homes have rooftop solar; the highest uptake in the world. (Reuters: Tim Wimborne, file photo)
He says Australia can't make the cheapest panels, but it can offer better quality customer service, and mitigate "sovereign risk"; the possibility that China will one day stop selling solar panels to Australia.
Solar will account for most of Australia's energy production by the end of decade, Dr Egan estimates.
"If we're going to be that reliant on solar, should we be making the panels here? If half the world's energy come from solar, the solar panels can't all come from one nation," she says.
"Sovereign risk" is partly why the US, Europe and India are looking to increase local production; India has introduced a 40 per cent duty on imported solar modules to boost local manufacturing.
"It might be worth paying a bit more for the ancillary benefits, including supply chain resilience and security," Dr Egan says.
Then there's the potential economic benefit: jobs and growth.
"The solar industry is big now and it's going to be a lot bigger," says Andrew Blakers, a former UNSW colleague of Professor Green who is now director of ANU's Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems.
"It's going to be bigger than oil, gas and coal put together."
An artist's image of the Sunraysia Solar Farm in western New South Wales. (Supplied: The Maoneng Group)
He's calculated roughly how big.
For Australia to produce enough energy that it won't need coal or gas and can also meet the extra demand of mass electrification, it will need about 450GW of solar and wind generation, he says.
Of that, about 300GW would be solar, he estimates.
With about 20GW of installed solar already, it'll need another 280GW.
"We're going to be importing a lot of glass and a lot of panels with a little bit of silicon attached," Professor Blakers says.
Australia will need hundreds of millions of standard-size solar panels to meet its energy needs in the next couple decades.
And that's just domestic demand; there are also plans for Australia to export renewable energy to Asia from massive solar farms in the Northern Territory and Western Australia's Pilbara region.
The output of these farms alone is roughly equal to the current combined output of all the solar in Australia.
That's a lot of solar panels.
A computer-generated rendering of Sun Cable's proposed solar farm in the NT. (Supplied: Sun Cable)
Sun Cable, the company that intends to export energy to Asia from solar farms in the NT, plans to build a factory in Darwin to assemble solar modules from imported components.
Andrew Forrest's Fortescue Metals, which plans to build big solar farms in the Pilbara to power its mines and potentially also new refineries, is also considering manufacturing solar panels.
"We lost our manufacturing to China in the early part of the century, but there's no reason we can't get it back," Professor Blakers says.
"We have seriously skilled people and we have a need for it."
But Professor Green, whose research and teaching helped incubate the Chinese industrial boom in solar manufacturing, is sceptical.
There's not much money in making solar panels, he says, and the sovereign risk issue is overblown.
"The solar industry is a mug's game because the margins are so low," he says.
He thinks there's more to be won by focusing on the economic opportunities generated by cheap Chinese solar panels.
"Use them to do sensible things like make [zero-emissions] green steel and green aluminium," he says.
Australian researchers say they've opened the path to a new generation of batteries that could allow an EV to drive from Melbourne to Sydney on a single charge.
And what about royalties for the use of Australian solar inventions?
About 90 per cent of solar panels being manufactured around the world today contain the PERC technology developed at UNSW. Just last year, $US130 billion worth of PERC systems were installed.
Unfortunately, the solar boom arrived long after the patents for the technology expired, Professor Green says.
Australia has benefited from cheap solar panels creating a path to abundant, emissions-free electricity.
But we get none of the billions of dollars China earns from solar panel exports.
Australia may have missed an opportunity, Dr Shi says, but there is still room aboard the money train, even if you're not making panels.
Installation, for instance, has to be made simpler; he envisions panels being clipped together like blocks of Lego.
"When you send a container ship to a site, you press a button and install one megawatt in a week," he says.
Now that's something no-one imagined 20 years ago.
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Vikram Solar Wins 289.87 MWp TOPCon Module Order For NLC India’s Rajasthan Solar Project  SolarQuarter
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Avaada Group has launched a 745 Wp DCR N-type TOPCon solar module, which was unveiled by the Rajasthan Energy Minister Heeralal Nagar at REI Expo 2026. The company also showcased rooftop solar kits, battery energy storage systems and its broader solar module portfolio at the Expo.
October 28, 2026. By Mrinmoy Dey

Prassann Daphal, CEO, Recyclekaro, on Building India’s Critical Mineral Recycling Ecosystem

Evolving Climate Risks Are Reshaping RE Insurance: Amitabh Dewan, Policybazaar for Business

Power Asset Management is Shifting from Capacity to Performance: Kota Bhanu Prakash

Tunwal E-Motors’ Jhumarmal Tunwal Eyes Expansion in Emerging EV Markets

GPI Targets 45 CBG Projects in Three Years, Says GPI Business Head Vipin Malhotra

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Researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney have found that smoke from major bushfires can reduce solar electricity generation by 70%, and up to 30% at solar farms as far as 150 kilometres away.
The researchers recommend better forecasting of smoke movements, more frequent panel inspections and cleaning, and changes to how solar panels operate to help operators prepare for bushfire events and protect equipment.
Using historical weather and satellite data, the researchers modelled how smoke and airborne particles affected solar electricity generation and panel temperatures across south-eastern Australia by examining the effects of the 2019-2020 Black Summer fires and Victoria’s 2009 Black Saturday fires.
Conducted by the UNSW School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering (SPREE), researchers estimate during the Black Summer bushfires electricity generation fell by as much as 70% at locations within about 50 kilometres of fire hotspots during several consecutive days.
In regions more than 150 kilometres from hotspots, the study estimated there were still losses of up to 30%.
“Even at a radius of 150 kilometres away from the hotspots, there was around 30% reduction on, or just after, the bushfire days, because a lot of the wind had transported the smoke inland across New South Wales,” SPREE Postdoctoral Researcher Dr Shukla Poddar said.
In the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, the study estimated lower reductions of generated power of around 18% near fire hotspots and up to 10% in more distant regions.
The figures are modelled estimates rather than measurements from individual solar farms and the researchers were unable to separate smoke-related losses from other factors, such as electricity generation being deliberately curtailed.
Poddar said the research highlights the need to look beyond solar farms immediately surrounding a fire and consider where smoke is likely to travel.
“We should start looking into things like trajectory modelling of the smoke and how long and far those smoke particles can be transported,” Poddar said.
“Extreme bushfires are becoming more frequent and intense in several regions, including Australia, California and southern Europe. Their impacts are not confined to the areas where fires burn: smoke from California’s 2020 wildfires reached Europe, while smoke from Spain’s 2025 fires travelled as far as the UK and northwestern Europe.”
Poddar added that although this particular study is based on two extreme bushfires in Australia, the same method and analysis can be done for other parts of the world.
A key recommendation from the study is to combine bushfire information, wind patterns and smoke-trajectory modelling to help predict which solar farms are likely to be affected, similar to weather forecast systems already in use for monitoring temperatures and wind.
The research suggests warnings could allow operators to plan inspections, schedule cleaning or adjust the position of panels before smoke arrives.
“If operators got an alert that their solar farm might be impacted, they could potentially adapt some mitigation strategies, such as adjusting the panel angle where appropriate or being aware that additional cleaning may be required,” Poddar said.
Panel maintenance, particularly during bushfire periods, was also advised to avoid reduced sunlight on panel surfaces or the build up of localised hot spots due to uneven soot accumulation. Poddar recommends more frequent cleaning when smoke is likely to affect a solar farm, alongside regular thermal inspections to identify unusually hot panels or electrical components.
The research finds that better remote monitoring and electrical fault detection would also allow operators to identify temperature anomalies and quickly isolate affected parts of a system, along with managing grass and shrubs beneath panels, maintaining firebreaks and preparing bushfire management plans can help reduce the risk of fires starting or spreading within solar farms.
These and further findings in the ‘Understanding non-localised impacts of bushfires on photovoltaic performance, reliability, and management strategies’ paper have been published in the Solar Energy journal.
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MONTEVIDEO — The Minnesota Valley Cooperative Power and Light Association is asking the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to reconsider its decision involving a solar array for the Prairie’s Edge Casino Resort.
In a 51-page filing submitted Oct. 16, the cooperative asks the commission to reconsider or vacate the order it issued on Oct. 8. It requires the cooperative to allow the Upper Sioux Community to operate a behind-the-meter, 2.5 megawatts solar array with battery storage.
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Minnesota Valley had threatened to discontinue electrical service to Prairie’s Edge if the system was activated. It violates a board policy prohibiting cooperative members from producing more than 40 kilowatts of power. Any power over 40 kilowatts must be exported out of the service territory, according to the policy.
The Upper Sioux Community brought a complaint to the PUC over the issue. The commission determined that the PUC had jurisdiction, and issued the order based on the recommendations of Administrative Law Judge Joseph C. Meyer to allow the system’s operation pending an engineering analysis for safety purposes.
Minnesota Valley’s attorney, Matthew Haugen, told the commission that the cooperative would abide by the order but would likely appeal it in the district court.
The petition challenges the commission’s decision as being based on “erroneous finding of facts and conclusions of law, misstatements and misapplication of the law…” The petition argues that the order violates the cooperative’s constitutional rights under the federal and state constitutions and is arbitrary and capricious.
The cooperative maintains that the PUC does not have authority over a cooperative. State law “expressly and unambiguously assigns jurisdiction over disputes between cooperatives and their members” to cooperatives’ boards of directors, according to the petition.
Cooperatives that have adopted a dispute resolution — as Minnesota Valley has — are not subject to PUC jurisdiction, according to the petition.
The cooperative also charges that the solar array will produce more energy than Prairie’s Edge uses, leaving the cooperative providing stand-by power to Prairie’s Edge.
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The Upper Sioux Community denies that claim and states it will provide about 30% of energy needs. The cooperative indicated it may seek to recover its fixed costs associated with the solar array operations. It states that the “safety and financial soundness of Minnesota Valley are reasonable, legitimate justification” for the board policy setting limits on generation by members.
The petition also asks that the PUC strike language from the order that states the cooperative’s compensation to its general manager is more than half a million dollars in base pay, while most cooperatives, in contrast, provide base pay ranging from just over $100,000 to $225,000.
In a three-page response submitted Oct. 26, the Upper Sioux Community requests that the commission deny the cooperative’s petition for reconsideration. Attorney Joshua Peterson representing the Upper Sioux stated in the response that the cooperative met none of the grounds for reconsideration. A petition needs to raise new issues or new and relevant evidence, expose errors or ambiguities, or otherwise persuade the commission to rethink its decision, according to the response.

