2024

Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE) says rising CO2 prices could make PV-powered heat pumps the most cost-effective choice for residential heating in the country, with heat pump uptake and district heating adoption proving more economical than replacing gas heating.

Enel has obtained €560 million ($610.2 million) for a solar module factory it is building in Catania, Sicily.

Wood Mackenzie says the solar industry has reached a new stage in its evolution and is predicting around 350 GW of global solar installations annually for the next eight years. The research firm is also forecasting challenges for the solar manufacturing sector and long-awaited benefits from the Inflation Reduction Act in the United States.

Mitsubishi HC Capital, a Japanese investment firm, has become the second-largest shareholder in Danish renewable energy developer European Energy A/S by acquiring the equivalent of 75 million shares. Knud Erik Andersen, the CEO of European Energy, says the transaction more than triples the company’s equity.

Researchers in China have designed a heat-driven thermoacoustic refrigerator/heat pump for room refrigeration. They said the system is easily combinable with PV energy and its coefficient of performance can reach up to 1.69.

Resources giant Rio Tinto has signed Australia’s largest corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) to date. It has agreed to buy 100% of the output from European Energy Australia’s 1.1 GW Upper Calliope Solar Farm to provide renewable power to its aluminum operations in the state of Queensland.

An international research team built the triple-junction device with dual bulk and interface passivation technique aimed at promoting halide homogeneity at the interface between the perovskite absorber and the hole-transport-layer. The 0.049 cm2 cell achieved a remarkable open-circuit voltage of 3.33 V and was also able to retain 80% of its initial efficiency after 200 h of continuous maximum power point tracking.

Pioneer Power Solutions has announced a new lithium battery trailer for electric-vehicle charging and disaster recovery.

SAJ’s new M2 microinverters support PV panels ranging in size from 400 W to 700 W. They have a maximum output of 2,250 VA, with four maximum power point tracking (MPPT) channels. The company claims a peak efficiency of 97%.

The Chinese manufacturer said its new TSM-NEG9RC.27 and TSM-NEG18R.28 combine n-type technology with 210mm rectangular silicon wafer (210R) cell technology. Their temperature coefficient is -0.29% per C and their efficiency can reach up to 22.3% and 22.7%, respectively.