Commercial & Industrial PV

Australia’s rooftop solar market has slowed with the latest monthly data from industry analyst SunWiz revealing that national installation volumes dropped off 7% in August compared to the previous month.

The Queensland government has launched a solar panel recycling scheme with the launch of the first of 15 sites collection sites that are to be established across the state. The program is expected to save 26 tonnes of broken or end-of-life solar panels from landfill annually and will inform the possible rollout of a nationwide scheme.

Mildura Rural City Council has completed a 99 kW rooftop solar system at a sporting precinct in the Victorian regional centre that is expected to generate more than 114,000 kWh of clean electricity per year, enough to satisfy 15% of the facility’s annual demand.

BloombergNEF says the global solar industry will install 592 GW of modules this year, up 33% on 2023. The consultancy has also lowered its estimate for 2024 polysilicon production, as manufacturers are temporarily scaling back output.

Researchers have covered part of a rooftop solar plant with varying numbers of shading cloth layers and continued to measure the power, current, and voltage of the system. They have been able to identify a point after which the value of system current and maximum power is no longer sensitive to shading heaviness.

The Victoria Energy Policy Centre has issued a call for new policy to drive the deployment of large-scale rooftop solar backed by batteries on Australia’s commercial and industrial properties not just for self-consumption but also so power can be exported to the grid at times of peak demand.

Thousands more homes and businesses in regional Western Australia now have the option to install rooftop PV with Horizon Power announcing it has completed the rollout of internet-connected technology that eliminates network hosting capacity constraints in its service area.

GoodWe has developed a new inverter product line designed for small commercial and industrial PV projects.

Australian solar cell innovator Sundrive has announced job cuts, a change of leadership and restructure of the business to prepare for commercialisation of it’s copper electrode technology.

Sigenergy was one of the first companies to present a bidirectional DC wallbox that is integrated into a photovoltaic storage system. Co-founder and CTO Samuel Zhang talks about the manufacturer’s story and its plans to expand into the commercial market, integrating AI into its systems and the future of vehicle-to-grid technology.