World

Four years ago in December 2015, every member of the United Nations met in Paris and agreed to hold global temperature increases to 2°C, and as close as possible to 1.5°C. The bad news is that four years on the best that we can hope for is holding global increases to around 1.75°C. We can only do that if the world moves decisively towards zero net emissions by the middle of the century.

The latest figures released by BloombergNEF show new solar and onshore wind power plants have reached parity with average wholesale prices in California, China and parts of Europe. The technologies are winning the race to be the cheapest sources of new generation for two-thirds of the world’s population.

Elon Musk has officially launched the third phase of his crusade to make a successful solar roof tile, with promises that this time it is going to be a success.

Research from the United States has demonstrated how PV technology can be used to kill cancer cells. Although still at an embryonic stage, the findings of the study and initial test results suggest solar power could be an effective tool in relation to light-activated fluorescent dyes for disease diagnosis, image-guided surgery and site-specific tumor treatment.

The Chinese manufacturer has officially unveiled its high-efficiency product in Melbourne after celebrating a 13.6 MW panel order from the nascent Hungarian PV market.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has undertaken a review on how Australia compares with other international power systems and suggested that the theoretical limits on wind and solar penetration may need to be defined with an eye on the power system stability.

Although the International Energy Agency’s latest renewables report forecasts impressive solar growth there is still a nagging feeling it has produced conservative estimates and the emphasis on sharing costs with grid operators is predictable.

After the leading car in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge caught fire and was forced to withdraw from the race on the final stretch, Belgian team Agoria surged ahead to the front.

Shared grid connections, complimentary resource availability, and more grid-friendly power are among the key advantages of pairing wind farms with solar arrays – and developers are quickly moving into the emerging space.

Single-axis tracker deployment has increased dramatically in the past two-to-three years, both in terms of the number of PV plants adopting the technology and the sheer size of some tracking systems. Given this, durability in the face of high wind loads has been brought into sharp focus with new testing and calculation methods providing more certainty for EPCs, owners and investors.