India installed 456 MW of rooftop solar in Q1
India’s rooftop solar installations increased by 34% year on year in the January-March period, despite a 17% increase in system costs.
Floating solar, tidal energy plant goes online in China
CHN Energy has linked a 100 MW floating PV plant to an existing 4.1 MW tidal energy system in China’s Zhejiang province. The tidal power station was commissioned in 1980 and is the fourth-largest system of its kind in the world.
China’s first salt cavern for compressed air energy storage goes online
Huaneng Group has finished building a 300 MWh storage project in Changzhou, in China’s Jiangsu province. The state-owned company has already started operating the facility, which is situated in a salt cavern.
BYD launches new C&I battery
Chinese battery manufacturer BYD has launched an expanded portfolio of energy storage systems designed for the commercial and industrial solar markets. At The smarter E in Munich last month the company also provided a sneak peak at a new high-voltage storage system expected to be launched later this year.
Trina Solar’s pathway to TOPCon
Trina Solar will eventually start selling TOPCon and heterojunction products, even though it built its first large-scale TOPCon project four years ago. The company says it is now making progress on TOPCon module production, despite supply chain issues.
Adani Green switches on 390 MW wind-solar hybrid power plant in India
Adani Green’s new 390 MW wind-solar project will supply electricity under a 25-year power purchase agreement with Solar Energy Corp. of India (SECI), at a tariff of INR 2.69 ($0.049)/kWh.
Test production starts at SolarEdge’s 2 GWh Korean battery cell fab
The inverter and battery manufacturer says its new Sella 2 factory will produce cells for its residential solar-plus-battery products as well as for other applications.
China dominates transport fuel-cell patents
The World Intellectual Property Organisation says China accounted for 69% of the patents filed for transport-related fuel-cell tech in 2020, with road transport significantly dominating applications.
Upcycling silicon waste from end-of-life solar panels into thermoelectrics
Researchers in Singapore have developed a new technique in which polycrystalline silicon is pulverised into powder and pelletised into ingots. The process relies on spark plasma sintering to dope the silicon with germanium and phosphorus.
China’s cumulative PV capacity tops 322 GW
In other news, Zhonghuan Semiconductor announced it will begin selling 210 mm n-type wafers and the local government in Zhejiang Province said it wants to deploy another 12.4 GW of new PV by 2024.
