Monocrystalline giant, the Longi Group, will now use the brand for its cell and module business, formerly Lerri Solar. The unified brand will be showcased at the PV Expo in Tokyo, which kicks off on Wednesday.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) is providing $450,000 (US$346,000) towards the Decentralized Energy Exchange (deX) project, which aims to produce an open-source software platform on which grid services can be provided and monetized by distributed battery storage. A combination of Australian utilities, research bodies, and startups are collaborating on the $930,200 ($715,000) deX project.

Russia’s Hevel Solar has achieved 21.75% cell efficiency after upgrading to heterojunction (HJT) technology. Hevel says that its fab will have a capacity of 160 MW when completed.

German PV equipment supplier centrotherm booked a €45 million (US$48 million) monocrystalline solar cell equipment order today, bringing its total bookings for the last three months to €80 million ($85 million).

German solar research institute Fraunhofer ISE has reclaimed the multicrystalline PV cell efficiency record, achieving 21.9%. Fraunhofer researchers deployed n-type high-performance multicrystalline technology to produce the record-setting PV cell.

Three PV power plants worth a combined 320 MW have begun construction in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria. A joint venture between Overland Sun Farming and the UK’s Island Green Power is behind the AU$500 million (US$384 million) development, which is going ahead despite the projects not having yet signed PPAs.

Britain’s Foresight Group had made its first investment into large scale PV in Australia. It announced today the acquisition of the 25 MW Barcaldine Remote Community Solar Farm in Queensland.

With the future of some of its coal-fired generators in doubt, the town of Collie in Western Australia may be revitalised with new solar, biomass and pumped hydro facilities.

New South Wales grid operator Endeavour Energy is tendering for a large scale battery storage array to reduce network costs for a new housing development west of Illawarra.

The capital intensity per watt of the utility scale solar plants in the current development pipeline in Australia is about half that of those that are already operational.