The pv magazine Awards 2025 winners have been revealed, and this year’s successful solar and storage champions have offered a glimpse of what the future might hold.
Jurors were treated to everything from world-first technologies supporting grid stability to second-life solutions that bolster sustainability. They have recognised activism in rapidly growing PV markets, innovation in key emerging market segments, and more.
This year was a truly global competition attracting entries from 40 countries and presenting our expert jurors with the challenging task of choosing winners from among some outstanding submissions.
One of the striking features of the pv magazine Awards 2025 has been the ability of entrants to innovate in both mature and emerging categories, from impressive PV module performance specifications to creative new approaches to energy storage.
Commenting on 2025’s entrants, Mark Hutchins, magazine director at pv magazine, said: “Choosing this year’s winners was an usually difficult task for our jurors, reflecting strong competition and a high degree of innovation across every sector. And it’s great to be able to recognise achievements in still emerging fields like recycling and grid serving energy storage.”
And the winners are…
Projects
Winner: Wärtsilä Energy Storage, Blackhillock BESS
In a year in which grid stability, flexibility and storage have come into the spotlight the 2025 Projects award goes to a battery energy storage system (BESS) installation that delivers world firsts that are sure to be emulated.
Blackhillock energy storage facility is a 200 MW/400 MWh system developed by Wärtsila Energy Storage in partnership with owner and operator Zenobe and is the first BESS in the world to deliver true synthetic inertia and short-circuit level support.
Highly commended: Apollo Energy Analytics, Performance and Reliability Optimization in UAE Solar.
Modules
Winner: Longi Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd., Hi MO x 10
Bifacial performance has long been a weak spot for back contact cell designs. Longi impressed with various optimisations that push the Hi MO x 10’s rear side performance ratio to 75%, even with all of the contacts and connection structures partly covering the back of the cell.
The module takes good advantage of other perks inherent to back contact technology, including shading resilience, performance in low light conditions, and converting light coming from low angles.
Highly commended: Tongwei, TNC 2.0 Series
BESS
Winner: Stabl Energy, high performance second-life BESS
Stabl’s commercial and industrial (C&I) integrated battery storage system combines the benefits of second-life batteries with a novel modular multi-level converter (MMC) technology for increased efficiency and optimised sustainability. The status quo of battery storage systems is connecting multiple battery modules in series. This approach means the chain is only as strong as its weakest link, with performance limited by the weakest module.
Highly commended: Noon Energy, ultra-long duration energy storage battery
Inverters
Winner: SMA Sunny Central Storage UP-S
SMA’s new battery inverter platform comes in four power classes ranging from 2.7 MW to 4.6 MW. With an efficiency of 99.2% it was one of the highest ratings in this year’s competition. A key innovation lies in the inverter’s use of silicon carbide (SiC) transistors across its entire design. While already common in residential and some C&I inverters, SiC translators have not seen widespread use in bigger inverters due to the commercial availability of transistors designed for such high loads.
Highly commended: Sungrow SG9375UD-MV-20
Balance of System
Winner: MBJ Solutions, MBJ Quickcheck
German imaging company MBJ Solutions swept to a win in the BoS category with its portable electroluminescence (EL) inspection system. This system can be used for inspecting PV modules during normal inverter operation and energisation without disassembly or transportation and lab time. At its core, the MBJ Quickcheck features a test housing on a telescopic rod that contains an EL imaging camera that can capture EL images during operation and in daylight.
Highly commended: Proa MetCube
Manufacturing
Winner: Solar Materials, solar recycling
Germany’s Solar Materials has developed proprietary processes which it says recover 98% of all raw materials in a typical solar panel. The company takes a “reverse production line” approach, with automated processes to separate the panels layer by layer, avoiding chemical treatments and high temperature processing. In April 2025 it opened its first industrial PV recycling facility in, Germany, capable of handling 7,000 tons of solar panels per year, with plans to triple capacity as well as open sites in Italy, France and Spain.
Highly commended: Kyoshin Electric, FSS 4 Probe Bar
Sustainability
Winner: Smart Solar, Waqas Khaleeq
Solar vlogger Waqas Khaleeq is bringing ordinary people on board with Pakistan’s clean energy transition. The CEO of Pakistani renewable energy company, Smart Solar, Khaleeq believes that education and knowledge sharing are as empowering as technology innovation. He knows that a country cannot decarbonise without people understanding how and why to adopt clean energy. His vlogs are targeted at both industry personnel and regular viewers, and they receive very high engagement.
Highly Commended: Zelestra, 3Es strategy
Publisher’s pick
Winner: Huawei Technologies
Shenzhen-based Huawei Technologies showcased an innovative commercial and industrial BESS system at this year’s The smarter E Europe in Munich, Germany. Huawei FusionSolar C&I Hybrid Coolin ESS LUNA2000-215-2S10. The C&I BESS has a power rating of 108 kW which can output to the grid for almost two hours. The highlight is its hybrid cooling technology, which uses a proprietary combination of air and liquid cooling which reduces energy consumption by 30%, according to the manufacturer.
“Huawei is one of the world’s great innovators and the innovation we see in the Huawei FusionSolar C&I Hybrid Cooling ESS demonstrates that Huawei is applying the same dedication to R&D and innovation to the energy storage market that we have come to appreciate with its work in PV systems,” said Eckhart K. Gouras, pv magazine publisher. “All of these technologies are coming together, including digitalization, AI, robotics and EVs, to accelerate the energy transition and provide for a better environment and greener planet.”
More on this year’s winners, highly commended finalists and comments from our independent jurors can be found in the Winter edition of pv magazine Global available now.
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