2023

This year is ending with a new record, but installation companies are looking for orders again, says Tim Rosengart, managing director of the Selfmade Energy supply platform. His figures show how falling module prices and the new market situation are putting pressure on PV system prices.

Chinese manufacturer Red Solar says its new 182 mm bifacial solar cell, which is based on tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) tech, has an efficiency of 26.01%.

China-based TAILG has revealed its new sodium-ion battery technology. The company’s luxury e-bikes will be the first to feature its sodium-ion batteries, and they will initially be available in China.

The US Department of Energy’s (DoE) Argonne National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory will carry out demonstration projects to validate long-duration energy storage tech developed by German manufacturer CMBlu Energy. The collaborative project is designed to improve microgrids in cold climates and make fast charging of electric vehicles more affordable in underserved communities.

Researchers from Spain have developed a novel model to evaluate optical photovoltaic converters used in high-power optical transmission. They have found that indium gallium nitride (InGaN) and indium aluminum nitride (InAlN) semiconductors could provide better results than gallium arsenide (GaAs).

The number of PV installations around the world grew by an annual average of 28% between 2019 and 2023, including a 56% jump from 2022 to 2023, according to Wood Mackenzie. Growth is not expected from 2024 to 2028, however.

Tongwei has revealed a new upstream investment plan in Inner Mongolia, while China Huadian has completed its latest 2023 central procurement round, securing 8.95 GW of PV panel products from JA Solar, Astronergy, Das Solar, Trina Solar, and Longi.

Turkey’s new agrivoltaics project, under the ODTÜ-GÜNAM Center for Solar Energy Research and Applications’ Livinglab initiative, will allow researchers to test products and production processes by developing tracker systems with control algorithms specially designed for specific crops.

China’s SOFAR has supplied more than 1,300 units of its SOFAR 255KTL-HV string inverters for a 300 MW utility-scale solar project in Gansu, China. The desert PV plant is one of several ongoing projects that SOFAR is working on in partnership with PowerChina.

The Chinese manufacturer says that its new V series heaters can use either PV or AC grid power. It can also be controlled and monitored via WiFi.