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PV’s contribution to a cleaner future can go well beyond generating emissions-free energy, but maximising the opportunity is not always straightforward. Ragna Schmidt-Haupt, partner at Everoze and a board member at Skyray, argues that investors and lenders have to start making decisions today to fulfil the required disclosure regulations and make sure their fleet has a positive impact on biodiversity. The key challenge is to weigh the techno-economic-ecological risks, opportunities, costs and revenues.

Multiple factors affect lifespan of a residential battery energy storage system. We examine the life of batteries in Part 3 of our series.

President Xi Jinping’s pledge this week at the United Nations General Assembly that China will not build new coal-fired plants abroad is welcome news; however, Asia’s transition to low carbon energies remains in dire need of policy reforms.

The urgent global need for tens of terawatts of solar capacity to replace fossil fuels by 2050 signals it’s time to hone in on developing the most sustainable technologies — before reserves of silver, indium and bismuth dry up.

Singaporean scientists have developed a special device that prevents the formation of dendrites in lithium-ion storage. The additional layer they created works as an interface on behalf of the negative electrode, to exchange lithium-ions with the positive electrode.

In the third of a series of four blogs, solar pioneer Philip Wolfe lists the world’s largest solar parks. In these articles, a “solar park” is defined as a group of co-located solar power plants.

As solar deployment increases, concerns about price cannibalisation continue to be more and more relevant. Large-scale solar generation during midday hours may result in curtailment or unprofitable wholesale power prices. As supply increases, the economic viability of solar PV projects could fall into question.

Buildings are considered to be a major driver of emissions. In addition to the predicted billions of square meters of space that will be built across the world over the next decade, most developments standing today will still be around in 2050. Thus, retrofitting existing structures is seen as a key sustainability target. In the fourth quarter of 2021, pv magazine’s UP Initiative will focus on the role that solar and energy storage can play in greening the world’s urban spaces.

The German research institute has unveiled a novel interconnection technology for shingled PV modules that eliminates the need for electrically conductive adhesives and screen-printed busbars. It consists of an 8-μm-thick aluminium foil that is joined to the silicon nitride (SiNX) passivation via laser metal bond (LMB). When integrated in a solar module, the efficiency of the new interconnector improved by 0.7%.

The clean energy joint venture, which is half owned by British energy company BP, today said it expects to create around 500 jobs as it ramps up its solar portfolio from less than 4 GW to 25 GW in four years.