As the world leans on solar PV to decarbonise its power supply, so to must the solar industry clean up its act. Jules Scully charts the industry-wide efforts for a greener solar PV industry.
Portugal's latest solar auction made headlines earlier this month as record-low negative bids were posted, with the results illustrating the value developers place on securing a grid connection and the strong potential they see in hybridising renewables assets.
Kontron AIS is supporting PV manufacturers with a standardised Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for production control, material track and trace and equipment performance tracking, covering all processes from crystal growing over wafer and solar cell production to module assembly.
With solar operations and maintenance experiencing significant price pressure, adequate fault detection that occurs as quickly as possible has become increasingly important for asset operators. Here, 3E’s Julien Deckx explores early fault detection strategies for solar PV plants.
ESG obligations are helping to drive the implementation of biodiversity at solar farm sites, but questions remain over what happens to sites at the end of their operational lifespan, Alice Grundy writes.
By Ryan D. Quint, North American Electric Reliability Corporation
Ryan D. Quint, senior manager at North American Electric Reliability Corporation take a look at the key considerations – and difficult balance – of managing grid connection from a transmission operators point of view.
Solar project sites with meaningful terrain variance are becoming the norm. Nextracker’s latest innovation in single-axis tracking mitigates the cost and schedule risk associated with deploying projects on challenging terrain.
US solar manufacturers can compete with Chinese companies for US PV projects given additional import costs and modules making up less than half a project's costs, while also ensuring a secure supply to the US market, lowering the carbon intensity of products and exploiting strong market demand, says Michael Parr, executive director of the Ultra-Low Carbon Solar Alliance (ULCSA).
In September 2021 Lightsource bp set itself the target of reaching financial close on 25GW of solar by the end of 2025. Liam Stoker spoke to the developer’s leadership team to discover how it is expanding into new markets, securing financing deals and assembling a workforce capable of reaching that target.
By Jan Vedde, senior project manager, European Energy
Jan Vedde, senior project manager for European Energy, takes a look at the key technological trends in the solar PV market, from changes to silicon cell manufacturing to the benefits of bifaciality.
