Arizona utility Tucson Electric Power (TEP) has set out plans to provide 70% of its power from solar and wind by 2035, backed up with investment in new energy storage capacity.
French utility EDF is launching a major solar-plus-battery storage hybrid initiative in England and Wales as part of plans to double its installed renewable base.
A total of seven China-based PV manufacturers have officially started efforts to establish a new ‘M10’ (182mm x 182mm p-type monocrystalline) large-area wafer size standard to reduce manufacturing costs throughout the entire solar industry supply chain as the number of large-area wafer sizes have emerged in the last few years.
Additions have been made to support action on climate change through federal tax incentives in the proposed Congress bill to invest US$1.5 trillion in infrastructure across the US.
PV inverter specialist, Huayu New Energy, has launched its ‘HY 2000 Plus’ microinverter, which has the highest recorded power density on the market and has four (4) MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) and quad-module-level monitoring as standard. The HY-2000-Plus is also the first commercially announced microinverter that is compatible with the latest 500-580Wp high-performance large-area solar panels that are entering the global market.
Plans to establish the first of three ‘renewable energy zones’ (REZ) in the Australian state of New South Wales have seen an overwhelming level of interest, with a call for proposals chalking up a nine-fold oversubscription.
The era of subsidy-free solar is well underway in a growing number of markets, with Europe leading the way. As Solarcentury’s Peer Piske explains, the greater sensitivities around modelling zero-subsidy projects mean new approaches to design and planning are required by developers
