Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen has accused the Liberal and National parties of fomenting community opposition to renewable energy development, in a webinar hosted by Smart Energy Council today. Bowen warned the “fight isn’t over the and stakes are very high,” at the next election for Australia’s energy transition.

As Australia’s rooftop solar wracks up records, price cannibalisation has resulted in a “struggling” large scale market segment. Victoria University’s Energy Policy Centre head Bruce Mountain says that increasingly depressed wholesale electricity prices during the day is squeezing out big PV.

The NSW state government’s Rebate Swap for Solar program has attracted 2,700 households to the scheme, which it says will take $600 a year off energy bills. The energy, environment and climate change ministry announced the scheme’s progress this week.

Australia’s peak solar body is urging its members and the renewable energy community to support robust emissions standards for new cars. The federal government released a consultation paper on the new standards today and has provided one month for public submissions.

The application of busbarless cell interconnection approaches could unlock the potential of heterojunction (HJT) technology, primarily by reducing the historically high silver usage of negatively-doped, “n-type” cell technology. As HJT production increases, a wave of applications may very well be on the horizon.

High performance and low environmental impact are set to stand heterojunction module maker REC Group in good stead in the current buyers’ market, argues CEO Jan Enno Bicker. Speaking to pv magazine at Intersolar Europe last month, Bicker said that in the rooftop segment the benefits of the company’s Alpha HJT module series shine. 

A new generation of flexible, lightweight modules is entering the market. With back contact technology offering its own form of design flexibility and robustness, the new products could crack a hard-to-address market segment, as Jonathan Gifford explains.

Zhengrong Shi and his company, Suntech, are true pioneers of the Chinese solar industry. While Suntech burned bright, and eventually flamed out, under Shi’s leadership, the company’s solar ecosystem and innovation persist as China’s PV market surges past 100 GW(AC) today.

US solar was disrupted in 2022, with module seizures delaying projects due to strict laws designed to stamp out alleged forced labor practices in sections of the Chinese PV industry. However, it remains to be seen whether seizures affected such alleged practices.

With calls for a revival in European PV manufacturing becoming more urgent, the Environmental, Social, and Governance credentials of its PV producers are being touted as a way in which manufacturing can be supported or even protected. The case for the ESG credentials of European manufacturing was advanced by multiple speakers at the 2023 SolarPower Summit this week in Brussels.