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A study by engineers at Australia's University of New South Wales (UNSW) shows that aerosols and greenhouse gas emissions reduce the productivity of PV installations, with variations across regions.

From pv magazine Australia

Researchers from the UNSW School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering have mapped PV productivity across future emissions scenarios in various parts of the world, with a focus on maximizing potential and minimizing costs in warmer climates.

The study’s models reflecting different emission-level scenarios made such differences clear across global regions. The study found that, with increasing climate change, solar resources increased in West and Central Europe, South America, and Central North America. In contrast, global horizontal irradiance (GHI) reductions were predicted in northeast Africa, the Tibetan plateau and South Asia.

To continue reading, please visit our pv magazine Australia website.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.

The FOB China prices of both PERC and TOPCon Mono M10 cells, the mainstream size of solar cells in the current solar market, continued their downward trajectory and were assessed at $0.0550 per W and $0.0616/W this week, respectively. This marks their lowest prices ever, according to OPIS data, amid falling prices of the entire supply chain and weak demand in China and its key export market.

Cell prices were negatively impacted by the ongoing price decline of the supply chain in China. Prices for China polysilicon and Mono PERC M10 wafers both decreased this week by 4.07% and 0.40%, respectively. The price of Mono PERC modules is approximately CNY1.011 ($0.14)/W, which is extremely close to the industry's psychologically low value of CNY1/W, while the prices of TOPCon modules are slightly higher at CNY1.077/W.

OPIS learnt from its market survey that cell manufacturers are making every effort to lower production costs as they are experiencing losses. One of the approaches is to buy wafers of reduced quality. According to a cell supplier, the Mono PERC M10 wafers with reduced quality are available on the China market for CNY1.7/pc while good quality wafers are still priced between CNY2.2/pc and CNY2.3/pc. This may resonate with a few downstream users who have been worried about the impact that this competition to cut production costs may have on module quality for 2024.

Another strategy for cell manufacturers to cut production costs is to outsource their production to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). OPIS has learnt from the marketplace that a major cell manufacturer has an extremely high operating rate, as it has won numerous contracts from other cell companies that have outsourced their cell production.

According to OPIS’ market survey, manufacturers who outsource cell production benefit from the low cost brought by the high operating rates of OEMs, and could provide Mono PERC M10 cells at lower than CNY0.43/W in the China market. Those who continue to produce at low operating rates in their own production facilities are still offering it at around CNY0.45/W.

Sentiment in China remains bearish. According to the National Energy Administration, China deployed 13.62 gigawatts (GW) of solar in October, which presents a month-to-month decrease of 13.69%. This is the third straight month that China's newly installed solar capacity has declined.

China’s key export markets continue to offer little sunshine. A state-owned cell manufacturing enterprise claims that sales of its cells have been hindered since the second half of the year, especially in the cell export market. Purchasing Chinese cells has become a rare occurrence for their Southeast Asian consumers, although formerly they did so regularly.

“The module producers cannot use Chinese cells if they want to ship their products to the US market; the local Southeast Asian market has a very limited solar capacity to digest Chinese cells and modules,” this supplier explained.

Looking ahead, the industry anticipates that the price of Mono PERC M10 cells will continue to decrease, with industry discussions suggesting that it may drop to approximately CNY0.4/W very soon in the Chinese domestic market. This indicates that the sentiment in the cell market will remain subdued.

OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides energy prices, news, data, and analysis on gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, LPG/NGL, coal, metals, and chemicals, as well as renewable fuels and environmental commodities. It acquired pricing data assets from Singapore Solar Exchange in 2022 and now publishes the OPIS APAC Solar Weekly Report.

Lodestone Energy has started generating electricity at its solar plant in Kaitaia, New Zealand – the nation's largest solar array and first utility-scale PV installation to date.

From pv magazine Australia

Renewables developer Lodestone Energy has started generating energy at its 39.4 MW solar project in Kaitaia, on New Zealand's North Island. The developer, which started work in late 2022 and broke ground in April 2023, expects the project to generate 55 GWh of power per year.

Besides the Kaitaia Solar Farm, Lodestone’s phase-one capital program includes solar projects at Edgecumbe, Waiotahe, Whitianga and Dargaville. While Kaitaia is the first of Lodestone’s solar farms to start generating, Edgecumbe is expected to be commissioned early in 2024 and Waiotahe late in the same year.

“This project ushers in a new era for energy in New Zealand. Kaitaia is the first solar farm at this scale and is a key step in helping New Zealand deliver on its climate goals,” said Gary Holden, managing director of Lodestone Energy. “It is also crucially important to our customers who have contracted with us to meet their own sustainable energy objectives.”