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China proposes new export controls on artificial intelligence, biopharma, and photovoltaic technologies  White & Case LLP
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The Hebden Green project is expected to be energised by the end of 2027 and generate approximately 17,500MWh of electricity annually.
October 27, 2026
UK-based independent power producer (IPP) Enviromena has acquired the 18.1MWp Hebden Green solar project in Winsford, Cheshire, from developer Anglo Renewables.
Hebden Green has secured planning consent and a Contract for Difference (CfD) in Allocation Round 7 (AR7). The project will be developed on Grade IV agricultural land and includes ecological measures and a community benefit fund to support local initiatives.
Lee Adams, chief commercial officer at Enviromena, said: “Hebden Green is a high-quality, well-developed project that further strengthens our construction pipeline for 2027 and supports our continued growth as an owner and operator of solar assets across the UK.”
The Hebden Green acquisition is Enviromena's second this month, following its purchase of the 22.5MW Parkgate Farm solar power plant in Essex from developer Innova Renewables, and adds to the company's portfolio of CfD-backed solar assets.
Related:UK solar approvals, progress and purchases
These include the Rock Farm solar project in Shropshire, which Enviromena purchased from Anglo Renewables in the summer of 2025, where construction is currently underway. Discussions are ongoing with the local community over the allocation of its community benefit fund.
Reading-headquartered Enviromena develops, builds, owns and operates solar and battery energy storage assets across the UK and Europe. The company manages nearly 400MW of assets through operations and maintenance (O&M) and asset management services, with a UK development pipeline exceeding 3GW.
Alongside these acquisitions, Enviromena has plans to acquire 233MWp of solar capacity and 75MW of co-located battery energy storage system (BESS) projects from UK renewable energy developer Innova by the end of 2026. Savills Earth Capital Advisors (SECA) acted as financial adviser to Anglo Renewables.
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A solar hub of approximately 5.2 GW is planned near Broome in Australia, and Gingerah Energy, an Australia-based renewable energy project company, has referred it under the EPBC Act. The hub has been named Meridien, and it is intended to power a data centre of up to 1 GW from plants on the same site. The solar PV is to be joined by 1.5 GW of wind, and the 250 turbines will stand within the solar area rather than on separate land. That generation is to be supported by 5 GWh of BESS, while an internal microgrid will carry the power across the site. The hub is to be built in stages that follow the load of the data centre. The first stages, which cover up to 240 MW, are expected to be built and commissioned over two to three years. Public comment on the referral has been invited until 4 November 2026.
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The project is expected to save 15 million litres of imported diesel annually and reduce government expenditure by MVR 180 million a year, according to the ministry.
Environment Minister Ali Shareef and China's Sinosaur Technology Country Manager Chao Shomin after signing the agreement — Photo: Environment Ministry
Malika Shahid
2026-10-27 11:29:17
The government has signed agreements for a 15MW solar photovoltaic (PV) project across several islands, marking the largest solar PV agreement signed in the Maldives to date.
The Ministry of Environment said the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) and Implementation Agreement were signed under the Accelerating Renewable Energy Integration and Sustainable Energy (ERIS) project.
The PPA between China’s Sinosoar Hybrid Technology and the State Electric Company (STELCO) was signed by Sinosoar Country Manager Cao Shomin and STELCO Managing Director Dr Ali Azwar.

The Implementation Agreement between Sinosoar and the ministry was signed by Cao Shomin and Environment Minister Ali Shareef.
The project will be implemented over 20 years under a design, build, finance, own, operate and transfer model, with private-sector investment, the ministry said.
It was awarded through competitive tendering and will be supported by a risk-mitigation framework with financial and technical assistance from the World Bank’s International Development Association, the Climate Technology Fund, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency.
The 15MW project will be divided into two lots.
The ministry said the project would increase the solar power capacity installed under the ARISE and ASPIRE projects to 34MW. This represents around 30 percent of the Maldives’ total installed renewable energy capacity of 110MW as of last year.
The project is expected to save 15 million litres of imported diesel annually and reduce government expenditure by MVR 180 million a year, according to the ministry.
The initiative is also expected to contribute towards the national target of meeting 33 per cent of the country’s energy needs through renewable sources.
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The European Commission has launched T-MED with up to €4.5 billion in EU guarantees 
It will finance renewable energy and clean technology projects across the Mediterranean, and support related investments 
Initial projects include a €430 million hybrid solar PV project in Egypt and two 100 MW solar plants in Tunisia 
The European Commission has launched the T-MED Investment Platform, backed by up to €4.5 billion in European Union (EU) guarantees, to help finance renewable energy and clean technology projects across the Mediterranean.  
It aims to unlock the region’s renewable energy potential by supporting investments in renewables, electricity transmission, energy storage, distribution networks, cross-border interconnections, and clean-technology manufacturing.  
The platform will also address investment barriers related to permitting, grid access, regulatory frameworks, and power purchase agreements (PPAs).  
The T-MED Investment platform, short for Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy and Clean Tech Cooperation Initiative, is part of the EU’s broader package for the Mediterranean region, including the Middle East, North Africa, and the Gulf. It will facilitate cooperation between financial institutions, investors and project promoters. 
The idea is to match projects with potential financing sources and help turn investment opportunities into concrete projects. 
T-MED aims to boost local clean tech manufacturing and regional supply chains through industrial partnerships and joint procurement of solar PV, wind, storage, electrolyzer and grid technologies. 
“Our ambition is clear: to make clean energy a driver of shared prosperity, competitiveness and security across the Mediterranean and Europe,” said Dubravka Šuica, Commissioner for the Mediterranean. 
The EU unveiled T-MED in June 2026 to help mobilize €25 billion in public and private investment. At the time, the Commission announced it would support deploying 15 GW of new renewable energy capacity across the Mediterranean region by 2035 (see EU’s T-MED To Mobilize €25B For Renewable Energy & Clean Tech). In April 2026, it launched a call for expressions of interest for private investors.
Some of the projects T-MED supports include modernizing and expanding the national electricity grid, with a total investment of €1.6 billion. It will integrate solar and wind power generated in the Red Sea and Gulf of Suez regions into the national grid. It has also enabled the construction of one of Africa’s largest hybrid solar PV projects in Egypt, worth around €430 million. 
In Tunisia, it is supporting the construction of two 100 MW solar PV plants and their associated transmission infrastructure with about €92 million and €80 million, respectively. 
The plan also involves training at least 100,000 technicians, engineers, installers, planners, and financial specialists by 2035. 
TaiyangNews 2024

