Europe

The Australian arm of French renewables player Neoen is set to start the construction of its largest solar farm in New South Wales – and the second biggest in its global portfolio – pressing go on the 350 MW Culcairn Solar Farm being developed in the state’s south.

A team of scientists at Germany’s Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen Nürnberg has set an efficiency record of 14.46% for an organic PV module. The performance was certified by Germany’s Fraunhofer Institue for Solar Energy’s PV calibration laboratory.

Scientists in Czechia have proposed to use parallel inverters in PV systems to not only reduce instability, but also to increase power yield. The proposed approach reportedly results in higher maximum power point tracking (MPPT) performance.

Two new PV bike-path projects are now operating in the Netherlands under an initiative launched in 2018 by Rijkswaterstaat, the Dutch water management agency.

Solar developer Lightsource bp has declared that proceeds from the sale of five utility scale PV projects in Australia with a combined capacity of more than 1 GW will be used to fast track the development of a pipeline of projects across the wider Asia Pacific region.

European Union member states have installed a “record-breaking” 56 GW of PV over the last 12 months – consistent with the past three years of 40% year-on-year growth, according to SolarPower Europe. But the association warns that solar’s moment in the sun could soon be over, as energy prices stabilise and project interest rates skyrocket.

SMA Solar Technology AG says it will open a new 3.5 GW inverter factory at an unspecified location in the United States in 2025. The German manufacturer is currently talking with several US states and potential partners to select the best production site.

Smoke from wildfires significantly effects solar output, researchers from UNSW have found. Specifically, Australia’s Black Summer in 2019 – 2020 caused energy losses from residential and utility PV systems estimated between 175 to 35 GWh, equating to a worst-case financial loss of around $6.1 to $29 million.

PI Berlin has developed a new tool to detect problems in inverters such as defective printed circuit boards, faulty switching algorithms, and deficiencies in components and sensors.

TU Deflt researchers made a first attempt to validate reconfigurable solar modules using prototypes in outdoor tests. The panels consist of two or more blocks of solar cells that are connected to a switching matrix and reportedly achieve a 10.2% higher energy yield than conventional shade-resilient modules under partial shading conditions.