Manufacturing

As the global transition toward sustainable energy intensifies, building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) has emerged as a critical innovation in merging renewable energy with architectural design. The recently published guidebook “Building-Integrated Photovoltaics: A Technical Guidebook,” edited by IEA PVPS Task 15 experts Nuria Martín Chivelet, Costa Kapsis, and Francesco Frontini, offers a comprehensive resource for architects, engineers, and urban planners looking to integrate BIPV into the built environment. This article explores the book’s key insights, including applications, challenges, and future pathways.

Trina Solar’s National Key Laboratory of PV Science and Technology says that its new perovskite-polysilicon tandem module has achieved 808 W of peak power output in TÜV SÜD testing.

Mission Solar says it will invest $265 million to build a 2 GW solar cell factory at its campus in San Antonio, Texas. The facility, which is expected to create 500 jobs, aims to produce 1 GW of cells by early 2026, with plans to reach full capacity later.

An Italian research team has found that radicchio seedlings grown in a lab-scale greenhouse with a perovskite solar PV roof exhibited faster growth and larger leaves than the bare glass reference. In addition, simulations of such a PV roof revealed a positive energy balance, satisfying the energy demands of a typical greenhouse located in Italy.

The U.S. Department of Commerce dramatically increased tariffs on imports from Chinese solar producers operating in Vietnam after the agency concluded that China is subsidizing raw materials for its companies to use in their Vietnamese factories.

Researchers in Canada have compared strawberry growth under uniform illumination from semi-transparent thin-film cadmium telluride panels and non-uniform illumination from semi-transparent crystalline silicon modules. Their analysis considered metrics such as fresh weight, height, leaf count, chlorophyll content, soil temperature and humidity.

An international research team has conceived a dual-component controller for three-phase inverters that can reportedly achieve faster settling times, reduced overshoot and more stable current tracking compared to conventional controllers.

The second Donald Trump administration has put up roadblocks to clean energy investment but renewable energy analysts say superior technology and its economic benefits will ultimately prevail.

China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) says that the country added 39.47 GW of new solar capacity in January and February, taking total installed PV capacity to 930 GW.

A research group including scientists from U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Underwriter’s Laboratories Inc., and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has outlined a new protocol for assessing PV module backsheet degradation in the field. Through the proposed framework, the researchers analyzed PV backsheet degradation across 41 sites, with exposure times ranging from 1 to 38 years.