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TNO, Perovion and Toyo Seikan Target Industrialization of Flexible Perovskite Solar Cells  energynews.pro
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Enphase Energy Extends Weakness on Slumping Residential Demand  Barron’s
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Recently, Aikosolar Co., Ltd. (SH: 600732) released its third-quarter performance report, announcing that the company has successfully achieved profitability in a single quarter.
China Energy Network noticed that behind Aikosolar’s single-quarter profitability, an investment institution is stepping up its exit. Over the past year, international private equity platform IDG has cashed out approximately 1.042 billion yuan to 1.234 billion yuan from Aikosolar.
In fact, IDG’s cashing out from Aikosolar started as early as 2022. Over the past four years, IDG has cumulatively cashed out more than 14 billion yuan from Aikosolar.
It is worth noting that Aikosolar is only one of the enterprises in IDG’s photovoltaic industry layout. During the boom period of the photovoltaic industry in previous years, IDG invested heavily in emerging photovoltaic enterprises and participated in building a number of unicorn enterprises, including wafer manufacturer Gokin Solar, inverter manufacturer Growatt, polysilicon producer Qinghai Lihao, leading residential photovoltaic enterprise Chint Aneng, and leading perovskite technology enterprise GCL Optoelectronics.
However, unlike the lucky investment in Aikosolar, after the photovoltaic industry entered a downward cycle after 2023 and the A-share market tightened IPO review, most photovoltaic enterprises invested by IDG failed to successfully complete their IPOs. IDG could not realize its exit and was completely “trapped”.
Now, Aikosolar’s single-quarter profitability indicates that the cyclical inflection point of the photovoltaic industry is just around the corner. For IDG, instead of rushing to exit now, it is better to be more patient and wait for the arrival of the photovoltaic spring.
IDG’s investment in Aikosolar can be traced back to 2009, when IDG led the angel round investment of Aikosolar and became the earliest institutional investor in the development process of Aikosolar.
In 2016, the technical route of the photovoltaic industry began to shift to PERC. Aikosolar invented the tubular PERC technology and rose rapidly. IDG also began to heavily allocate positions in Aikosolar at this time. To this end, IDG specially established a private equity fund called Yiwu Qiguang Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership) (hereinafter referred to as “Yiwu Qiguang”). It is worth noting that local state-owned assets from Yiwu, Zhuhai, Tianjin, Chongqing and other regions also participated in this fund. The total size of the fund is 954 million yuan, of which the investment amount in Aikosolar is 953 million yuan.
The 953 million yuan investment in Aikosolar was completed mainly through three transactions, including transferring old shares and capital increase. Specifically, in December 2016, IDG acquired 20% equity of Guangdong Aikosolar (the predecessor of Aikosolar) held by Jiangsu Akcome for 210 million yuan; in January 2017, it acquired 10% equity held by SME Fund for 200 million yuan; then it increased capital by 543 million yuan to subscribe for the new registered capital. Through these three rounds of transactions, IDG obtained 60.7579 million yuan of registered capital of Guangdong Aikosolar with 953 million yuan.
In October 2017, Guangdong Aikosolar was officially restructured into Aikosolar Technology. IDG held 60.7579 million shares of it, accounting for as high as 43.75%, second only to Chen Gang, the founder of the company, and became the second largest shareholder of the company.
In 2019, Aikosolar landed on the A-share market through backdoor listing of “ST Xinmei”, with a transaction value of 5.885 billion yuan at that time. After the transaction was completed, Yiwu Qiguang held a total of 569 million shares of Aikosolar, and the shareholding ratio was adjusted to 31.08% due to the expansion of share capital, but it still firmly occupied the position of the second largest shareholder.
In December 2019, after ST Xinmei was officially renamed ST Aikosolar, its share price began to rise all the way, and IDG’s initial cost of 953 million yuan also continued to appreciate. By the end of the second quarter of 2022, the market value of its positions had reached 18.78 billion yuan.
Since the shares of shareholders from backdoor listing have a lock-up period of 36 months, Yiwu Qiguang did not start to reduce its holdings of shares to cash out until the third quarter of 2022. By the end of the third quarter of 2022, IDG’s shareholding number had been greatly reduced to 195 million shares, and the shareholding ratio dropped to 17.15%. This means that IDG reduced its holdings of 374 million shares of Aikosolar in one quarter, when Aikosolar’s share price was at a historical high. Calculated based on the share price range of 33.02 yuan/share to 37.41 yuan/share from June 30, 2022 to September 30, 2022, IDG cashed out about 12.3 billion yuan to 13.9 billion yuan at one time. Of course, since this huge reduction is likely to include agreement transfer and block trading discount, the actual cash-out amount may be lower than the upper limit of this theoretical range.
In the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023, IDG reduced its holdings of 21 million shares and 12 million shares of Aikosolar respectively. The total cash-out amount of these two reductions was roughly between 930 million yuan and 1.55 billion yuan, and IDG officially changed from the second largest shareholder of Aikosolar to the third largest shareholder.
In the third quarter of 2025, IDG launched a new round of share reduction actions for Aikosolar. By the end of the third quarter of 2026, it had cumulatively reduced its holdings of 83.83 million shares, cashing out about 1.042 billion yuan to 1.234 billion yuan.

