Sunday will herald the largest PV procurement exercise ever held in Malaysia. Half the available capacity will be directed to 10-30 MW facilities with the balance reserved for plants with capacities of up to 50 MW.

A research project in the Netherlands is seeking to assess the impact of large scale PV projects on soil quality and biodiversity. Principal scientist Wim Sinke, of Dutch research center TNO, says well-designed and operated and maintained solar parks could prove to have better outcomes than monoculture farming.

MIT scientists have suggested used electric vehicle batteries could offer a more viable business case than purpose-built systems for the storage of grid scale solar power in California. Such ‘second life’ EV batteries, may cost only 60% of their original purchase price to deploy and can be effectively aggregated for industrial scale storage even if they have declined to 80% of their original capacity.

Researchers from Charles Darwin University have conducted a ‘cradle to grave’ life cycle assessment (LCA) of the four most widely used PV technologies. The academics say that cadmium telluride solar modules have the lowest life cycle impact, followed by amorphous, multi and monocrystalline silicon products.

The country’s Ministry of Electricity and Energy is seeking proposals for 30 large-scale solar plants. The selected developers will be awarded 20-year power purchase agreements.

The panel is part of the company’s new Tiger Pro series, which includes two 530 W modules and a 430 W product for distributed-generation applications. It will begin production of the series in the fourth quarter, although it will start accepting first orders immediately.

Scientists from Saudi Arabia have proposed a new PV panel cooling technique which employs an atmospheric water harvester. The device uses waste heat from the PV panel to collect atmospheric water at night and then releases it during the day to cool down the module. The researchers claim the device may also be improved to produce liquid water, which could be used for the cleaning of the modules.

The government of the Federated States of Micronesia wants to increase power generation capacity on the islands of Yap and Kosrae.

Utilities and marine company Sembcorp Industries has secured an energy offtaker for its Tengeh Reservoir project.

German production equipment provider Schmid and Saudi chemical group Sabic are planning to begin activities at a new factory in Saudi Arabia, with production being expected to begin in 2021.