Solar forecasting company Solargis says the insight offered by Covid-19 industrial shutdowns into a renewables-driven future serves to emphasize the value of the chief commodity it trades in – data.

A study by the International Energy Agency into the chilling effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on energy demand states renewables will be ‘the only energy source likely to experience demand growth for the rest of 2020’. The slower the economic recovery, the more the fossil fuel industry will suffer.

Researchers led by Belgian institute imec claim to have achieved the result with a 1cm² flexible thin-film cell intended for building-integrated PV application. The result tops the 24.6% efficiency the consortium announced in September 2018. The cell’s developers are now aiming for 30%.

WoodMac analysts say the amount of new battery manufacturing capacity added in the nation this year could fall by as much as 10% because of the outbreak. With Tesla’s Shanghai gigafactory affected by the extended new-year-holiday shutdown, the analyst warned of potential supply shortages for Australia and the U.S. and U.K.

With electric vehicles making up only 3% of the global car market last year, analyst WoodMac says battery packs need to be cheaper and lighter and range anxiety must be addressed to change the habits of drivers.

Power generation statistics released by the National Energy Administration appear to confirm the nation added 12 GW of solar last month. China also deployed another 41 GW of polluting coal-fired power plants last year.

President Ursula von der Leyen has outlined plans to fund her Green Deal with a mix of EU, member state and private sector contributions. Now it is over to individual nations and the European Parliament.

To have any hope of restricting global heating to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius, the renewables success story which saw 108 GW of solar deployed last year needs to be cranked up to the next level – and fast.

The Chinese manufacturer has officially unveiled its high-efficiency product in Melbourne after celebrating a 13.6 MW panel order from the nascent Hungarian PV market.

Although the International Energy Agency’s latest renewables report forecasts impressive solar growth there is still a nagging feeling it has produced conservative estimates and the emphasis on sharing costs with grid operators is predictable.