Chinese module manufacturer Jolywood is preparing to invest in a joint venture with state-controlled local partner PT Len Agra Energy to set up 1 GW of annual cell and panel capacity.

Financiers and investors have always understood that PV power plants play a more prominent role than just generating profits – they also produce electricity without emitting carbon. Lately, the sector is discovering that PV can fulfill a much larger range of environmental functions – improving biodiversity, removing carbon from enriched soils, and producing food in an environmentally sustainable way. Everoze Partner Ragna Schmidt-Haupt argues that putting ecological sustainability at the heart of PV project planning and operation should become the new standard.

The $2 trillion package includes a proposed 10-year extension of the ITC and PTC and calls for further incentives to add transmission capacity. Most solar advocates liked it, but one nonprofit panned it as being too industry-friendly.

It’s come to this. The Australian Energy Markets Commission has produced a draft decision that will make households and small business with solar panels pay to inject their surplus production into the grid.

840 million people still don’t have access to electricity today, according to the World Bank. But the radical decrease in the cost of the green technologies of solar and battery storage provides an unparalleled opportunity to close this gap and achieve universal electricity access by 2030.

YouTube videos are becoming a vital part of consumers’ solar-buying journey, providing a unique opportunity for solar marketers. Marketing pro Rich Feola offers insights on how to use videos to boost your solar company.

As distributed PV grows, new grid codes have scared installers across some markets. Network operators want to gain control over grid export, even of smaller arrays. Additions of new array controllers and special gateways could be costly putting speedy development of PV at risk. Fret not, says Fimer, as the Italy-based power-electronics manufacturer has placed the solution to the problem already inside its latest inverter range.

The solar industry typically sees itself as being supportive of the environment, humanity, and human rights. Even large Chinese PV manufacturers publish statements to this effect, particularly if they are listed on Western stock exchanges. But what do human rights have to do with the solar industry? What connections exist, asks Martin Schachinger of pvXchange, and how are they important to the future success of the European PV market?

Over 2,000 MW – or around 55% – of South Australia’s firm supply capacity was unavailable on March 12, 2021, along with virtually all of its large-scale renewable supply (a further 1,800 MW or so) but the lights stayed on – just.

“Unprecedented” was a term widely used in 2020, as the world grappled with the Covid-19 pandemic. The same word can be similarly applied to the plans and investments in production capacity announced by Chinese PV manufacturers right across the supply chain. But what shape are these expansions taking and what is driving this renewed confidence? Vincent Shaw reports from Shanghai.