Shared grid connections, complimentary resource availability, and more grid-friendly power are among the key advantages of pairing wind farms with solar arrays – and developers are quickly moving into the emerging space.

Technical consultancy DNV GL has published its Energy Transition Outlook 2019. While the electric vehicle, storage and renewable energy industries are likely to see significant rises in demand, the sobering conclusion is the world will miss carbon reduction targets by a long shot.

On August 9, a thunderstorm caused 1.5 GW of generation capacity to go offline within seconds in the U.K. The incident caused millions of households to temporarily lose power but the situation could have been considerably worse if not for the country’s battery storage reserves.

In part two of this feature on wind resilience in the PV industry, the lack of structural codes comes into focus. Weather events, and wind above all, are the most common causes of failure for PV plants. In the United States, the first steps have been taken to catch up with other industries and a dedicated chapter for PV is set to be included in the next update of the American Society of Civil Engineers code. In Europe, no such plans are in place.

Extreme wind events are the biggest cause of failure and insurance claims for any PV plant, according to Thorsten Kray, Head of the Building Aerodynamics Department at Institut für Industrieaerodynamik GmbH, Aachen. For structural reasons, single-axis trackers are more prone to the issues than fixed-tilt structures. In this two-part series, pv magazine will examine the ways that wind impacts trackers and what EPCs and investors need to look out for, in addition to outlining a range of approaches from big tracker suppliers that were designed to mitigate wind-related damage.

The STA has warned Italian company Fimer, which is set to acquire Swiss company ABB’s inverter business, it will have to honor customer service commitments made to its British members, and voiced fears related to historic quality issues with ABB inverters.

With the benefits solar panels can bring to cropland being considered in Europe, PV and aquaculture are working in tandem in Vietnam. Shrimp and fish farming requires land and lots of water but solar panels are helping mitigate those demands.

By considering use of the metal in charging infrastructure, analyst Wood Mackenzie has found higher demand from the mobility sector than is the case if only the volume of the material required for vehicle construction is examined.

The stunning low tariff is a third world record in five weeks. Solar prices continue to tumble and with a Saudi auction concluding tomorrow, the Iberian benchmark could be short-lived. The official result of the Portuguese tender will be announced August 10.

According to the latest market forecast published by Wood Mackenzie, it seems that global PV installation figures will rise to 125 GW per year from 2020. Continued global capacity expansion will come in through a growing gigawatts-club.