SolarPower Europe

How do you know when an inverter or module is under-performing? Monitoring services should shed light on problems but AI-driven digital asset manager Raycatch says much information is hidden behind a wall of “noise.” Breaking that wall with advanced data analysis could unlock billions of cost savings.

The national PV body in the country wants €1 billion from the EU’s recovery and resilience fund to be allocated to upgrading the electricity network to host more solar power generation capacity.

The former need not necessarily relate to conventional lithium-ion batteries, however, as a recent webinar staged by Solarpower Europe and EU body GET.invest discovered.

Each of the nations, like Greece, will have gigawatt-plus solar additions in 2024, according to Solarpower Europe, enough to carve out a 3% slice of an anticipated 35 GW regional market.

Big brands will have to put their money where there mouth is on carbon commitments, though, and the EU will have to put its shoulder to the wheel, particularly in respect of the commonly-heard call to dispense with red tape. The prize could be a call for 280 GW more renewables capacity by 2030.

Solarpower Europe has called on member states to put solar and battery storage front and center when it comes to drawing up the Recovery and Resilience plans needed to secure a slice of the bloc’s proposed €672.5 billion post-Covid stimulus package.

With the SolarPower Summit 2020 taking place this week, organizer SolarPower Europe has assessed the plans drawn up by member states would mean the bloc sourcing 33.1-33.7% of its energy from clean power by the end of the decade, with the help of 19 GW of new solar per year.

Rising volumes of solar capacity are to be welcomed but, as panelists at a session of today’s SolarPower Europe event discussed, the technology must be kept ethical and responsible. That means industry working together; new, harmonized, mandatory and voluntary policy instruments; and a focus on quantifiable, life cycle-based investor criteria.

Financial newspaper Les Echos claims the government is mulling a renegotiation of historic feed-in contracts after the Court of Auditors in 2018 ruled the incentives too generous.

The annual EU PVSEC conference got under way virtually this morning via an online platform since the planned event in Lisbon could not go ahead due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Opening presentations revealed an air of optimism in the PV industry, amid expectations of a rapidly rising share in the energy mix, growing conversion efficiencies, advancing technology pathways and innovative solutions to the problem of integrating high levels of PV into electricity grids.