As Longi and other solar manufacturers kick off massive growth in hydrogen generation capacity, expect large price decreases resulting from steep learning curves, echoing the rapid advances experienced by the solar power industry since the 1970s.

The hydrogen economy, particularly green hydrogen, has a long growth path ahead.

With installers who cater to African businesses making the headlines this year, Jasper Graf von Hardenberg – whose C&I solar business was recently bought by Shell – explains here how the story of the continent’s commercial and industrial (C&I) solar segment was far from an overnight success.

Faced with undulating terrains, solar PV companies are leveraging modern technologies to achieve terrain flexibility across challenging sites to deliver unmatched efficiency improvement and bring production gains to solar projects.

Robotics is evolving to ease the maintenance of solar power plants. From drones combined with thermal imaging to the robotic cleaning crew for large-scale solar PV plants, automation and robotics are constantly evolving for the cleaning and maintenance of PV plants.

It will be one of the largest and most automated lines in North India, with the capacity to produce higher power modules with larger cells. The first phase will have a production capacity of 500 MW.

When choosing a solar power plant, individuals and businesses pay the most attention to its power – after all, this will determine how much electricity will be produced. Other equipment, systems and sensors that allow monitoring and analysis of the operation of the power plant are often underestimated. But they shouldn’t be: the solar power plant will be used for several decades, so various failures and poor-quality monitoring can have a significant impact on the efficiency of electricity production.

As the PV industry scales to annual terawatt-level production to rapidly curtail the world’s emissions, it will become more challenging to continue the cost reduction trajectory. Increasing module production from current levels of 200 GW to 300 GW to several terawatts each year will consume significantly more material resources than the industry currently uses. This will require consideration of the additional materials to be sourced, writes Alison Lennon, chief scientist at Sundrive Solar and professor at the UNSW’s School of Photovoltaic and Renewable Energy Engineering.

Batteries are set to drive the energy and mobility transitions. Worryingly, when they degrade early or excessively – particularly because of misuse – it can be costly. Claudius Jehle, the CEO of volytica, explains how a better understanding of batteries can prevent expensive mistakes.

Net metering reforms in the US are a missed opportunity to harness residential battery storage, argue researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Compensation rules for residential rooftop solar are evolving toward a model that encourages customers to use battery storage to maximize solar self-consumption. However, is this a good thing? Galen Barbose, Sydney P. Forrester, and Chandler Miller investigate.