Calculated in this way, up to now, IDG has cashed out at least 14.2 billion yuan from Aikosolar before and after. According to the current share price, the market value of the remaining 84.72 million shares also exceeds 1 billion yuan, which can be described as extremely profitable.
IDG’s investments in other photovoltaic enterprises are not so lucky.
IDG Capital laid out the photovoltaic sector relatively early. When participating in Aikosolar’s angel round investment, the company also made “wide-spread” investments in GS-Solar, Kilowatt New Energy and Tianhua Solar.
However, at present, except that GS-Solar is in a leading position in the field of high-efficiency heterojunction cell technology, the main business of Kilowatt New Energy has changed from photovoltaic grid-tied inverters to energy storage, and its scale has always been small. Although Tianhua Solar was once listed on NASDAQ in the United States, its share price continued to be sluggish, and its performance was also very poor. It was delisted in October 2020, and the company has now entered bankruptcy liquidation.
In 2019, IDG launched a new round of photovoltaic investment.
In July 2019, IDG jointly established Gokin Solar with Zhuhai Huafa Group, and began to incubate this emerging wafer enterprise from scratch. In the first round of financing in March 2021, IDG subscribed for new registered capital with 800 million yuan, holding nearly 40% equity of Gokin Solar in total; in April and August 2022, IDG continued to follow up the company’s Series A and Series B financing, and the total financing amount of Gokin in the two rounds reached 4.115 billion yuan.
It is worth mentioning that as a company also invested by IDG, Aikosolar has provided a lot of orders for Gokin Solar. The prospectus previously submitted by Gokin Solar shows that from 2021 to 2022, the company’s sales revenue from Aikosolar reached 1.218 billion yuan and 3.774 billion yuan respectively, and the revenue proportion once reached as high as 48.9%.
With the financial support of IDG, Gokin Solar rose rapidly, and its wafer production capacity soon ranked among the top three in the world, with a peak valuation of 20 billion yuan.
However, Gokin Solar’s capitalization path has been full of twists and turns. The company launched the IPO process as early as November 2022, and first applied for the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM) in June 2023, but voluntarily withdrew the application only more than 3 months later. It quickly restarted the tutoring in November 2023, and has now advanced to the 11th phase, but has not yet submitted a formal listing application.
Although IDG did not directly participate in the establishment of Qinghai Lihao, in December 2021, IDG quickly appeared in the Series A financing of Qinghai Lihao. In September 2022, Qinghai Lihao announced the completion of 2.2 billion yuan Series B financing, and IDG followed up the investment again.
Aikosolar also contributed 385 million yuan in 2022 to obtain 2.78% equity of Qinghai Lihao. Chen Gang, Chairman of Aikosolar, still holds 4.83% shares of Qinghai Lihao to this day.
With the support of capital such as IDG, Qinghai Lihao expanded rapidly in Xining of Qinghai, Yibin of Sichuan and Baotou of Inner Mongolia. By the end of 2025, the completed and put into production high-purity crystalline silicon production capacity exceeded 200,000 tons, and there was another 100,000 tons of production capacity under construction, ranking the sixth among domestic peers. Its valuation once approached 14 billion yuan.
But similar to Gokin, Qinghai Lihao’s listing path has also been basically blocked. In February 2026, Tongwei Co., Ltd. (SH: 600438) announced that it planned to acquire 100% equity of Qinghai Lihao. On September 24, the State Administration for Market Regulation also unconditionally approved the matter, but the valuation and payment plan are still under negotiation. Tongwei’s move is a good thing for shareholders such as IDG, creating an exit opportunity for them.

Compared with Gokin Solar and Qinghai Lihao, the situation of Growatt, another photovoltaic inverter enterprise invested by IDG, is better.
In June 2022, on the eve of Growatt’s first submission of IPO application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, IDG, through its two platforms Best Select and Bateson Group, participated in Growatt’s financing with 900 million yuan and obtained 6.52% shares. At the end of 2025, it increased its investment by another 216 million yuan, and its shareholding ratio rose to 10.42%, becoming the largest institutional shareholder of Growatt.
However, since IDG’s investment, Growatt has submitted listing applications to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange for three consecutive times, the most recent one was in June 2026, and it is still in the review stage.
Not only in the upstream of the industrial chain, IDG also has investments in the downstream. In August 2021, IDG participated in the 1 billion yuan Series A financing of Chint Aneng, the leading residential photovoltaic enterprise, through its Tianjin Hexie Haihe Equity Investment Partnership (Limited Partnership), and increased its investment again during the 4 billion yuan Series B financing in 2022. At present, the shareholding ratio is 2.53%, ranking the fourth largest shareholder of Chint Aneng.
It is worth noting that Chint Aneng also submitted a listing application to the A-share market in June 2023, but voluntarily withdrew the application in September 2025, and instead its parent company Chint Electric carried out IPO on the H-share market alone.
China Energy Network noticed that in the Chint system, IDG also invested in Chint Power and obtained rich returns. In November 2022, two funds under IDG, Zhuhai Yuening and Zhuhai Kangdong, contributed a total of 391 million yuan to acquire part of the equity of Tongrun Equipment at a price of 9.54 yuan per share. After the transaction was completed, IDG held a total of 11.5% of the total share capital of Tongrun Equipment. Later, Chint Electric injected its photovoltaic inverter and energy storage business into Tongrun Equipment and renamed it Chint Power, and the company’s share price rose.
Basically consistent with the pace of Aikosolar’s share reduction, starting from August 2025, Zhuhai Yuening and Zhuhai Kangdong reduced their holdings of Chint Power shares. By the end of the third quarter of 2026, the two parties had cumulatively cashed out about 437 million yuan through multiple reductions, having long recovered the principal of their investment. After multiple reductions, the total shareholding ratio of Zhuhai Yuening and Zhuhai Kangdong has dropped from the initial 11.5% to about 3.99%.
From Gokin and Lihao to Growatt and Chint Aneng, the one who most wants to withdraw now must be IDG. But in the repeated cycles of the photovoltaic industry, capital should grow together with the industry, and enterprises need the support of patient capital more. If everyone chooses to cash out and exit under the nature of profit-seeking, it will undoubtedly make the already “involution” industry worse. IDG, it is better to be more patient.
This article is from the WeChat Official Account “China Energy Network”, author: Gao Ming, editor: Han Chenggong, published by 36Kr with authorization.
该文观点仅代表作者本人，36氪平台仅提供信息存储空间服务。
36kr Europe (eu.36kr.com) delivers global business and markets news, data, analysis, and video to the world, dedicated to building value and providing business service for companies’ global expansion.
© 2024 36kr.com. All rights reserved.

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Solar Power World
By Billy Ludt | October 27, 2026
Distributed Energy Infrastructure (DEI), an EPC firm for solar and battery storage, has completed the 3.37-MW_DC Sapphire Solar project in Jefferson County, New York.
The Sapphire Solar project. Credit: Distributed Energy Infrastructure
Shallow bedrock and a high water table presented site challenges that required the team to adapt its design mid-construction. During excavation, DEI encountered shale bedrock only 16 to 20 in. below grade across several areas of the site, accompanied by groundwater continuously seeping into open trenches. The conditions impacted installation and equipment pad areas, making the original underground DC conduit design impractical to implement.
DEI’s engineering, construction, procurement and contractor teams collaborated closely to quickly develop a revised design that converted a portion of the DC underground scope to an above-ground CAB system. Underground trenching was retained at row-to-row crossings and other locations where it remained appropriate. The revised design also preserved site access for the owner’s long-term operations and maintenance needs.
The full redesign, material procurement and field implementation were completed within the timeframe originally planned for the underground trenching scope.
“When we encounter unexpected challenges, our goal is to address them quickly and adapt our approach to what will work best for the site,” said Rusfid Haroon, senior project manager at DEI. “Even hitting shallow bedrock and water table across the site, we brought together the experience of each team working on the site to re-evaluate, re-design and implement a solution that kept the project moving while ensuring long-term reliability.”
News item from Distributed Energy Infrastructure
Billy Ludt is managing editor of Solar Power World and currently covers topics on mounting, inverters, installation and operations.

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A drone photo taken on June 9, 2026 shows a wind farm and an energy storage power station in Ulanqab, north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. By the end of September 2026, China’s cumulative installed capacity of wind and solar power reached 2.01 billion kilowatts, the country’s National Energy Administration announced on Monday. Of the total, solar power capacity stood at 1.31 billion kilowatts, up 16.5 percent year on year, while wind power capacity reached 700 million kilowatts, up 20.4 percent. (Xinhua/Lian Zhen)

A drone photo taken on Oct. 27, 2026 shows an integrated fishery and photovoltaic project and a wind farm in Baoying County, east China’s Jiangsu Province. By the end of September 2026, China’s cumulative installed capacity of wind and solar power reached 2.01 billion kilowatts, the country’s National Energy Administration announced on Monday. Of the total, solar power capacity stood at 1.31 billion kilowatts, up 16.5 percent year on year, while wind power capacity reached 700 million kilowatts, up 20.4 percent. (Photo by Ren Fei/Xinhua)

A drone photo taken on Oct. 21, 2026 shows a solar power base in Ningdong Town of Lingwu, northwest China’s Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. By the end of September 2026, China’s cumulative installed capacity of wind and solar power reached 2.01 billion kilowatts, the country’s National Energy Administration announced on Monday. Of the total, solar power capacity stood at 1.31 billion kilowatts, up 16.5 percent year on year, while wind power capacity reached 700 million kilowatts, up 20.4 percent. (Photo by Yuan Hongyan/Xinhua)

