2020

France’s Sunbooster has developed a technology to cool down solar modules when their ambient temperature exceeds 25 degrees Celsius. The solution features a set of pipes that spread a thin film of water onto the glass surface of the panels in rooftop PV systems and ground-mounted plants. The cooling systems collect the water from rainwater tanks and then recycle, filter and store it again. The company claims the technology can facilitate an annual increase in power generation of between 8% and 12%.

Disruptions in the industrial and commercial activities due to Covid-19 lockdown have further dented electricity demand in India which already registered a discernible decline in annual electricity demand. India’s electricity demand in the first 11 months of 2019-20 (April 2019-February 2020) grew by 2.2% (to 1191 billion units) compared with 5.4% annual growth in the same months of previous year.

Prospective bidders for 34 MW solar project in Telangana and 14 MW solar plus storage project in Ladakh have been asked to submit any queries online as pre-bid meetings get cancelled due to Covid-19 lockdown. Further, bidding deadline for Ladakh project has been revised to June 1.

Bidding closes on April 29 for supply and installation of minimum cumulative capacity of 23 MVA, which is to be installed for the power generator’s Solapur solar project in the state of Maharashtra.

The Asian Development Bank says developing countries in Asia and the Pacific should consider developing their own solar industry supply chains as the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed their over-reliance on China to carry through the energy transition.

Solar season had already started in the month of March. The demand for solar consumption is the highest during April-June quarter as summer picks up. This is the time when factory runs with full efficiency. India was estimated to install nearly 8 GW of solar panels in 2020, in which 90% consumption happens in utility-scale […]

The project involves laying over 300 km of 765 kV double-circuit transmission lines connecting 765/400 kV Lakadia substation to Vadodara substation in Gujarat.

Planning ahead is crucial to ensure the Indian solar industry bounces back quickly and the slowdown is not carried forward to 2021-22, say BloombergNEF analysts even as they estimate 75% fall in PV imports in the first quarter of year 2020 over the previous quarter and revise annual capacity addition forecasts.

Solar manufacturing’s recent move toward larger wafer/cells throws into focus the need for effective cell-cutting techniques to handle the processing of these cells into half cut or even smaller formats. pv magazine looks at the landscape for cell cutting, as the technology reaches maturity and moves into the mainstream of cell/module production.

The ministry further announced waiver from section 144, Nationwide Lockdown, Curfew, or any other limitation on the number of people required for operation and maintenance of solar power plants. The directive came a day after lobby group National Solar Energy Federation wrote to the ministry asking for waivers.