Asia

The addition of 521 MW between April to June was India’s highest ever rooftop solar capacity installed in a single quarter.

The state-owned engineer and solar EPC Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) has commissioned a 25 MW project at NTPC’s Simhadri thermal power station, in Andhra Pradesh.

With pressure mounting on the world’s governments to turn their back on the fossil fuel, China and peers in South East Asia, Europe and South Asia could help deliver a coal-free future at the COP26 climate summit planned in Glasgow in November.

The US$1.28 billion (AU$1.7 billion) plan includes a 3.1 GW production capacity expansion in South Korea, where the company’s solar module capacity will reach 7.6 GW by 2025.

A roadmap to rapid carbon emission reduction has suggested the nation add 2.4 GW of generation capacity next year as part of a 15 GW new-solar target this decade. The claims of solar-plus-storage should be ignored for now, according to a new policy document, because batteries will make PV less competitive with coal.

Polysilicon capacity is unable to catch up with rapid capacity expansion in the mid and downstream segments, writes Corrine Lin, chief analyst for PV InfoLink. New polysilicon capacity requires big capex investment and a lead time of more than two years to complete construction and reach full operation. With unbalanced capacity between the upstream and downstream segments, polysilicon prices have been rising since the second half of 2020, with prices for mono-grade polysilicon surpassing CNY 200/kg (US$27.40) in June 2021, up more than 250% year on year.

Researchers in China have analysed how the marine environment influences the performance of PV modules deployed on ships, and have found that salt particles can be detrimental to their performance as these act as both heating agents and a factor reducing solar irradiance. The temporary cooling effect provided by seawater is not sufficient to offset the impacts of salt spray and ensure increased power yields.

India’s solar module makers have built a strong track record, and now the country is set to see vast battery facilities developed. Uma Gupta provides a look into ambitious manufacturing projects and the wider enabled ecosystem.

The storage project is linked to a 1 GW wind and solar project portfolio, 500 MW of solar distributed generation, and the construction of a gigafactory for vanadium redox flow batteries in China.

Scientists in the U.S. discovered a promising new battery chemistry based on chlorine and table salt. Batteries based on this chemistry can achieve at least six times the energy density of today’s lithium-ion batteries, according to the group that created it. The prototype battery could already be suitable for small devices such as hearing aids, and with further work could be scaled up to larger applications.