The seventh edition of the International Roadmap for Photovoltaics (ITRPV) has confirmed that PV producers are continuing to track the historic solar learning curve of 21%. A range of wafer, cell and module production technologies will see multicrystalline PV modules being produced by 2026 with an efficiency of 310 W, in a 60-cell configuration.

New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reveal that jobs in Australia’s renewable energy sector have decreased to 14,020 in 2014-15, down 27% from a peak of 19,120 jobs recorded for 2011-12. Rooftop solar PV and hot water contribute the majority of employment in the Australian renewable sector, totaling 53%, also down from a peak of 75% of all renewable jobs in 2011-12.

German cell inspection equipment provided ISRA Vision has completed the processing of over 2.5 GW of PERC cells with its specialized CRHOME+ tool that provides backside quality assurance. ISRA, which also trades under the GP Solar brand, employs multiple illuminations of the cell, using different wavelengths, to provide stable and sufficient contrast during the inspection of rear side laser openings.

Wunder Capital closed a Series A round this week, worth $3.6 million. The funding adds to the $1.1 million already raised and will be used as the company expands its crowdfunding platform through which it hopes to fund a commercial solar platform in the U.S.

Switzerland’s Lynwood will invest €6 million (US$6.61 million) in NexWafe’s EpiWafer technology. The funding round will support the Nexwafe’s continuing commercialization of its gas-to-wafer production technology.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) will support the development of a 5 MW array in the country’s far northeast. The array will demonstrate how solar can sure up electricity supply and reliability on the edge of Australia’s electricity grids.

Kokam has supplied two battery systems for frequency regulation to Korean utility KEPCO. Kokam, a Korean company, claims the battery arrays are the two largest lithium nickel manganese cobalt (NMC) oxide battery systems are the world’s largest to provide frequency regulation services to the grid.

The European PV market will hit 100 GW of cumulative installed solar capacity in 2016, and annual installations grew YoY by 15% to 8GW. While these figures indicate a large and healthy solar market, the outlook for solar in Europe going forward, expressed at this week’s SolarPower Europe annual workshop, was unequivocally mixed.

Panasonic Corporation has claimed the world record module efficiency title by a full 1%, achieving 23.8% aperture efficiency on an 11.5-square-centimeter research module.

A research team lead by the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory has developed a technique by which cadmium telluride (CdTe) PV cells can be produced with an open-circuit voltage exceeding 1 volt. The team claims the development will allow for further increase CdTe conversion efficiencies and represents a “crucial milestone” in the technology’s evolution.