The Kaitaia installation is an agrivoltaic project, so agricultural activity can continue in and around the solar installations and even be enhanced by the solar facility. The project is surrounded by regeneration efforts with tree planting, among other elements.

With more than 61,000 solar panels installed at the North Island plant, the farm’s 55 GWh of power annually will flow to residential and commercial energy consumers, including all of the stores in New Zealand’s Warehouse Group, which is signed up to Lodestone’s phase 1 portfolio.

Lodestone Energy is New Zealand’s first utility-scale solar generation company and is wholly New Zealand-owned. About 80% of New Zealand’s electricity is from renewable sources, most of which is hydro generation, and less than 1% is generated by solar power. This looks set to change as the field of solar energy slowly ramps up in Aotearoa.

This week, The New Zealand Herald reported that a smaller solar farm has also started generating power.  The Te Ihi o te Rā solar facility has just started generating power in Gisborne’s airport district on the mid-east coast of the north island. The solar farm produces enough power for 1,000 homes, with about 7,300 MW of electricity produced annually.

A Finnish-Norwegian research group has investigated model chains for horizontal-to-vertical solar irradiance conversion in east-west oriented vertical PV systems located at high latitudes. They have found that accuracy and bias of the model chains are different for the east and west sides of solar array.

An international research team led by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has developed a new methodology to identify the most effective model chains to estimate solar irradiance in east-west oriented vertical bifacial photovoltaics at high latitudes.

The scientists explained that previous studies focused on the validation of a specific step of a given model chain, and said their work, by contrast, considered the whole model chain and the impact of the combination of different models on the accuracy of the final results.

“This study aims to contribute to filling up the literature gap in solar irradiance modeling considering high-latitude locations and irradiation on eastwards and westwards vertically oriented PV surfaces,” they explained. “By reviewing the state-of-the-art decomposition and transposition models, 29 decomposition and 25 transposition models are chosen for detailed evaluation through model chains.”

The group tested its approach on an east-west oriented vertical bifacial PV system located in Turku, Finland. It implemented the modeling in six steps consisting of data acquisition, review of existing solar decomposition and transposition models, implementation of the models’ library, initialization of the model chains, experimental validation, and inter-model chain comparison.

The academics considered 725 possible combinations of the decomposition and transposition models for both sides of the PV installation.

The performance of these models was then compared to that of benchmark models used to estimate the solar irradiance on inclined surfaces. They also created a dataset with the data required to initialize the model chains considering solar zenith and azimuth angles, air mass, and angle of light incidence, as well as to validate their results.

Through its analysis, the research team came to the conclusion that identifying a single model chain that can perform the best, regardless of the system orientation, is a difficult task at high latitudes. “Model chains optimally operating for the East side of the panel achieve a different level of accuracy when modeling solar irradiance impinging on the West side,” it added.

The researchers recommended using two different model chains for the front and rear sides of the vertical PV system.

“Models from the families of Yang and Perez should be preferred for the solar decomposition stage when assessing the West side of the system,” they said referring to models adopted in previous literature. “Erbs models and Perez family of models should be preferred for the solar decomposition stage when assessing the East side of the system.”

They also added that the so-called Hay and Steven transposition models should be preferred for the west and east sides of the system, respectively.

They introduced the new methodology in the study “Validation of model chains for global tilted irradiance on east-west vertical bifacial photovoltaics at high latitudes,” published in Renewable Energy. The research group includes scientists from the University of Turku and the Turku University of Applied Sciences (TUAS) in Finland.

“To enhance the accuracy of the results from solar analysis, there is a need for a metamodel-based approach that can apply different model chains according to a parameter, such as the angle of incidence or the geometry of the investigated surface,” they concluded.

Other scientists from the University of Turku in Finland have recently created a new method to calculate performance loss rate (PLR) in vertical bifacial PV systems. This metric is commonly used by project developers to assess the expected power output of a PV system over its installed life.

The same research group unveiled in July a methodological workflow to boost electricity yield in bifacial vertical PV systems that are connected to low-voltage (LV) grids located at high latitudes and have different panel locations, orientations, and technologies.

California should put front-of-the-meter distributed solar on an equal footing with transmission-connected utility-scale solar and behind-the-meter solar, say several US advocacy groups.

From pv magazine USA

The groups propose an approach they call the “Max DG Pathway,” which would maximize cost-effective solar on the built environment, including warehouses, shopping malls, schools, parking lots, irrigation canals and highway rights-of-way. They have said that several studies have evaluated the technical potential to deploy solar on such sites.

The groups backing the proposal include The Climate Center, Center for Biological Diversity, Local Government Sustainable Energy Coalition, and Vote Solar. They submitted comments to three state agencies that are evaluating pathways to achieve the state’s clean electricity goal.

