California-based microinverter maker Enphase has become the latest company in solar to announce expansion plans to meet demand in the Asia-Pacific region, opening an office in Melbourne, Australia to add to its engineering and design centre in New Zealand and distribution hub in Sydney.
Having worked with the Australian National University (ANU), the Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS) and PV Lighthouse, a two-year R&D program with Trina Solar to develop an Interdigitated Back Contact (IBC) solar cell is set to be commercialised.
An Australian engineer has been awarded £300,000 (US$493,000) by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) for his work on increasing the efficiency of solar PV whilst lowering costs.
In a new detailed report by Deutsche Bank’s US-based solar industry analysts, the PV industry is said to be heading into its “second gold rush” with a base demand of 46GW in 2014, topped by an expected 56GW of demand in 2015.
While 2012 was arguably the year the solar mega project entered the public consciousness, with what are (for now) some of the world’s largest PV plants reaching completion, 2013 has seen its fair share of solar behemoths too. We profile the biggest projects of 2013 from the world's biggest markets.