Think tank Climate Change Authority has signalled that Australia’s electricity and energy sector accounts for 35% of the country’s emissions, with utility-scale solar PV taking an average of two to three years to develop and one and a half years to construct.
The Q3 2024 edition of our downstream solar PV journal, PV Tech Power, is now available to download. Volume 40 focuses on the US grid, and what can be done to reform an ageing grid burdened by a weight of connection requests.
The UK Department for Net Zero and Energy Security (DESNZ) latest Contracts for Difference (CfD) has awarded 3.3GW of solar PV.
The world’s four largest polysilicon producers all recorded net losses in the first half of 2024 because of the ongoing crash in Chinese polysilicon prices.
Australian mining giant Fortescue Metals has said it aims to capitalise on China’s “insatiable demand for green products” through green metals production and exports. The company also aims to fully decarbonise its operations by 2030 via 2-3GW of solar PV and wind generation.
The US added 142,000 jobs to its clean energy sector in 2023, accounting for more than half of all new jobs added to the US energy industry. Solar led the way in this regard, with 18,401 new jobs added to the US electricity generating industry in 2023, a 5.3% year-on-year increase, and more than any other electricity generating technology.
Renewables developer Clearway Energy Group has closed a US$550 million financing facility for a 140MW solar-plus-storage project in California.
Tech giant Microsoft has signed renewable energy agreements in Asia with RenNew Power in India and EDP Renewables in Singapore, totalling 637.6MW.
While there is growing support for new renewable power projects across Europe and the US, these regions could need to announce close to 200GW of new clean energy capacity by 2030 to meet the world’s energy transition goals.
Swiss module manufacturer Meyer Burger will scrap its proposed 2GW solar cell manufacturing plant in Colorado, claiming that the project is “no longer financially viable”.
In Australia, the Victoria government detailed a new decarbonisation plan yesterday (21 August), with the aim of introducing around 7.6GW of rooftop solar PV generation by 2035.
As the solar industry continues to grow and evolve, module blending can offer practical solutions for reducing project cost, particularly as antidumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVD) tariffs could be applied to Chinese products and US domestic content is incentivised. There are strategic considerations for designing and constructing solar sites with blended modules.