A drone photo taken on June 30, 2026 shows offshore and onshore wind farms in Pingtan, southeast China’s Fujian Province. By the end of September 2026, China’s cumulative installed capacity of wind and solar power reached 2.01 billion kilowatts, the country’s National Energy Administration announced on Monday. Of the total, solar power capacity stood at 1.31 billion kilowatts, up 16.5 percent year on year, while wind power capacity reached 700 million kilowatts, up 20.4 percent. (Xinhua/Lin Shanchuan)

A drone photo taken on Sept. 9, 2026 shows an integrated fishery and photovoltaic project in Huanghua City, north China’s Hebei Province. By the end of September 2026, China’s cumulative installed capacity of wind and solar power reached 2.01 billion kilowatts, the country’s National Energy Administration announced on Monday. Of the total, solar power capacity stood at 1.31 billion kilowatts, up 16.5 percent year on year, while wind power capacity reached 700 million kilowatts, up 20.4 percent. (Xinhua/Yang Shiyao)

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Towards an Australian Circular Economy for Solar Photovoltaic Technologies  RAND
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Tongwei launches TNC 2.0 FULLX G12R-48 for more powerful and adaptable rooftop solar  PV Tech
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Indian University Campus Could Cut Grid Power Use by Two-Thirds, Study Finds
Shivaji University in Kolhapur, India, already runs 930 kilowatts of rooftop solar panels, but a new planning study argues that the campus could go much further. Researchers developed a framework called CMR-ESAF that models the university’s transition from a grid-dependent consumer to an optimized hybrid renewable energy system microgrid, and their simulation suggests grid electricity imports could fall by 67.8 percent compared with a grid-only baseline.
The study, published in the journal Carbon Neutral Systems, is unusual among campus energy analyses because it does not start from a blank slate. Instead of treating the existing solar fleet as a hypothetical greenfield asset to be re-optimized, the authors treat the 930 kilowatt installation as a fixed baseline and ask a different question: how much additional benefit can storage, flexible demand, coordinated control, and extra renewables deliver beyond what the panels already provide? The framework separates three operating states, labeled S0, S1, and S2, so that planners can see the value already delivered and the incremental value of the next investment stage independently.
State S0 is the reference case: a campus supplied entirely by the utility grid, with no renewables, storage, or demand management. Under the study’s annual hourly simulation assumptions, this baseline requires 3650 megawatt-hours of grid electricity per year, emits 2993 tonnes of carbon dioxide, and reaches a maximum demand of 1080 kilovolt-amperes. State S1 represents the campus as it exists today, with the 930 kilowatt rooftop photovoltaic system connected to the grid. In the simulation, this existing installation lowers grid imports to 2430 megawatt-hours per year, a 33.4 percent reduction in grid dependency, and avoids 1000.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. Notably, the peak demand drops only modestly, from 1080 to 1000 kilovolt-amperes, because rooftop solar generation does not always coincide with the evening or non-solar periods when the campus billing peak occurs.
State S2 is the proposed optimized configuration, and this is where the study’s central finding emerges. The selected design combines 1580 kilowatts of total photovoltaic capacity, meaning roughly 650 kilowatts of expansion beyond the existing fleet, with a 150 kilowatt wind generator, a 500 kilowatt and 1500 kilowatt-hour battery energy storage system, and 130 kilowatts of demand-side management participation, all coordinated by an energy management system. In the model, this combination reduces annual grid imports to 1175 megawatt-hours, cuts maximum demand to 695 kilovolt-amperes, achieves a 72.3 percent renewable fraction, and reaches 65.8 percent renewable self-sufficiency. The modeled annual utility cost falls from 413.6 lakh rupees to 145.7 lakh rupees, a saving of about 267.9 lakh rupees per year.
The decomposition of energy savings is one of the study’s most decision-relevant results. The existing solar plant already saves 1220 megawatt-hours of grid electricity per year, but the optimized hybrid system delivers an additional 1255 megawatt-hours beyond that present-day condition. According to the authors, this additional saving cannot be achieved by expanding solar capacity alone; without storage, increased export and curtailment limit the benefit of extra panels. Battery storage absorbs surplus daytime generation and discharges during peak grid-import periods, while demand-side management shifts or reduces flexible loads such as pumping, schedulable heating and ventilation, and common-area services. Critical laboratories, safety systems, and information technology infrastructure are explicitly excluded from the controllable pool, and the 130 kilowatt figure is described as a planning envelope rather than a claim that all campus loads are interruptible.
The optimization itself uses an adapted version of the NSGA-III evolutionary algorithm, modified for a many-objective, heavily constrained problem. Six independent objectives are minimized simultaneously: annualized campus cost, annual grid import, billing maximum demand, renewable curtailment, a self-sufficiency deficit, and a normalized network stress index combining transformer, feeder, and voltage utilization. Carbon emissions are deliberately excluded from the objective vector because, with a constant grid emission factor, they are exactly proportional to grid-import energy and would not add an independent optimization direction; instead, emissions are reported as a post-optimization indicator. The algorithm incorporates normalized constraint violation measures, a dynamic threshold that allows near-feasible boundary solutions to participate early in the search, angle-penalized reference-vector association, dual archives separating convergence and diversity, and a fuzzy membership rule to select a single best-compromise design from the final Pareto archive.
A key architectural choice keeps the computation tractable. Rather than placing thousands of hourly dispatch decisions in the evolutionary chromosome, the optimizer handles only five continuous capacity variables: additional photovoltaic capacity, wind capacity, battery power and energy ratings, and the demand-side management limit. For every candidate capacity vector, a deterministic hourly energy management system evaluates all 8760 hours of the year using a fixed priority sequence, in which available renewables serve the post-management load first, surplus charges the battery, remaining surplus is exported up to the point-of-common-coupling limit or curtailed, and the battery discharges during tariff and peak windows before the grid covers the residual load. The campus network is represented as a reduced 45-bus planning model with six explicit distribution transformers, and voltage, feeder loading, transformer loading, and reverse-power-flow constraints are checked at every hourly point.
The authors are careful to flag the limits of their evidence. The load profile was reconstructed chronologically to preserve measured annual energy and billing peak, because complete synchronized 8760-point measurements for every bus were not available; the solar series is a typical-year profile scaled to recorded yield, and the wind series is a planning-level profile rather than an on-site measured record. The 150 kilowatt wind unit is therefore conditional on a subsequent hub-height measurement campaign, and procurement would require at least a year of site-specific wind data, wake assessment, and manufacturer power-curve validation. The network layer is a screening model, not a protection-grade power-flow study, and hourly resolution cannot capture sub-hourly ramps or short-duration billing peaks. The battery degradation model is planning-level, triggering one module replacement in year 12 when usable capacity reaches 80 percent of nameplate, rather than an electrochemical aging model.
The economics are calculated incrementally from the existing solar state to the optimized design, treating the 930 kilowatt plant as a sunk asset. The simple payback period is 6.4 years, and the levelized campus electricity cost, a metric the authors distinguish from a conventional generator LCOE because it includes residual grid purchases, is estimated at 4.85 rupees per kilowatt-hour against an assumed grid tariff of 10 rupees per kilowatt-hour. A discounted cash-flow analysis over 25 years, including the year-12 battery replacement, yields a net present value of approximately 4.32 crore rupees at an 8 percent discount rate and an internal rate of return near 14.1 percent. Sensitivity tests indicate the design remains viable under a 10 percent reduction in solar generation, which raises grid imports to 1305 megawatt-hours while keeping the renewable fraction above 65 percent, and under combined adverse cases involving load growth and higher battery costs.
For the wider community of Indian higher-education institutions, many of which have large daytime loads, available rooftops, and high-tension supply connections, the study’s message is that stand-alone rooftop solar is only the first stage of a campus energy transition. The proposed pathway for Shivaji University involves retaining and monitoring the existing plant, expanding rooftop capacity, installing storage, implementing demand-side management within conservative limits, deploying coordinated dispatch, and considering voltage-support equipment such as a 300 kilovolt-ar D-STATCOM, which in a representative case raised the minimum bus voltage from 0.944 to 0.972 per unit. The authors emphasize that the reported values are simulation outputs under stated assumptions and that detailed site surveys, protection studies, and procurement-stage engineering must precede any implementation.
Subject of Research: Techno-economic modeling of a hybrid renewable energy microgrid transition for an Indian university campus
Article Title: From conventional campus grid to optimized HRES microgrid: a grid-constrained techno-economic and environmental assessment of renewable energy integration at Shivaji University, India
Article References: Kamble, A. C., & Jadhav, H. T. (2026). From conventional campus grid to optimized HRES microgrid: a grid-constrained techno-economic and environmental assessment of renewable energy integration at Shivaji University, India. Carbon Neutral Systems, 2(1), Article 21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44438-026-00041-3
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1007/s44438-026-00041-3
Keywords: microgrid, hybrid renewable energy, solar photovoltaics, battery storage, demand-side management, NSGA-III, campus energy, Shivaji University, grid constraints, peak demand, decarbonization, energy modeling
News Source: Faith Mcneil. (October 28, 2026). Indian University Campus Could Cut Grid Power Use by Two-Thirds, Study Finds. Scienmag.
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Donald Trump rages over solar panels for ‘frying’ animals alive at fiery Texas rally  AOL.com
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Trinasolar to supply 580MW of modules and mounting systems for Energix projects  PV Tech
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Scatec, investment banks close US$650 million investment for Dandara solar-plus-storage project in Egypt  PV Tech
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Researchers produce urea in the field using system powered by biobatteries and solar energy  Phys.org
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Home > ARENAWIRE > Revolutionising energy with Australia’s “solar superman”
The majority of solar panels made today bear Professor Martin Green’s fingerprints.
When Professor Martin Green started his solar research in the 1970s, the idea of using solar panels to power our homes was out of this world.
NASA was developing solar technology to power spacecraft and satellites, but was far too expensive and inefficient for terrestrial applications.
Half a century on, more than three million Australian homes have panels on their rooftops, combining into a force that is transforming the way we use energy.
Professor Green joined us to share his remarkable story and look to the future of energy, now that solar has officially changed the game.

