Highlights

Choosing the best material to cover the backside of a module has long been a contentious issue, and the rise of bifacial technology has brought further complexity to the debate. With transparent backsheet materials quickly making their way to market, the Intersolar Europe edition of the Quality Roundtable event series sought to bring some clarity to the rear side of modules, and illuminate some of the issues that can occur in the field – both with glass-glass and glass-backsheet modules.

In addition to accelerated deployment of battery based energy storage systems, the country needs to look at a combination of technologies to manage peak electricity demand whilst maintaining grid stability at least overall cost.

Two related challenges have become barriers to increasing penetration levels for rooftop solar: the hosting capacity of the grid, and the need to maintain stability during periods of peak demand. The Future PV Roundtable, held alongside The smarter E event in Munich, looked at how distributed energy resources such as PV and battery storage, along with demand-side flexibility, can help to meet these challenges – all thanks to VPPs.

Decentralized model of solar project development has avoided the need to spend huge amounts on grid upgrades in India’s newest state. With EV charging plans advancing Telangana now intends to change policy to reflect falling solar costs.

The projects—to be set up on ‘build-own-operate’ basis—will be awarded through bidding followed by reverse auction with tariff ceiling fixed at Rs2.95/kWh for 25 years. Bidding closes on September 25.

Solargiga highlighted the fact safeguarding duty has recently been reduced in India when considering solar opportunities around the world as part of its first-half update to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

The energy storage company is ramping up R&D efforts to try and fast-track commercialization of the more productive – and more expensive – battery tech. The news was announced as part of an uninspiring first-half update thanks to falling lithium salt prices.

The state plans to achieve half the amount by 2021-22 under its new draft solar policy. The package also suggests establishing a research hub, privately financed solar parks and encouraging commercial self-consumption of clean energy.

New analysis predicts more than 150 GW of tracker capacity will be installed in the next five years – around a third of all ground mount projects up to 2024. Rapid growth in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and the better cost structures possible from combining trackers and bifacial modules are singled out as key trends.

Pilot-scale operations at a facility near Mumbai successfully recycled the spent Li-ion batteries. The company seeks to eventually scale up the capacity to recycle 500 tonnes of spent Li-ion batteries.