A key missing piece in the clean energy puzzle is the question of how to provide baseload power in an electricity system dominated by intermittent renewables. Javier Cavada of Highview Power examines cryogenic long-duration storage as a possible solution.
In the hierarchy of grid needs, peaking power is often a priority in terms of providing resiliency and balance to the network. This is usually provided by natural gas turbines, which come at a high environmental and economic cost. Andy Colthorpe charts the rise of the solar-plusstorage peaker plant.
India has become the world’s second largest market for trackers as it chases its ambition of installing 100GW of solar by 2022. Geoffrey S. Kinsey, Madhusudan Partani, Mukund Kulkarni, Brijit Shetty, Rubin Sidhu and Jie Zhang report on efforts to better understand the performance benefits of trackers over fixed-tilt mountings
Light- and elevated temperature-induced degradation – LeTID – is emerging as a potentially serious problem affecting PV modules employing PERC technology. So why isn’t the industry more aware of it, ask Radovan Kopecek, Joris Libal and Lejo J. Koduvelikulathu of ISC Konstanz.
Solar O&M is rapidly evolving as PV deployment gathers pace worldwide. Guillermo Oviedo Hernández, Elena Bernardi and Jörn Carstensen of SolarPower Europe’s O&M Task Force look at some of the emerging trends, practices and business models in this increasingly critical arm of the solar industry.
While Filipino policymakers pondered a controversial bill that would allow a solar company to set up a micro-grid and transmission franchise aiming to improve power supply across the country, a small town on the island of Mindoro was already enjoying round-the-clock electricity for the first time ever. The town of Paluan, situated in the northwest corner of Mindoro, the seventh largest island in the Philippines, dominated by an agricultural society and dubbed ‘the brownout capital of the Philippines’, is receiving power from Southeast Asia’s largest micro-grid, combining solar PV, energy storage and diesel technology.
Effective management of cabling in a PV system can greatly impact its lifetime maintenance requirements and thus profitability. Samuel Truthseeker of TECSI Solar looks in detail at the latest developments in wire management and highlights several reliability considerations.
Floating solar has huge potential in areas where difficult terrain or land constraints make ground-mounted systems impractical. Gijo George and Pranav Patel of DNV GL explore some of the technical challenges in designing and building floating PV projects.
Strong policy support to safeguard the bankability of low-carbon energy technologies and underpin the UK’s ongoing decarbonisation efforts. Gareth Miller of Cornwall Insight outlines proposals for a new route to market that would guarantee future investment in much-needed renewables such as solar and onshore wind.
Led by a bullish Spain, the industry’s free-market revival has dispelled memories of the FiT fallout but also ushered in an era of uncertainty. José Rojo charts players’ efforts to master the rules of a new game of tough PPA interactions and merchant risks.