Looking back to his early days in the industry, Professor Green tells us that solar received a shot in the arm in the 1970s as the world searched for new sources of energy in the wake of the oil crisis.
The US solar industry was fuelled by major investment under the Carter administration, but Professor Green took advantage of funding available locally to piece together a laboratory with largely second-hand equipment sourced from the US.
Using his expertise in micro electronics, together with a team of talented technicians, they took aim at the world’s solar pioneers and almost immediately began claiming records.
This helped to attract attention and funding, with the team’s competitiveness remaining a theme across the decades since. Professor Green’s Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics at the University of New South Wales has held world solar efficiency records for 30 of the last 38 years, with their designs used in the vast majority of solar panels produced around the world today.
As well as helping solar to become the cheapest way of producing electricity in history (according to the International Energy Agency), Professor Green has blazed a trail for the next wave of renewable energy pioneers.
His PhD student Dr Zhengrong Shi became the world’s first solar billionaire after setting up a solar manufacturing plant in China. Another student, Vince Allen, has gone on to shake up solar designs by using more abundant and affordable materials, already attracting heavyweight investors.
As designs, materials and manufacturing techniques evolve to become more efficient and affordable, Professor Green doesn’t expect anything to change dramatically – at least for energy users.
Paired with battery storage and pumped hydro, and used to make green hydrogen, he expects Australia to benefit from affordable, plentiful daytime energy before most other countries due to our world-leading solar uptake.
He sees a role for this energy to power mineral processing and produce renewable fuels to decarbonise transport, highlighting a recent finding that the geographical diversity offered by Australia’s large landmass makes us particularly well-suited to renewable energy.
He continues to be inspired by his team’s research and seeing the success of his students and is optimistic about the next wave of innovations.
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False ceilings, fans and rooftop solar could cool Bangladesh’s rural clinics
Rural community clinics in Bangladesh often rely on little more than electric fans to keep patients comfortable through a hot, humid season, while unreliable electricity supplies and rising energy prices make mechanical cooling hard to sustain. A new numerical study argues that a combination of three relatively simple rooftop interventions — a false ceiling with a ventilated air gap, scheduled mechanical ventilation, and rooftop solar panels — could cut the mean indoor temperature of such a clinic by nearly 5 °C and reduce its total annual energy consumption by more than a third compared with a building that has none of these features.
The study, published in the journal Discover Energy, modelled the Rahimnogor Community Clinic in Khulna, Bangladesh, a single-storey government facility with a height of 3.5 metres that houses two rooms, two toilets and a patient waiting space. The researchers built a three-dimensional model of the building in DesignBuilder, using the EnergyPlus simulation engine to run a full annual simulation of 8,760 hours with local weather data. Heat conduction through the opaque envelope was calculated with the conduction transfer function method, and the model accounted for beam and diffuse solar radiation, surface reflections and shading cast by the rooftop photovoltaic array.
Before applying the model to the clinic, the team validated it against a previously published DesignBuilder study of a building in a comparable hot and humid climate. The reproduced hourly indoor temperatures deviated from the reference data with a root-mean-square error of 0.9045 °C and a coefficient of variation of 2.52%, while annual energy consumption showed a coefficient of variation of 3.55%. The authors consider these deviations acceptable for whole-building energy simulation and treat them as evidence that the modelling approach can reliably capture both short-term thermal behaviour and long-term energy performance.
The first strategy tested was purely passive: installing a gypsum plasterboard false ceiling beneath the roof, leaving an air gap between the two. Four gap thicknesses were examined — 0.15, 0.20, 0.30 and 0.40 metres. In free-running simulations with the HVAC system switched off, the mean indoor temperature fell by 2.4 °C, 2.54 °C, 2.71 °C and 2.9 °C respectively compared with the base case of no false ceiling. The air gap acts as a thermal buffer, and the larger the gap, the more air it contains and the more heat it intercepts before that heat can reach the occupied space below. The base case mean indoor temperature was 35.67 °C; with a 0.15 m gap it dropped to 33.26 °C, and with a 0.40 m gap to 32.77 °C.
The second strategy added active ventilation to that buffer zone. An exhaust fan was modelled to draw ambient air through the gap and expel the heated air, operating on a fixed schedule from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. at rates of 3, 4.5 or 6 air changes per hour (ACH). Rather than resolving the airflow field explicitly, the simulation prescribed these airflow rates, with the fan power included in the annual electricity tally. At the largest 0.40 m gap, mean indoor temperature reductions rose from 3.25 °C at 3 ACH to 3.59 °C at 4.5 ACH and 3.88 °C at 6 ACH. The mechanism is straightforward: faster air exchange removes accumulated heat from the roof cavity before it can conduct downward through the false ceiling.
The energy results follow the same pattern but with an important caveat about diminishing returns. The base case consumed 8,479.89 kWh per year under a 25 °C cooling setpoint. A false ceiling alone cut this by 10.25% to 15.54% depending on gap size. Adding ventilation pushed the savings higher — at the 0.40 m gap with 6 ACH, total annual consumption fell to 6,331.82 kWh, a 25.33% reduction. However, the marginal benefit of each extra increment of airflow shrank: for the 0.15 m gap, moving from 0 to 3 ACH saved 5.39%, while the steps from 3 to 4.5 ACH and from 4.5 to 6 ACH added only 3.74% and 2.35% respectively. As the cavity air cools, less heat remains to be removed, so each additional unit of airflow yields progressively less.
The third strategy mounted photovoltaic panels on the roof, tilted at 23° and facing south as appropriate for the northern hemisphere, with inter-row spacing calculated from a sun-path analysis for the worst-case shading date of late December. The panels work in two ways: they shade the roof surface, reducing solar heat gain into the building, and they generate on-site electricity that offsets part of the clinic’s demand. Because the shading effect already provides strong thermal protection, the authors found that enlarging the air gap beyond 0.30 m no longer justified the extra construction cost once panels were installed — going from 0.30 m to 0.40 m at 6 ACH bought only an additional 0.21 °C of mean temperature reduction.
The best combined configuration — a 0.30 m air gap, 6 ACH mechanical ventilation and rooftop solar — reduced the mean indoor temperature by 4.68 °C relative to the base case, from 35.67 °C to 30.99 °C, with the panels contributing 1.01 °C beyond the ceiling-and-ventilation system alone. Peak indoor temperature on the simulated day fell from 37.98 °C in the base case to 32.35 °C. Total annual energy consumption dropped to 5,511.26 kWh, a 35.01% reduction. The rooftop array generated 958.93 kWh of electricity over the year, and the authors note this figure represents total generation, not electricity exported to the grid or a separate net balance after fan consumption.
A thermal comfort assessment using the Predicted Mean Vote and Predicted Percentage Dissatisfied indices under ASHRAE Standard 55 reinforced the picture. In the base case, monthly PMV climbed from 0.45 in January to 2.69 in May, with the percentage of dissatisfied occupants rising from 12.2% to 83.6%. The integrated configuration kept PMV between 0.74 and 1.18 and PPD between 17.9% and 35.5% throughout the year — a substantial improvement, though discomfort still peaks in the warm months. An economic screen using a local tariff of BDT 7.93/kWh including VAT estimated a simple payback period of 6.14 years for the PV-assisted configuration, versus 7.82 years for the ceiling-and-ventilation system without panels.
The authors are careful to frame these as simulation results for one representative clinic, with ventilation modelled through prescribed airflow rates rather than resolved airflow physics, and they recommend detailed cost-benefit analysis and testing across Bangladesh’s different climatic regions before the approach is generalised. Still, the message is that for the country’s more than 14,000 community clinics — facilities that mostly serve rural populations and often have fans as their only cooling — a layered strategy of roof-level shading, a ventilated ceiling cavity and on-site solar generation could deliver meaningful comfort and energy gains with comparatively modest, locally available components.
Subject of Research: Simulation of passive and active roof cooling strategies with rooftop solar panels to improve thermal comfort and energy efficiency in a rural community clinic in Bangladesh.
Article Title: Numerical analysis of passive and active cooling strategies with rooftop solar integration for indoor comfort and energy efficiency of community clinics in Bangladesh