On sites in the built environment with suitable solar exposure, a “small-to-medium-size” utility-scale solar array could be deployed, probably with co-located storage, the groups say. Each solar array on the built environment would have its own front-of-the-meter (FTM) utility interconnection, even if it is physically located on the premises of an end-use customer.

The sizes of these arrays “would generally be appropriate for distribution-system interconnections,” the groups said. The solar developer could earn revenues through a power-purchase agreement with a load-serving entity, or through some other business model.

Maximizing cost-effective FTM solar and storage, the groups said, could supply a substantial amount of renewable electricity without triggering land-use concerns or other sources of public opposition, while reducing the costs of transmission upgrades and providing valuable local benefits.

Those local benefits include resilience benefits from incorporating FTM solar plus storage as grid-forming resources in community microgrids, the groups said. The resources could be developed under local, municipal or tribal ownership models “that help build community wealth and advance energy justice.”

To continue reading, please visit our pv magazine USA website.

The new product utlizes propane refrigerant with a lower global warming potential and has a seasonal coefficient of performance (SCOP) of over 5. According to the manufacturer, it can achieve a flow temperature of 75 C and 100% heating output at outside temperatures of -15 C.

South Korean electronics manufacturer LG has launched this week a new version of its Therma V R290 Monobloc residential heat pump.

“Our brand new Therma V R290 Monobloc air-to-water heat pump (AWHP) has been radically redesigned to help you install and maintain with speed, flexibility and simplicity,” the manufacturer said in a statement. “It is engineered to operate at peak capacity and efficiency, even in the harshest climatic conditions, with temperatures plummeting as low as -15 C.”

BloombergNEF says historically low module prices will drive the global solar industry to record installations in 2023.

From pv magazine USA

BloombergNEF has released its updated solar market outlook for 2023, projecting that 413 GW of module capacity will be installed this year. This capacity will mostly be driven by China’s contribution of 240 GW, along with strong growth in many other global regions.

The quarterly update was provided via Bloomberg’s podcast “Switched On” in the episode, “Solar supply glut crushes margins but buildout booming.”

If the world does install 413 GW of solar, we will have witnessed a growth of over 58% from the 260 GW installed in 2022, which itself marked an almost 42% increase from the 183 GW installed in 2021. During this two year period, the world will have experienced 125% growth, indicating that a doubling of deployed annual capacity occurred in around one and a half years.

This capacity growth will be driven by several factors. Foremost is China, which has driven the price of solar modules toward $0.10/W.

To continue reading, please visit our pv magazine USA website.

Toyo Solar, a subsidiary of Vsun Solar, commissioned a 4 GW TOPCon cell factory, completing the first phase of an 8 GW manufacturing facility in Vietnam.

Toyo Solar, a subsidiary of Vietnamese solar manufacturer Vsun Solar completed the construction of a 4 GW TOPCon cell factory in the Hoà Phú Industrial Zone in the Bắc Giang province, in the northeast part of Vietnam.

The company said the facility represents the first phase of a project to build a cell factory with a total capacity of 8 GW. The $200 million facility is expected to reach completion in 2024.

Toyo Solar claims its TOPCon cells have a power conversion efficiency of 24.3% with a cell-to-module power retention ratio of over 99.8%.

Vsun is a unit of Japan-based electrical equipment company Fuji Solar Co Ltd and was founded in 2015. It currently also operates another cell and module factory in Vietnam's Bắc Giang province.

State Grid Corp. of China has commissioned a 1.2 GW pumped hydro project, featuring three 300 MW turbines.

State Grid Corp. of China, the nation's largest state-owned grid operator and power utility, has inaugurated the Fukang pumped-storage power station in northwest China's Xinjiang region.

The plant features three 300 MW turbines and has a total capacity of 1.2 GW, the company said in a press release, noting that the facility is the first of its kind in northwestern China. It said the turbines will be put into operation one after another in early 2024. Construction began in October 2020.

“The Fukang pumped-storage power station can significantly improve Xinjiang's power grid regulation capacity and energy supply,” State Grid said. “It can ensure the stable delivery of large-scale new energy, and generate an additional 2.6 billion kWh of new energy annually.”

In January 2022, the company commissioned China's largest pumped hydro project – the 3.6 GW Fengning Pumped Storage Power Station in Hebei province. The construction of the $1.87 billion project, which was implemented in two 1.8 GW phases, was started by engineering company China Gezhouba in 2014.

According to the National Energy Administration, China is targeting 62 GW of operational pumped-hydro facilities by 2025 and 120 GW by 2030.

AmpIn Energy Transition says it plans to invest $372 million to set up more than 600 MW of renewable energy projects and an integrated 1.3 GW solar cell and module factory in eastern India.

