Western Europe

Kaco is launching a mass-produced string inverter with silicon carbide switches onto the market following 10 years of discussion about the technology within the industry. In the 100 kilowatt plus segment, the technology produces small, lightweight devices with few components.

As problems with component failure have already laid bare, there is a clear need for contract clarity at every stage of a PV project, from material and component sourcing to power purchase and operations agreements. Here, pv magazine investigates a little covered issue for module buyers, which could threaten insurance coverage and the overall success of a project further down the line.

Swiss battery maker that intends to bring production lines to Gujarat has been helped along in a planned reduction of its debt pile by its domestic authorities. The way is now clear for a shareholder vote next Tuesday.

As new cell and module concepts move into large-scale production, and efficiencies are pushed ever higher, manufacturers of flash testing equipment must innovate to ensure their tools can provide reliable measurements, and cope with ever expanding production throughput. The expansion of bifacial technology beyond niche applications in particular raises new issues for flash testing standards. pv magazine spoke with several flasher manufacturers to shed light on the latest developments in this segment.

The first companies are demonstrating that today it can be worthwhile commercially to back electric vehicles in combination with solar generation and storage. Particularly in the case of public charging stations, solar power used for electric vehicle charging could become the basis for a profitable operator model in the future.

Historic Swiss brand Leclanché is on an expansionist trail, notably in India and low-carbon shipping, but restructuring its debts will involve ceding even more control of the venerable company to institutional investors.

The research team was able to improve the cell efficiency by 2.1%. The cell silicon layer was etched on the back-side, while a a polymer light management (LM) foil was applied to the front-side of the device.

Controllable, distributed battery storage systems can help avoid bottlenecks in power distribution networks. That reduces the cost of grid expansion, but to turn this use of storage systems into a business model, a number of conditions still have to be met.

The first companies are demonstrating that today it can be worthwhile commercially to back electric vehicles in combination with solar generation and storage. Particularly in the case of public charging stations, solar power used for electric vehicle charging could become the basis for a profitable operator model in the future.

pv magazine interviewed Ricardo Arias González, who holds a PhD in Physical Sciences and introduced the Optical Tweezers applied to biology in Spain. It is one of the tools of photonics for which Arthur Ashkin received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018, together with Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou.