The European solar trade body expects 128 GW of new PV capacity in 2019, with China likely to bring around 43 GW online and Europe experiencing enough demand to deploy about 20.4 GW. In 2020, global solar demand is expected to reach 144 GW, while in the following three years new PV additions are forecast to total 158 GW, 169 GW and 180 GW, respectively.

A research team has applied a waterproof coating obtained from graphite to a perovskite cell intended to power the production of hydrogen underwater. The cell is said to have worked underwater longer than expected.

And the analyst expects that annual new additions figure to rise to 10.6 GW in 2025. This year the U.S. will surpass South Korea as the largest storage market due to new capacity for solar-plus-storage projects. In Japan and Australia, growth will be spurred by the termination of FIT programs.

The Japanese multinational will transfer its Panasonic Energy Malaysia unit to Chinese heterojunction module provider GS-Solar as part of a broader cooperation agreement. Panasonic’s solar R&D business will form part of a JV in Japan to be 90% owned by GS-Solar.

According to the Korean manufacturer, its Q.Peak Duo-G6 module is produced with larger wafers than those used in the G5. This is said to increase module yield by around 6% for a power output ranging from 355-420 W.

The Chinese string inverter giant was the world’s biggest supplier for the fourth year in a row, despite ceding 4% of its global market share, according to analyst Wood Mackenzie. Asia-Pacific was again the largest inverter market, accounting for 64% of global shipments.

The result was certified by the solar cells laboratory at the calibration and test center of Germany’s Institute for Solar Energy Research. Imec’s measurements showed cell bifaciality surpassed 80%.

The addition of either salt enables more even distribution of halide atoms within the perovskite material – key to increasing cell conversion efficiency. The explanation should speed up the process of identifying the best perovskite mixes.

According to the Silver Institute, demand for the precious metal in the solar industry will remain stable up to 2022, despite recent changes in China’s PV policy.

Dutch researchers have come up with a system they claim has a maximum estimation error of less than 10% and which reduces the computational requirements for calculating the output of PV systems in complex environments. The approach is based on the correlation between a skyline’s profile and annual irradiation.