PV Tech Power Papers

The past two years have seen a boom in the deployment of mobile PV testing laboratories. Sara ver Bruggen reports on how technological advances are helping investors and developers in new and emerging solar markets get the best from their assets.

PV Tech can reveal the preliminary top 5 solar module manufacturers in 2016, based as usual on final shipment guidance from third quarter financial results.

Through its Corporate Clean Energy Universe, market researcher Clean Edge is tracking the 37 US corporations leading the way on low-carbon and renewable energy adoption. Its managing director, Ron Pernick, tells Ben Willis of his hopes that a second wave of smaller companies will follow their lead as new green energy business models hit the mainstream.

Sandfire Resources, a mid-tier Australian mining company that operates the mine, called on developers to co-locate not only a solar power plant, but also a utility-scale energy storage system alongside its existing diesel power station. Showcasing the latest technological advances, the newly completed project in the Peak Hill Mineral Field has been hailed as one of the largest renewable energy systems installed at a mine anywhere in the world and certainly the largest in Australia.

Certifying the quality and performance of an entire PV array has been a notable development in the past two years. Sara ver Bruggen looks at the extent to which developers, investors and insurers are turning to plant-level certification to guarantee the design, construction quality and performance of a PV system.

The aim of the Solar Bankability project is to establish a common practice for professional risk assessment, which will serve to reduce the risks associated with investments in PV projects. In this article the project team discusses a key aspect of this work: the development of a methodology for the assessment of the economic impact of failures occurring during operation but which might have originated in previous phases.

After a series of hammer blows, and against the backdrop of Brexit uncertainty, the UK solar industry appears to have found some joy offering long-term contracts and self-consumption systems to commercial clients, a sector it had previously found hardest to crack, writes John Parnell.

Microinverters and power optimisers have become increasingly common features of smaller PV systems. Sara ver Bruggen reports on the technologies’ gradual transition into larger commercial and utility-scale applications.

The US solar market finds itself with the bizarre, but welcome, problem of having to “manage” a boom. Danielle Ola examines the impact of the ITC extension, alternative drivers of US solar and debunks the supply crunch myth.

With competition in the tracker marketplace becoming extremely fierce, rival companies are adding new features all the time aimed at minimising installation and operation costs, and enhancing durability. Here we profile some of the single-axis trackers currently available on the market and the innovative design features they offer.