World

Coal fleets represent huge financial risk to shareholders and investors write Tim Buckley IEEFA’S Director of Energy Finance Studies, Kate Finlayson the organisation’s Senior Communications Strategist.

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a device they say could “turbocharge” a single-junction silicon PV cell, pushing the technology beyond its theoretical limit to efficiencies of 35% and higher.

Octopus Energy Investments, the UK’s largest investor in utility scale solar, which set up an office in Melbourne last year, has rebranded itself as Octopus Renewables as the £3 billion (AU$5.3 billion) global fund manager looks to throw its considerable weight behind the global energy transition to renewables.

The energy transition is accelerating, Ernst & Young global energy leader Benoit Laclau has warned grid operators, thanks to the confluence of digitization, decentralization and decarbonization. Traditional utilities must get with the program or be swept aside.

Light-induced initial degradation in PERC modules is currently a subject of intense discussion, but tests at PI Berlin have shown that the problem is solvable. Founder and CEO Paul Grunow explains the effects, the approach, and the results.

The Electric and Hybrid Marine World Expo in Amsterdam last week highlighted growing interest in storage technology from the sea vessel industry. Leading global battery manufacturers had their latest charging technologies on display, catering to rising demand for clean, efficient electric and hybrid marine systems.

Since 2009, when production capacity expansions began to outstrip demand for the first time, prices all along the solar supply chain fell, and have continued to do so almost continuously ever since. Simon Price, CEO of Exawatt, argues that solar is no longer in the ‘cost reduction era,’ and is now entering its ‘performance driven era,’ in which the goal for manufacturers is high performance at an acceptable cost, rather than acceptable performance at the lowest cost.

In the third of a series of four blogs, solar pioneer Philip Wolfe lists the world’s largest solar power plants. In these articles, a ‘solar plant’ is defined as an individual generating station.

Taiwanese analyst Energytrend saw prices for high power products fall over the past week, but so far only in China. That trend could be replicated around the world next week, however.

A public enterprise grade energy blockchain has powered up with the promise to accelerate a low-carbon, distributed electricity future. For the first time, energy sector companies are hosting validator nodes on a decentralized network as they seek to adapt to a more digitalized and decentralized energy system.