Manufacturing

While ALMM does support domestic manufacturers, this is not a sustained solution considering the wide demand-supply gap. Disincentivising imports could be a workable strategy when there is enough capacity back home.

Reliance New Energy, the new energy arm of Reliance Industries Ltd, has appointed former SunEdison president Hak Do Yoo as chief operating officer for silicon crystal and wafering.

The Genap Energy Cover uses HyET Solar Powerfoil thin-film solar modules, rated at 12.0% efficiency, for agricultural water storage and reservoirs, with an initial focus on the greenhouse and horticulture markets in the Netherlands. Genap said a 12kWp test setup had a generation density of 60W/m2, rising to 120W/m2 within a year, with an eventual target of 165W/m2.

Indian renewable energy developer Greenko Group has partnered with Belgium’s John Cockerill to develop a green hydrogen electrolyzer factory with a capacity of 2GW per annum.  The partnership will also see the two companies jointly develop large-scale green hydrogen projects in India.

Based in Gurugram, the plant will produce customized lithium battery packs for electric vehicles and stationary energy storage applications, including solar. The production capacity will be scaled up to 200MWh/annum by December end.

Stanford researchers develop a device that harvests energy from the temperature difference between the PV cell and the air.

GIZ, Germany’s development agency, has partnered with India‘s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy to follow up on its successful “kW-to-kWh” study, which has become a quality benchmark for MNRE’s projects in India. PI Berlin acted as lead consultant on the project, and Asier Ukar, senior consultant and managing director of PI Berlin S.L., shares some of the key conclusions.

The IIT Kanpur-incubated startup has introduced ZincGel battery technology that offers energy efficiency at par with lithium-ion products but with twice the lifecycle and negligible operational cost, which can lead to significant savings for two-wheeler EV operators.

Tamil Nadu based Next Automation has come up with a tractor-mounted hydraulically operated arm as a fast, accurate, cost-effective, and water-efficient cleaning solution for panels in solar farms.

SMA is offering a new line of four inverters with power ratings of 12kW, 15kW, 20kW and 25kW, for use in rooftop PV systems up to 135kW in size. It claims the inverters provide grid-compliant power control of entire systems and enable over-dimensioning of PV arrays by up to 150%.