From pv magazine India

AmpIn Energy Transition, formerly Amp Energy India, has announced plans to invest $372 million in solar generation and manufacturing in eastern India.

AmpIn said it plans significant renewable-energy investments in West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh.

The company purportedly has the largest solar open-access portfolio in eastern India, at 200 MWp. It said it also has the largest utility power purchase agreement (PPA) with CESC for a 250 MWp wind-solar hybrid project, and the largest behind-the-meter industrial solar project of 10.5 MW.

“Time has come for the Eastern region which is the home of coal to embrace renewable energy. Our investment in the region marks a significant milestone in our mission to drive the transition to renewables in the region,” said AmpIn Energy Transition CEO Pinaki Bhattacharyya. “The integrated solar cell and module manufacturing capacity that we are establishing in the region, would strengthen the push to renewables.”

Graphite Energy, a thermal storage company, is building a facility in Australia to demonstrate how renewable energy and agriculture can co-exist through agrivoltaic and greenhouse systems.

From pv magazine Australia

Startup Graphite Energy has started building the first stage of a renewable agriculture facility in central New South Wales. The AUD 29 million ($19.0 million) facility is a collaboration between Graphite Energy and Cygnus AG.

Graphite Energy does not appear to have been on the scene for very long, but it says it has developed a proprietary thermal energy storage system for the decarbonization of industrial and manufacturing operations. It is not clear yet how this technology will work within the facility, but presumably it will store solar energy.

Graphite Energy said the facility includes 5 MW of solar to be combined with “multiple forms of integrated energy storage,” as well as batteries, thermal energy storage for heating, cooling and drying, and hydrogen for diesel substitution.

The project aims to be a replicable pilot for Australia and abroad to demonstrate how renewable energy and agriculture can coexist, “using industry advancements to enable renewable energy sources without forgoing farmland,” said Graphite Energy.

Taking a rigorous approach to inspection is crucial across the energy storage supply chain. Chi Zhang and George Touloupas, of Clean Energy Associates (CEA), explore common manufacturing defects in battery energy storage systems (BESS') and how quality-assurance regimes can detect them.

From pv magazine 11/23

CEA started developing energy storage services in 2015, at a relatively early stage in the storage industry. The company foresaw the growth potential of stationary energy storage as a critical enabler of the renewable energy transition and a valuable asset for grid operators.

In the last eight years we have seen battery cells scaling from below 100 Ah to today’s 300-plus Ah; systems transforming from 12-meter, walk-in containers to today’s highly integrated, energy-dense modular cabinets; and the advent of liquid-cooled systems necessitated by big cells.

Battery suppliers have created specialized cell formats and chemistries for the stationary BESS sector, versus using electric vehicle cells in grid storage systems, as in the early days. We have also witnessed the transition of BESS' from a nickel, cobalt, and manganese (NCM) battery cell chemistry – mainly supplied by South Korean and Japanese manufacturers – to lithium ferrous phosphate (LFP) devices, exclusively supplied by Chinese manufacturers. Other storage technologies, such as flow batteries, have yet to make a breakthrough and take a slice of the market from lithium-ion batteries (LIBs).

Rapid change

Overall, the industry is very different from a few years ago. This has brought significant challenges, exacerbated by a high growth rate. LIB chemistries have inherent limitations and violating them can lead to excessive degradation that almost invariably results in uncontrolled thermal runaway.

Manufacturing defects, as well as electrical, thermal, or mechanical abuses, can push battery cells into thermal runaway. In the best-case scenario, safety systems will prevent propagation of a fire, leading to the incapacitation of only part of a system. A worst-case scenario could see several containers burn, resulting in lengthy system downtime. Moreover, the complexity found in various subsystems creates additional points of failure that can lead to cell abuse and thermal runaway. A battery fire is the nightmare scenario that any BESS owner or operator wants to avoid at all costs, as it leads to significant reputational and financial damage and lengthy operational disruption.

CEA has been focusing on efficiently identifying the manufacturing risks associated with all levels of an energy storage system, through our quality assurance services. This work includes identifying risks across cell, module, rack, and containerized systems.

Quality in numbers

Since 2018, CEA’s team of engineers has been conducting quality assurance inspections across more than 26 GWh of lithium-ion energy storage projects deployed worldwide. Our quality assurance inspections are performed before production, at pre-production factory audits; during production, through in-line production monitoring; and after production via pre-shipment inspection and factory acceptance testing. More than 1,300 findings have been identified during CEA’s oversight at 52 factories globally. In this context, a finding is an issue identified during inspection that indicates deviation from standard best practice, process deviations, or product specifications.