Article References: Muna, F. R., Fahim, G. S., Alam, M. M., Shahriar, K., & Ali, M. H. (2026). Numerical analysis of passive and active cooling strategies with rooftop solar integration for indoor comfort and energy efficiency of community clinics in Bangladesh. Discover Energy, 6(1), Article 95. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43937-026-00196-7
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1007/s43937-026-00196-7
Keywords: Bangladesh, community clinics, false ceiling, mechanical ventilation, rooftop solar panels, EnergyPlus, thermal comfort, energy efficiency, passive cooling, building simulation, air gap, photovoltaics
News Source: Denise Maddox. (October 28, 2026). False ceilings, fans and rooftop solar could cool Bangladesh’s rural clinics. Scienmag.
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The installed capacity of wind and solar power has exceeded 2 billion kilowatts, and the flexibility pricing mechanism for the power system is pending implementation.
Energy Foresight learned that on October 26, the National Energy Administration released the power statistics for the period from January to September. By the end of September, the cumulative installed capacity of wind and solar power had reached 2.01 billion kilowatts, including 1.31 billion kilowatts of solar power and 700 million kilowatts of wind power.
However, another set of figures previously disclosed at the official press conference sent a signal in the opposite direction: in the first half of 2026, the wind power utilization rate was 90.9% and the photovoltaic power utilization rate was 91.4%, down 2.3 and 2.6 percentage points year-on-year respectively, marking three consecutive years of year-on-year decline. While the installed capacity is expanding, the utilization rate is shrinking, and the two curves have formed a collision gap in the same statistical report for the first time.
On August 28, the Shandong Provincial Development and Reform Commission launched a public consultation, adjusting the lower limit of electric energy bidding price from -0.08 yuan/kWh to -0.12 yuan/kWh, and the lower limit of clearing price from -0.10 yuan/kWh to -0.14 yuan/kWh. The policy only relaxes constraints during low load periods, while the upper limit remains completely unchanged.
When photovoltaic power generation peaks at noon, electricity can be even cheaper, or even priced more negatively; when there is a power shortage during evening peak hours, the price will still stay at a high level. In February 2026, the lowest daily electricity price in the Shandong spot power market once dropped to 0.0054 yuan/kWh, almost touching zero.
For new energy operators, the harm does not lie in losing money for a few hours, but in the fact that the foundation of their revenue model has been undermined.
In the past, the accounting logic was “utilization hours × electricity price”, meaning the more power generated, the higher the revenue. After the negative electricity price range is widened, the extra power generated at noon not only fails to make profits, but may even lead to additional losses.
A 2 to 3 percentage point drop in utilization rate is not a marginal fluctuation on the financial statement, but a direct reduction in settled electricity volume, while the capital expenditure for energy storage allocation and the cycle life loss still need to be covered from the same revenue pool.
What is more troublesome is that the distribution of power consumption pressure is extremely uneven geographically.
Relevant researchers from the State Grid Energy Research Institute judge that the curtailment of new energy power is continuously concentrating in the “Three North” regions. It is estimated that by 2030, the curtailment volume in the “Three North” regions will account for 80% of the total curtailment in the State Grid’s operating area, curtailment in spring and autumn will account for 74% of the annual total, and curtailment at noon will account for 74% of the daily total. This is not a blanket pressure applied evenly across all regions, but a sharp knife that cuts right at the two points of the northwest region and noon. The utilization rate in eastern provinces is still above 95%, while some bases in the northwest are already looking for consumption outlets for every kilowatt-hour of power generated at noon.
Coal power has received its first institutional income. Since 2026, the proportion of fixed costs recovered through coal power capacity tariffs has been uniformly increased to no less than 50%, with the national average at about 165 yuan/kW·year, and the top level of 330 yuan/kW·year reached in Gansu and Yunnan.
This fund is not paid for the amount of electricity generated, but for the generation units. In the first half of 2026, the proportion of coal power generation in total power generation fell below 50% for the first time to 49.7%, but in the same period, coal power provided about 70% of the peak shaving capacity and 80% of the regulation capacity. While power generation volume is decreasing, the supporting role of coal power is growing, and the capacity tariff is designed to price this mismatch.
However, the 165 yuan per kilowatt per year only covers part of the fixed costs, and cannot make up for the market price difference.
The current account book of coal power is divided into three parts: The energy tariff follows market fluctuations, the capacity tariff is settled at a fixed rate based on available capacity, and the ancillary service is priced according to the contribution of peak shaving and frequency regulation. After the three parts are combined, coal power has transformed from a “power generation provider relying on natural resources” to a “regulation service provider relying on performance fulfillment”, but the third part is the truly flexible part, which also relies most on detailed provincial implementation rules.
The minimum technical output of pure condensing units has been reduced to 25% to 40%, and the market size of deep peak shaving renovation in 2026 is expected to reach the level of 8 billion yuan. How much compensation will be given for peak shaving after the renovation? The deep peak shaving compensation standard in the northeast ancillary service market once reached a maximum of 0.7 yuan/kWh, but that is the price for specific regions and specific gears, not a unified national price.
The implementation opinions on coal power integration clearly states that “synergetic operation will be realized through participation in the power market”, but the absence of a revenue distribution formula means that the investment in flexibility transformation and the deviation cost of joint quotation are still hanging between power generation enterprises and provincial regulatory rules.
On October 26, four design institutes under PowerChina, namely Beijing Engineering Corporation, Northwest Engineering Corporation, Henan Electric Power Design Institute and Fujian Electric Power Survey & Design Institute, won the bids for five projects: the 2nd phase of Hubei “Eneng Shandian” project with 36 integrated photovoltaic-storage-charging stations for heavy trucks, with a contract value of 1.902 billion yuan; the 400MW/800MWh independent energy storage project in Baise, with a contract value of 764 million yuan; the 200MW/400MWh independent energy storage project in Xiyang, with a contract value of 478 million yuan; the 100MW wind power project in Baishui, with a contract value of 140 million yuan; the 200MW wind power project in Runan, with a contract value of 268 million yuan, totaling 3.552 billion yuan.
Almost at the same time, the consortium that Guangxi Electric Power Design Institute under China Energy Engineering Group participated in won the bid for the 150MW photovoltaic-storage integrated project in Yuanping, Xinzhou, with 450MWh of energy storage configured for photovoltaic power generation, equivalent to a unit price of about 3.57 yuan per watt. The bid-winning structure within a single day is more truthful than any strategic plan: the same design institute is delivering charging networks, independent energy storage and wind power projects at the same time, which is not a simple concentration of construction shares.
When the unit of project comparison gradually shifts from “how many megawatts are installed” to “how much dispatchable regulation capacity is delivered in which time period”, the premium of the pure construction link will be compressed.
The Basic Rules for the Spot Power Market, which was open for public consultation on October 19, allows new energy sources and the energy storage configured inside the plant to act as a joint quotation entity, and the deviation assessment will be imposed on the consortium. The coal power integration dispatch requires that the minimum output, ramp rate and maintenance window of coal-fired units be put into the same operation plan together with the output curves of wind and solar power in the adjacent area.
A single-link construction contractor cannot complete these tasks, and what is needed is the integration capability that can incorporate coal power, wind power, solar power and energy storage into the same set of operation logic. In the first half of 2026, the energy and power order proportion of PowerChina exceeded 62%, but its price-to-book ratio is still at a low level.
The market is still applying the valuation framework for building construction, and the migration of order structure has not been fully priced. It does not mean that revaluation will definitely happen, but when the competition focus shifts from construction cost to collaborative operation effect, the valuation anchor will sooner or later follow the connotation of the orders.

