Manufacturing

The Swiss group has acquired an integrated solar roof system solution from an unidentified German engineering service provider for this purpose. The aim is grow this sector from a niche market.

The U.S.-based manufacturer is planning a vertically integrated thin-film solar module manufacturing facility in India. The factory will likely be built in Tamil Nadu and become operational in the second half of 2023.

The time is now for the energy consumer, says Anna Bruce, as energy “prosumers” produce, consume, and provide electricity and grid services in previously unimagined ways. Bruce, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales’ School of Solar Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering (SPREE), leads work on the role of distributed energy resources in the energy transition, analysing firsthand the dizzying level of complexity it brings.

Standalone power system specialist Boundary Power has teamed up with Australian hydrogen technology company LAVO to investigate the potential application of its renewable hydrogen energy storage system in power solutions suitable for off-grid and edge-of-grid customers.

Potential price rises of 14% for the solar home systems that are driving access to electricity in the world’s under-served regions could signal further arrested progress towards the UN goal of universal access by 2030.

It’s a breakthrough so staggeringly simple the patent office needed convincing it counted as an invention. In what Professor Thomas Nann jokingly told pv magazine Australia basically equates to adding dishwashing liquid and oil to water, he and two of his former PhD students have unlocked the potential of water-based electrolytes for batteries, promising a solution that is cheaper, easier to manufacture and non-toxic. The startup plans to initially use the formula in supercapacitors before exploring it in conjunction with redox flow batteries.


A gigafactory, as the name indicates, is a facility that aims to produce Li-ion cells at a gigawatt-hours scale of total capacity, so they can then be used in electric vehicles or stationary storage applications. The global production capacity of Li-ion cells is expected to reach 740 GWh by the end of 2021 – almost a threefold increase from 2017 – and Europe will account for 8% of the total. João Coelho, an analyst at Delta-EE, looks at how Europe plans to catch up.

The latest global PV industry outlook published by trade group SolarPower Europe, has indicated tight supply of the solar panel raw material is expected to persist this year but the trade body said it would be unlikely to drive further price rises.

Western Australian company Australian Vanadium Limited has been awarded $3.69 million in federal government funding to fast-track manufacturing of large-scale vanadium redox flow battery systems that can be used to support rooftop solar PV or in off-grid settings such as mining, agriculture and remote communities.

The manufacturer plans to start production of the performance-enhanced solar modules in August. The first customers should then receive the products in October.