Most industry newcomers overly focus on cell quality and don’t pay close enough attention to integration issues as cells are packaged into modules, racks, and containers. System level issues account for 47% of those identified, compared to 30% at the cell level and 23% at the module level. A battery cell’s complex manufacturing process, and high-performance sensitivity with respect to the robustness of the quality control system, make it the single-most risk-prone component within a BESS. But there are so many other components included in a containerized system that most risks come from the non-cell portions of the BESS. The large number of system-level findings is due to inadequate quality control of highly manual integration processes, the complex nature of energy storage systems, and system vulnerability to underlying problems originating from upstream components such as balance-of-plant (BOP) items and batteries. As the last step of the BESS manufacturing process, system integration can amplify underlying issues at sub-system levels and is vulnerable to additional quality and performance risks at the interfaces between sub-systems.

System-level problems

In integration factories, energy storage systems are built with many moving parts, a fact reflected by the large number of CEA findings on system enclosures – amounting to 45% of the total system-level findings (see chart to the left). However, the majority (84%) of the enclosure findings are minor and pose relatively low risk to system performance and safety. Enclosure inspection comprises visual inspection of appearance, strength and rigidity, wiring and cabling, grounding mechanism, and ingress performance.

The supporting components and system that form the BOP for a BESS consists of a fire detection and suppression system, a power distribution set-up and a thermal management system. A BESS is inherently vulnerable to defects originating from all upstream components and this is attested by the large number of direct findings in the BOP. The findings in sub-systems are typically caused by sub-component defects and bad practice during system integration. Representative findings include liquid coolant leakage due to deformed flange plates, malfunctioning gas sensors, ventilation failure due to incorrect installation, and live conductor exposure within AC/DC distribution.

Performance test findings contribute only 4% to the total number of system-level findings as capacity and round-trip efficiency (RTE) tests are procedurally straightforward and have explicit pass and fail criteria. In the worst cases, where a system fails both capacity and RTE tests, only two findings will be recorded. However, performance test findings indicate high risk as they are directly linked to system performance guarantees, and the root causes of any failed test usually point to a larger and deeper problem upstream.

Baseline performance tests are crucial to identifying system deficiencies, confirming contractually-promised metrics, and offering one last opportunity to rectify quality and performance issues. Between the two performance tests, a higher percentage of major and critical issues are found during the RTE test, which measures DC system cycling efficiency, excluding auxiliary loads. This is the most challenging test that shows how efficiently batteries have been assembled electrically. Capacity tests are at a more fundamental level and the risk of capacity shortfalls are usually hedged by an implicit rule in battery cell design – that is, to oversize capacity by around 5% at the cell level.

Underachieving system efficiency and capacity is often due to either batteries or BOP systems. The more common findings include underachieving capacity and RTE, resulting from abnormally large temperature and voltage variations among cells within a battery module; charging or discharging failure due to wiring issues in a battery rack’s high voltage boxes; and thermal runaway initiated in one of the battery modules by internal short circuiting.

Cells and modules

Battery-related findings are identified at cell and module factories during the manufacturing and integration processes of the respective components.

The cell is where the electrochemical reactions take place at a nanoscale. Rigorous process control is required to avoid internal short circuiting caused by quality issues. The lengthy manufacturing process and high sensitivity to the storage, packaging, and shipping conditions of battery cells leads to a larger number of findings, compared with battery modules.

The overall cell manufacturing process can be divided into three stages: electrode manufacturing, cell assembly, and cell finishing. Cell assembly processes contain a larger number of findings with higher severity due to their close causal relationship with internal short circuiting. As battery cells evolve to 300 Ah, or even higher capacity levels, it is expected the associated risks will be aggravated due to higher requirements for burr size and foreign particle control during the cell assembly processes.

Similar to the system integration process, battery modules involve highly manual production processes including cell installation, interconnection welding, enclosing, and end of line testing. Cell installation and interconnection welding are responsible for 86% of all battery module-related findings.

Battery cell installation starts with polarity verification, with the cells then placed into brackets that have thermal insulation layers applied in between. Interconnection welding connects cells electrically into the designed configuration. The large number of findings in these two areas is mainly due to imprecision in material handling and welding quality control. Regarding the interconnection welding process, the majority of such findings are major and are caused by poorly defined welding procedures and sloppy operations.

Reducing risk

The rapid pace of battery technology advancement means new risks are being introduced across the supply chain. Accordingly, a multi-stage quality control approach should start from risk assessment at the early stages of the procurement process.

The assessment should identify specific risks associated with project design and use cases, which should inform battery requirements. During production, quality assurance should be executed under close scrutiny to ensure all previously identified risks are covered.

