Utility Scale PV

Better known for its large-scale exploits, global solar module supplier and project developer Risen Energy Australia has lodged a development application to build a 5 MW utility-scale solar PV farm at Wagga Wagga in southern New South Wales.

According to Asia Europe Clean Energy (Solar) Advisory Co. Ltd, demand for solar PV in China could “effortlessly” surpass 100 GW in 2022, following a year of “flat” demand in 2021. It adds that a “massive overcapacity” situation in the production sector is looming. Meanwhile, the distributed solar PV market is on track for huge growth, with potential for annual demand to reach upwards of 20 GW+ from next year.

With projects in many PV markets ageing past the 10-year mark – with major leaps in technology having occurred in that time – revamping is a popular topic among asset owners. Pv magazine spoke with Asier Ukar, general manager of the Spanish subsidiary of German testing company PI Berlin, to uncover the benefits of revamping PV projects with new components and also to examine the challenges and risks involved.

Unprecedented capacity expansions and massive technology changes, all happening at a frantic pace, signal that PV is entering the terawatt era. However, challenges in supply and demand imbalances across the value chain, combined with emerging technical and quality risks, require detailed analysis and due diligence from buyers to avoid pitfalls, according to George Touloupas, Joseph Johnson, and Aditya Vardhan from Clean Energy Associates.

Floating PV is a growing market, especially in Asian countries with land pressures. However, like many promising niches, it is growing faster than the standards surrounding it. With installed floating PV capacity set to double in 2021, a raft of various and sometimes competing standards are being floated, but the question remains – what is truly the best way forward?

A 63 MWp solar project has been completed in the Philippines by Modern Energy Management (MEM) for AC Energy. The Gigasol project is part of the latter’s plan to roll out 5 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2025.

The right product, with the right size, and at the right time represents a “holy trinity” and has been achieved in a new power electronics solution available in the Australian marketplace today. With rapid growth in the development of sub-5 MW utility scale PV projects currently underway, Fimer’s PVS980 Compact Skid appears ideal to meet an urgent market demand.

There’s talking the talk, there’s walking the walk, and then there’s walking the walk on water. Earlier this year at US President Joe Biden’s Virtual Leaders Summit on Climate, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said the city-state would need to “innovate and use technology extensively” to overcome its resource scarcity. With one of the world’s largest floating PV arrays now in operation, it seems as if Singapore is floating in the right direction.

Japanese giant Marubeni Corporation is backing Providence Asset Group’s plan for 30 regional projects which will integrate LAVO’s ‘green hydrogen batteries’, a new technology developed at the University of New South Wales.

Global infrastructure developer AECOM has run analysis on every petroleum fuel refinery and storage & import terminal in Australia and New Zealand as a novel means of locating sites well suited to future renewable development and hydrogen industries. “Some sites that were really suited to a wide range of end uses and those were our so-called ‘unicorn sites,’” AECOM’s Craig Bearsley told pv magazine Australia.