With the inclusion of battery energy storage into new building codes and safety standards, it’s obvious just how mainstream storage is today.

A Spanish start-up has developed a system which offers automated fault detection in solar panels at any scale.

A major advantage of this design is the ability to string cables over a longer distance without the support needed in traditional racking approaches.

The renewables business of the conglomerate will undertake its first project across the border by providing engineering, procurement and construction services on a Rs12.6 crore, 3.1 MW array for a German-Bangladeshi knitwear company which will buy the power generated for Rs5.71518/kWh.

Batteries, and the raw materials that make them, are a frequent target of public criticism. The high water consumption required for lithium extraction is speeding up the desertification process around the salt lakes of Latin America’s so-called “lithium triangle”, for example. The mining debate highlights general problems with the extraction of raw materials, including copper, crude oil, and lithium, but international companies can still influence extraction methods – and there are plenty of different approaches.

pv magazine recently attended the opening ceremony of TBEA’s GW-class new energy equipment manufacturing base in Bangalore–the city that also hosted the recent Intersolar India exhibition and conference in the same week as TBEA’s inauguration ceremony.

The Smart Energy Hub can operate in electrolysis mode to store renewable energy as hydrogen, or in fuel cell mode to produce electricity and heat from previously produced hydrogen or methane. Its developers are the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission and start-up Sylfen.

Industry body Gogla and the World Bank’s Lighting Global program said the last six months set a record for off-grid solar deployment. Solar home systems and other small off-grid appliances are being used in ever larger numbers.

The Chinese manufacturer officially unveiled its high-efficiency product in Melbourne after celebrating a 13.6 MW panel order from the nascent Hungarian PV market.

Although the International Energy Agency’s latest renewables report forecasts impressive solar growth there is still a nagging feeling it has produced conservative estimates and the emphasis on sharing costs with grid operators is predictable.