One key takeaway from our 26-plus GWh quality assurance track record is that sometimes even perfect system test results cannot guarantee ongoing performance and reliability once systems are put into operation. Any given energy storage system is only as good as the pass criteria outlined in the supplier’s quality control checklist. We have seen performance test failures due to testing equipment limitations, round-trip efficiency targets that are set too low and do not conform to performance guarantees, temperature and voltage variations that are not monitored and analyzed, untested battery management system control functions, and more. Some of these problems can be addressed in the early procurement stage by conducting a gap analysis of a supplier’s quality assurance and testing protocols.

Ensuring the reliability and performance of BESS' requires a continual process of reassessment. There should be frequent updates to quality-inspection best practice, risk tracking, and prioritization and development of mitigation approaches. The prize for buyers adhering to a multi-stage quality assurance approach is a safe battery system that performs as expected.

About the authors: George Touloupas is the senior director of technology and quality for solar and storage at CEA. He has more than 12 years' experience in technical consulting for PV manufacturing, project development, and solar and energy storage projects.

Chi Zhang is a senior engineer at CEA. His research focuses on energy storage and green hydrogen.

India installed 8.5 GW of solar capacity from January to September 2023, down 25% year on year, with a projected total of 11 GW for the 12 months to the end of December.

From pv magazine India

India installed about 8.5 GW of solar capacity in the first nine months of 2023, which is about 25% less than the PV installations during the same period in 2022, according to a new report by JMK Research.

The 8.5 GW of capacity additions included 5.06 GW of utility-scale solar, 3 GW of rooftop solar, and 0.4 GW of off-grid solar. Utility-scale solar installations in the January-September period fell 84% to 5.06 GW, from 9.3 GW installed during the same period in 2022. Rooftop solar installations, on the other hand, rose to 3 GW.

In the wind segment, 2.28 GW of new capacity was added from January to September 2023. This is 123% higher than the 1.02 GW capacity installed in the first nine months of 2022, according to JMK Research.

Mito Solar, a Dutch developer of lightweight PV modules, has developed a laminate film to boost the power generation capacity of specialty solar panels, such as those installed on solar racing cars and boats. The company claims the film may improve a module's power conversion efficiency by up to 1%.

Netherlands-based Mito Solar, a developer of high-end custom solar modules, has launched Skylar, a film that is applied atop finished modules as a power conversion efficiency booster. The product was onboard several of the top Challenger class finalists in this year's Bridgestone World Solar Challenge.

“It was field proven in five of the top six finalist racing cars at the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge in Australia this year. They were using a variety of PV cell technologies,” Jules van Haaren, Mito Solar co-founder, told pv magazine.

For example, the Skylar film was used in the Oxford PV silicon-perovskite tandem PV panel onboard the Top Dutch Solar Racing race car. It was also paired with panels based on Maxeon Sunpower cells onboard the Belgian Innoptus Solar Team car and the Solar Team Twente entry from the Netherlands, along with Meyer Burger heterojunction modules aboard Brunel Solar Team’s entry.

“Despite the robust module encapsulation, our foil was still able to contribute to a higher power conversion efficiency,” said van Haaren.

Under standard testing on a range of cell technologies laminated with 200 mn to 400 mn encapsulants, an increase in absolute efficiency of about 1% can be achieved, according to the company. It evaluated the film with a variety of cell types achieving similar results, including multi-junction Azur Space 3G30C cells, single-junction Alta Devices thin-film cells, and the aforementioned Maxeon Sunpower cells.

Supporting angles of up to 90 degrees, Skylar purportedly reduces reflection losses, while capturing light reflected from inside the module.

It is suited for challenging irradiance conditions and mobile-integrated PV applications. But it is not suited for residential or ground-mounted applications, stressed van Haaren who explained that while the film can be modified to cope better with water and dust, it is not meant for use in residential or mainstream PV markets due to its textured surface which can potentially trap dust.

The solar racing world is where Skylar has first adopters, but it may find its next application on PV panels installed onboard drones and long-endurance aircraft operating at high altitudes. “These are applications where performance and weight really matter. With our technology they can, for example, have a higher payload,” said Van Haaren.

In addition to Skylar and waterproofing films, four-year-old Mito Solar produces a range of standard and flexible modules, typically based on Maxeon Sunpower cells, that it customizes for its transportation and leisure industry customers.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.

The price of wafers this week notched upward slightly as a result of the US dollar's weakening relative to the Chinese yuan.

FOB China prices of Mono PERC M10 wafer increased by 0.68%, or $0.002 per piece (pc), to $0.295/pc this week, while Mono PERC G12 prices increased by 0.49%, or $0.002/pc, to $0.412/pc.

Currency fluctuations aside, the dynamics underlying China’s domestic market remained the same, leading to a continuation of the flat trend in the EXW wafer prices in the China domestic market for the second week running. The prices of Mono PERC M10 and G12 wafers remained stable at about CNY2.38 ($0.33)/pc and CNY3.32/pc, respectively.