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Titanium Dioxide Microsphere Scattering Layer Boosts Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Efficiency
Researchers report that a top layer of hydrothermally synthesized titanium dioxide (TiO2) microspheres can act as an effective light-scattering layer in bilayer photoanodes for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), raising both photocurrent and overall power conversion efficiency compared with conventional single-layer electrodes. In the study, published as an open-access article in Scientific Reports, the microsphere layer redirects photons that the cell has not absorbed on the first pass back into the photoanode, giving the sensitizing dye a second chance to capture them.
The bilayer design combines two structurally different TiO2 materials with complementary roles. The bottom layer uses commercial TiO2 nanoparticles (P25), which the authors describe as ensuring improved dye uptake and efficient electron transport, while the overlying microsphere layer serves as the light-scattering element. The team characterized the synthesized TiO2 microspheres before integrating them as the scattering layer and then evaluated complete cells sensitized with four ruthenium-based dyes: N3, N719, 520 DN, and Black dye.
The measured performance gains were consistent across the dye series, with elevated short-circuit current density (Jsc) and overall power conversion efficiency (η) relative to single-layer reference electrodes. Incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) spectra agreed with the current-density improvements, supporting the interpretation that the microsphere scattering layer enhances light harvesting rather than producing an artifact. The best results came from the bilayer photoanode sensitized with N3 dye, which delivered a short-circuit current density of 4.308 mA/cm2, a power conversion efficiency of 1.59 percent, and a mean electron lifetime of 43.53 milliseconds.
The electron-lifetime measurement is notable because DSSC performance is often limited by two linked problems: incomplete light harvesting and recombination losses, in which photogenerated electrons recombine before being collected. The authors frame the microsphere scattering layer as addressing the first of these, while the P25 underlayer addresses charge transport and dye loading. A longer mean electron lifetime in the N3-based bilayer cell suggests that recombination was not accelerated by the added layer, although the abstract does not report comparative lifetime values for the other dyes or for single-layer controls.
DSSCs attract attention for both indoor and outdoor light-harvesting applications, and the authors state that the results demonstrate the potential of TiO2 microspheres to enhance light harvesting in these devices. They also suggest that the microsphere-based scattering approach may be explored for future transparent dye-sensitized solar cell (T-DSSC) applications, where managing how light passes through and within the photoanode is particularly important. The findings come from a single laboratory study of hydrothermally synthesized microspheres under the dye and cell configurations tested, so broader performance claims would require further validation. Within that scope, the work adds a comparatively simple structural strategy—layering a scattering layer of larger microspheres over a nanoparticle charge-transport layer—that measurably improved photocurrent and efficiency in the tested devices.
Subject of Research: TiO2 microsphere scattering layers in bilayer photoanodes for dye-sensitized solar cells
Article Title: TiO2 nanocrystalline microspheres as an effective scattering layer in bilayer photoanodes for DSSCs
Article References: More, P. B., Mujawar, A., Salunke, S., Kim, J. M., Bulakhe, R. N., & Pathan, H. M. (2026). TiO2 nanocrystalline microspheres as an effective scattering layer in bilayer photoanodes for DSSCs. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-76770-9
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-76770-9
Keywords: TiO2, nanocrystalline, microspheres, effective, scattering, layer, bilayer, photoanodes, DSSCs, scientific research
News Source: Denise Maddox. (October 26, 2026). Titanium Dioxide Microsphere Scattering Layer Boosts Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Efficiency. Scienmag.
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Could "night-time solar" energy be harnessed after sunset? (Getty Images: Dowell)
It may sound like a contradiction in terms, but Australian researchers have made a major breakthrough in "night-time solar" technology.
In what they claim is a world first, a team of researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has demonstrated that solar power can be generated at night.
"In a sense, we've only been dealing with half of the opportunity, when we use photovoltaic solar cells to collect sunlight [during the day]," project leader Associate Professor Ned Ekins-Daukes tells ABC RN's Drive.
Associate Professor Ned Ekins-Daukes says the technology is in its early days, but could have a big impact in the years ahead. (Supplied)
So, what's behind this unlikely breakthrough?
After the sun sets and the day darkens, Professor Ekins-Daukes says the potential for solar energy well and truly remains.
"We get energy from the sun — it arrives, it warms up the Earth but then the Earth actually radiates the exact same amount of energy back out into space," he says.
Professor Ekins-Daukes and his team contend that if the flow of this radiant heat could be tapped by a power cell device and converted into electricity, there's "a large and unused spectrum of potential power to be exploited."
So, in a new study published in ACS Photonics, the team used a thermoradiative diode (a semiconductor sensor found in existing technologies like night-vision goggles) to capture photons leaving Earth along the infrared spectrum and converted them into electricity.
How the new technology could be used in the years ahead. (Supplied: Idaho Design & Communication)
"What you're doing is interrupting that flow of radiant heat, which is released every night out into the universe anyway, and tapping off a little bit of electricity from that," Professor Ekins-Daukes says.
He says what's "really exciting" is the technology "allows us to generate electricity at night, just from the cold night sky."
Australia is one of the world's biggest adopters of rooftop solar. Since 2001, the number of customers with solar panels has ballooned to more than 3 million. And in 2021, there was a record uptake of more than 3,000MW of rooftop solar installed by Australian householders.
Professor Ekins-Daukes stresses this new "night-time solar" technology is still very much in its early days.
"We've just demonstrated that this is possible … Right now, the device we've made is relatively low power. [But] this is to be expected when you're at the very early stages," he says.
The amount of energy produced was only extremely small — roughly equivalent to 1/100,000th of a solar powered cell.
A very small diode with very big potential. (Supplied: The University of New South Wales)
But the team argues that it is the "proof of concept that is big."
"The question here for the thermoradiative diode is how can we get from this scientific demonstration, through to scaling the manufacturing to a level where we could get the cost down. And that really depends on how engaged industry can be," Professor Ekins-Daukes says.
"It will take some time … And I have to be honest, we need to find some new materials to achieve [widespread use]."
But he says, in the future it may be possible to combine photovoltaic devices, or the solar panels widely in use today, and the thermoradiative diode for "night-time solar" power.
"You could have a panel that generates power during the day, but then could also power the other items that are still running in your house at night."
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