Paxos Solar has developed a new glass-glass PV tile that integrates with heat pumps, featuring Longi’s back-contact solar cells. The 44 W, 59.5 cm x 48 cm tile can also produce heat for residential systems.

Esysteme21 has built a 100% self-sufficient energy system with photovoltaics, hydrogen and battery storage. The German solar company describes the concept as a solution for medium-sized enterprises.

One of the largest agrivoltaic power plants in Europe is currently under construction in the southwestern German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. REG Energy Engineering has designed a new, material-saving substructure for the project that allows for livestock grazing.

The quality of home energy management systems is a concern for the industry. More than 300 participants at the pv magazine Focus Event in the conference center of the Munich Trade Fair Center made this clear. To provide a glimpse into the “black box,” manufacturers, scientists and users discussed the most important criteria.

It is estimated that 10 GW of solar modules in Germany suffer from prematurely aging backsheets, with sites of all sizes affected. pv magazine Germany’s Cornelia Lichner looks at how to detect and repair such defects.

German company Mefa Befestigungs- und Montagetechnik has developed absorbers made of polypropylene that are intended to simplify the use of brine heat pumps. The novel technology should make it possible to combine multiple heat sources, including water, earth, air and also ice storage all within a single system.

Estimating the total cost of energy storage connected to a rooftop PV installation is a complex affair, involving factors such as tax, the policy environment, system lifetimes, and even the weather. As part of its extensive overview of distributed energy storage in Germany, pv magazine Germany analyzed the efficiency of different battery energy storage systems to create a comparable index that illustrates the cost of a stored kilowatt-hour.

The 52 kW containerized solution is being developed by German start-up Solarbakery. The bakery’s production process was adapted in such a way that the majority of electricity consumption is already incurred during the day and is only baked briefly in the dark before dawn.

Meyer Burger plans to start selling a new building-integrated PV product from 2022. It says the solar tiles have a high energy yield, with simplified installation and the ability to also provide heating. German engineering company paXos designed the tiles.

Developed by Dutch company UseAllEnergy, the module is fabricated with a heat exchanger placed on the rear side that works as a heat source for a brine-water heat pump. Thanks to this innovation, the heat pump does not need to get heat from a borehole yet can still generate sufficient thermal energy. The solution is claimed to be easy to install and also to be suitable for retrofits.