Recently, low operating rates resulted in greater manufacturing costs for wafer producers, according to an integrated manufacturer. Now that wafer inventories have somewhat dropped, wafer makers are keen to increase their operating rates, the source continued.

There have been recent talks about wafer producers raising their operating rates and buying polysilicon at a faster rate due to the industry-wide sentiment that the price of polysilicon is about to bottom out. However, OPIS learnt from its market survey that the operating rates at wafer companies did not significantly grow, as production costs would decrease but losses would accumulate with unsold wafers.

According to a cell supplier, the consumption of inventories of good-quality wafers has slowed as some cell producers have been buying wafers of reduced quality. This may resonate with a few downstream users who have been worried about the impact that this cost war may have on module quality for 2024.

There are no profitable wafer companies currently, and some small-size wafer factories in China have closed, according to a market observer. Some wafer businesses are looking for chances to establish manufacturing facilities overseas in order to survive, the source continued.

Another source from upstream concurred, stating that wafer manufacturers would find it challenging to turn a profit in the near future. As a result, this source does not anticipate a notable increase in the operating rates of wafer companies, since more production entails higher losses.

Looking ahead, the industry expectation points to stable wafer prices, in equilibrium between weak demand and steady polysilicon and crucible cost.

OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides energy prices, news, data, and analysis on gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, LPG/NGL, coal, metals, and chemicals, as well as renewable fuels and environmental commodities. It acquired pricing data assets from Singapore Solar Exchange in 2022 and now publishes the OPIS APAC Solar Weekly Report.

Hail losses in the United States exceeded $1 billion in 2021.

From pv magazine USA

Soltec, a Spain-based solar tracking solution provider, has released a new hail defense algorithm to mitigate damage to solar facilities.

Hailstorms, often unpredictable in nature and destructive to solar panels, pose a challenge to solar infrastructure. In 2021, hail-related losses exceeded $1 billion across the United States.

A pv magazine USA webinar session revealed that hail-risk mitigation is a common problem in “Hail Alley,” a broad region encompassing around six states from the Dakotas to Texas, which often experience five or more days each year of catastrophic hail. Climate change has created patterns of irregularity as extreme weather increasingly crops up in regions bordering hail-prone regions.

Soltec’s research reveals that the risk of module damage due to hail impact is most often due to the direct and perpendicular strike of hailstones to the front glass of the module.

The company introduced its Hail Algorithm, combining prediction and detection to direct the panels to angle at a stowed position, protecting them from direct impacts on the face of the module. Stowed solar panels are angled steeply when a hail event is predicted or detected, leading to lowered risk of damage.

Dutch fund manager DIF Capital Partners has signed an agreement to purchase a majority of Dutch solar project developer Novar for an undisclosed sum.

Dutch investment fund Capital Partners will purchase a 60% share of the Dutch developer of solar, Novar, the companies announced earlier this week.

The transaction, dependent on regulatory approvals, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2023. The financial terms of the transaction were not revealed.

DIF Capital Partners said in a press release that it will provide growth capital to support Novar’s utility-scale solar, rooftop solar and battery energy storage systems (BESS) portfolio, “among others.”

Novar owns and operates 440 MW of utility-scale PV, rooftop solar and storage projects, with 15 GW more in development, according to the press release.

One of these projects includes what is claimed to be the largest private grid project in the Netherlands, which will provide grid connection for several large-scale solar and storage projects, and the first Dutch solar thermal and green hydrogen projects, the companies said in the announcement.

Sax Power has developed a 5.8 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery, priced at €4,957 ($5,403) for end customers, with a smart meter for precise electricity delivery.

From pv magazine Germany

German battery supplier Sax Power has developed a new lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) storage system for residential applications. The company said it launched the product after running tests with more than 1,000 storage systems used by more than 300 customers.

The battery does not require an inverter and can be plugged into a secured household socket. Its capacity is 5.8 kWh and its efficiency rate is 99%, said the manufacturer.

Up to three of the battery packs can be installed in a household. End customers who are exempt from VAT can order the storage systems from German distributors and installers for €4,957 .

The new product includes a smart meter that is placed between the battery and the electricity meter. It communicates with the storage device via a LORA wireless connection or an RS485 cable connection and measures the amount of electricity the household uses in real time. This is how the smart meter regulates the delivery of electricity.

The core component of the storage is the digital control of the battery cells, which converts DC voltage directly into AC voltage, which makes the use of an inverter unnecessary.

The required household AC voltage is achieved by accumulating the cell voltages into a sinusoidal shape. The company said its patented circuit allows the cells to work independently of one another and optimally balance the state of charge within a storage unit or during subsequent expansion. The charge imbalance leads to a shortened lifespan for conventional home storage systems.

