Work has begun on a 20 MW solar plant in Liberia, on the site of an existing 88 MW hydropower station. The Liberian government says it is the first of several planned projects that will help to address the country’s power shortages, particularly in the dry season.

Production is now underway at Sweden’s first large-scale agrivoltaics park, owned and operated by Svea Solar. A power purchase agreement is in place with a local vertical farmer for the electricity produced, while the farm underneath the solar panels will produce rapeseed, ley and wheat on a rotational basis.

AleaSoft Energy Forecasting says average electricity prices fell last week across all major European markets, bar the United Kingdom, due to an increase in wind production. Italy, meanwhile, broke its record for solar production on a single day in October.

Using atomic layer deposition, a research team from the City University of Hong Kong has created an an oxygen-deficient tin oxide layer to replace the more common fullerene electron transport layer in perovskite solar cells. The result is a 25%-efficient device that is able to retain around 95% of its efficiency after 2,000 h.

Kosovo’s Ministry of Economy says two new schemes, offering subsidies for solar system installations to households and small- and medium-sized enterprises, have received more than 500 applications combined.

Yap State Public Service Corp. is seeking bids to supply solar minigrids with battery energy storage systems (BESS), totaling 79 kW, for Yap Island in the Federated States of Micronesia. Applications are open until Jan. 28, 2025.

The Vietnamese authorities have approved a new price framework for importing renewable energy from Laos, with base import prices for wind and hydropower set to take effect at the end of 2025.

The Canadian government has put another CAD 500 million ($363.1 million) in its funding stream to finance renewable energy and grid modernization technologies. Canadian utilities, system operators, and industry organizations are eligible to apply for support for projects that help strengthen the grid.

A team from the University of California Santa Barbara used ultrafast electron microscopy to record photocarriers as they diffuse across a silicon and germanium heterojunction. It is the first time the movement, which lasts picoseconds, has been captured as a moving visual.

The latest report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (PVPS) says solar records were broken across the United States in 2023, as international trade issues decreased and financial certainty increased, driven by the implementation of the US Inflation Reduction Act.