It’s disappointing that EV adoption policy in Australia has been put on the back-burner this election, writes Des Hang, CEO and co-founder of Carbar. The concern is that action on this issue will be slow regardless of who gets into power, simply because it’s not generating as much buzz as it should during the campaign.

The solar supply chain problems that began last year with high prices and polysilicon shortages are persisting into 2022. But we are already seeing a stark difference from earlier predictions that prices would decline gradually each quarter this year. PV Infolink’s Alan Tu probes the solar market situation and offers insights.

Materials which undergo singlet fission provide an exciting and different pathway for exploiting the full solar spectrum, researchers at the prestigious University of New South Wales explain.

If you’re thinking about buying an electric vehicle, whether due to soaring fuel prices or to lower your greenhouse gas emissions, where you live can make a huge difference to how climate-friendly your car is.

Australia is vying to become a major green hydrogen export industry, particularly in the Asia Pacific, but new research from the Australian National University suggests the opportunity may be overstated.

British analyst GlobalData has predicted residential and commercial rooftop panels will not return to a declining price trend until next year, with post-Covid logistics headaches the cause, rather than a polysilicon shortage.

Fotowatio Renewable Ventures Australia’s 90 MW (AC) solar farm outside Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, has reached the commissioning phase after less than a year of construction. Barring no obstacles, the project should start exporting solar energy to the grid in a matter of months.

The input costs of the two biggest contributors to solar plant development expense have gone through the roof since the world began to come out of Covid-19 lockdowns, to leave project developers with some difficult choices.

The sky is the limit. Fortunately, this expression does not apply to current prices for PV panels, which have recently declined, following a continuous rise since the beginning of the year. Whether this situation holds, or whether prices drop further in the coming months is hard to say at the moment, writes Martin Schachinger of pvXchange. Polysilicon prices and thus wafer and cell prices could be in for a slight decline. However, a decisive movement in module prices in general is unlikely before the fourth quarter.

Processing nightmare, or product opportunity? Impending five-minute settlement comes at a difficult time for energy retailers. Software from across the ditch could help highlight the benefits and opportunities of more solar and a forecast uptick in battery energy storage.

Incoming Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese has promised to make the nation a “renewable energy superpower” in the wake of Labor’s federal election victory at the weekend.

Australia remains among the solar capitals of the world with a new report from the International Energy Agency revealing the country leads the way in PV penetration and ranks No.1 in the world for installed solar PV per capita with 990W per person.

Australian miner IGO is claiming an Australian first in its joint venture with China’s Tianqi Lithium after producing battery grade lithium hydroxide, a key component in rechargeable battery technology, at its Kwinana refinery in Western Australia.

A new solar power plant will be developed on 2,800 hectares of land near a temple in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is expected to be operational within a year.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has announced a mandate for rooftop solar on commercial and public buildings by 2027, and for residential buildings by 2029. The EU target for renewable energy has been increased from 40% to 45%.

Australia’s rooftop solar industry has undergone a significant change with a new national standard that removes the requirement for rooftop PV installations to include a DC isolator now in effect.

A $150 million loan scheme introduced by the Australian Capital Territory government has sparked an uptake of rooftop solar in Canberra with more than 20MW of new solar PV rolled out across roofs in the nation’s capital.

The Northern Territory government has doubled down on its support for the world’s biggest solar PV and storage project with parliament passing legislation that will facilitate the $30 billion-plus Sun Cable Australia-Asia PowerLink project which is expected to transform the region into a green industrial hub and establish a new energy export industry for Australia.

The switch has been flicked on what has been labelled one of the Southern Hemisphere’s largest rooftop solar PV systems with Queensland government-owned Yurika announcing an almost 5MW system installed atop the Logan Hyperdome Shopping Centre is now operational.

Two new solar farms in regional New South Wales are now delivering clean energy to the National Electricity Market with e-commerce giant Amazon announcing its first Australian utility-scale renewable energy investments and are now operational.

Scientists in the United States have fabricated a triple-junction solar cell that reached 39.5% efficiency – a world record for any type of cell under one-sun illumination. Though relying on materials and processes that are still too costly for most commercial uses, the concept could soon see actual applications in powering satellites and other space-bound technology.

With the Northern Territory town of Alice Springs turning towards renewable energy to address the challenges associated with its isolated grid, researchers from Charles Darwin University have announced they will help investigate how the outback community can facilitate its transition towards a renewables-dominated future.

Perovskite tandem technology is shaping as the route to PV cell efficiencies well beyond 27%. But building the tandem stack in a way that can be scaled into gigawatt production is not a trivial challenge, says Sebastian Gatz, VP photovoltaics for German equipment supplier Von Ardenne.

Scientists in the United Arab Emirates have looked at how off-grid rooftop PV could be combined with batteries, fuel cells or reversible solid oxide cells for energy storage. The modelling assumed a typical commercial building in Los Angeles.

Ambient Photonics will build a fully automated manufacturing facility to produce solar cells for powering consumer electronics.

The hydrogen electrolyser subsidiary of German giant Thyssenkrupp has opened a new office in Perth, Western Australia in a bid to capture some of the region’s green hydrogen frenzy.

pv magazine summarises the products we covered at the recent Smarter E exhibition, in the first of a series of reports on all of the new releases from the annual trade fair in Munich, Germany.

Hanwha Q Cells plans to build a 1.4 GW solar panel factory at an undisclosed location in the United States. It has also announced plans to expand its cell capacity to 5.4 GW in South Korea. CEO Justin Lee spoke to reporters at the Smarter E event about the company’s plans and current supply chain issues.

Norwegian startup Over Easy Solar AS is launching a vertical PV system for rooftop applications at this year’s Smarter E in Munich, Germany.

REC’s new heterojunction solar panel series features efficiencies of up to 22.3% and an operating temperature coefficient of -0.26% per degree Celsius.

Trina Storage’s new 2.1 MWh DC All-New Elementa solution is a modular LFP battery cabinet with a plug-in concept to connect multiple units. The company is ramping up battery manufacturing capacity to strengthen vertical integration, given supply chain risks throughout the world.

South Korean battery manufacturer LG Energy Solution presented its latest innovations at the Smarter E event in Munich last week. It also announced its transition from nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) battery chemistry to lithium iron phosphate (LFP) in its future products.

ACE Green Recycling has announced plans to build a new plant in Texas to recycle both lead-acid and lithium-ion batteries.

German researchers have developed a new shape-stabilised phase change material with the ability to store up to five times more thermal energy than commercially available phase change materials (PCMs).

Western Australia has been offered a glimpse of its energy future with the $35 million Project Symphony aggregating its first package of residentially generated energy and successfully participating in a simulated two-way Wholesale Electricity Market.