Sax Power said its product features cobalt-free lithium iron phosphate cells. In addition, the individual monitoring and switching of the battery cells enables the cells to be completely switched off and separated within 0.0002 seconds.

This mostly eliminates the risk of fire and explosion, the manufacturer said. After switching off, the entire system is below the safety voltage, which eliminates any risk for the installer and the customer during maintenance work.

Inion Software, a Lithuanian PV power plant equipment specialist, has unveiled a platform that combines model-based performance forecasting with plant monitoring functionality. It offers insights based not only on production data, but also weather data, along with site parameters and PV capacity information.

Lithuania-based Inion Software has launched a new platform suitable for PV plants up to 2 GW. It claims to deliver improved analytics and asset insights to enable productivity and profitability improvements based on the developers’ idea that merely relying on performance data from equipment inside the plant, such as inverters, is not enough to uncover technical issues, environmental influences, or underperforming PV plant equipment.

The solution has both a forecasting and diagnostic functionality. “If the model predicts a higher amount of energy than the system produced, then the team can dig deeper into the data indexed and stored in the platform to find out why shortfalls occur,” Robertas Janickas, Chief Technology Officer at Inion Software told pv magazine, adding that shortfalls can be caused by faults in the solar power plant, soiling, or environmental factors, for example.

The software relies on statistical models, deep learning, and machine learning technology to process data generated by PV plant hardware, such as inverters, power plant controllers (PPC), and data loggers. Additionally, weather data parameters, such as temperature, precipitation, cloud cover, and sun position from multiple meteorological data can be used to determine the most accurate forecasts.

Furthermore, the productivity of nearby solar power plants can be accessed to make comparisons with similar sites. “We have a client that discovered exactly how much revenue they were missing out on when two out of three of their identical power plants were underperforming in the early morning hours compared to the third one, even though they were located near each other,” explained Janickas.

The platform is available on a subscription basis from Inion Software or via its distribution partners.

Customers include Romania-based solar plant developer Volter, Spanish photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) panel maker Abora Solar, Lithuanian module manufacturer Solitek, and Ecooo Revolución Solar, a Spanish community solar plant developer.

The company was founded in 2019 to focus on products for solar power plant operators, such as data loggers, the Inion analytics platform, and a battery management system, which extends the capabilities of standard battery storage solutions. “The key feature of all our products is they are made to outperform the existing tools. For example, most data loggers take reading every 5 minutes. Ours track the status every 60 seconds,” said Janickas.

More than 1 GW of firmed storage capacity is set to be delivered by six winning projects from a recent tender in the Australian state of New South Wales. Akaysha Energy’s 415 MW/1,660 MWh battery in Wellington and AGL’s 500 MW/1,000 MWh Liddell battery are the round’s two biggest projects.

From pv magazine Australia

The winners of Australia’s biggest storage tender to date have been announced by the state and commonwealth governments, who opted to join the Long-Term Energy Service Agreements (LTESA) and Capacity Investment Scheme auctions into one super tender.

It resulted in six projects being selected to deliver a total of 1,075 MW of firmed capacity and 2,790 MWh of storage. The six winning projects include:

• Akaysha Energy’s 415 MW/1,660 MWh Orana battery
• AGL Energy’s 500 MW/1,000 MWh Liddell battery
• Iberdrola Australia’s 65 MW/130 MWh Smithfield Sydney battery
• Enel X Australia is set to deliver three separate virtual power plants through a demand response project totaling 95 MW of capacity

The projects are targeting commercial operations by December 2025 – the year the state’s biggest coal plant, the 2.88 GW Eraring facility, is scheduled to close. Its closure is set to open up a major energy supply and reliability gap in the state. New South Wales Energy Minister Penny Sharpe said specifically that the six projects will help to ensure “we do not need [Eraring] to be open one day longer than they need.”

The successful projects are required to deliver at least half their capacity in the event of a supply shortfall declared by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO). The projects from this tender alone are equal to 8% of the total 2022-23 New South Wales summer peak demand. They are underpinned by a 10-year agreement with government.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Minister Sharpe said part of the reason why the governments expect these projects to be able to be commercially operating within two years is because “they don’t rely on those very big transmission projects that we’re working with.”

In recent years, shuttered power plants like Liddell have become extremely popular sites for battery proposals due to their infrastructure and grid connections.

The tender was run by AEMO Services, acting as the New South Wales Consumer Trustee. The auction originally sought 380 MW of firming infrastructure and demand response from the market but was expanded to 930 MW after the federal government came onboard to support an additional 550 MW through its own storage tender scheme, known as the Capacity Investment Scheme.

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