Residential PV

Sunil Thamaran, India head for USA-headquartered Enphase Energy, explains why microinverters are a good investment for rooftop solar. He also talks about the trends in microinverter design and their company’s India plans.

An international research team has designed a residential solar-plus-storage system based on gravity. The system was built with a solar power generator, a bulk booster charge controller, an inverter, a solenoid device, a deep cycle battery, a pulley block, a geared motor, a microcontroller, and wire ropes. Its creators said the system is ideal for regions with high solar radiation. They found that, due to its high electrical requirements, the system needs to rely on high-power solar modules with an output of over 500 W.

The system, developed by Spanish specialist Alusín Solar, is being tested by Endesa in a 9.8 MW project for self-consumption. The mounting structure is made with aluminum bars that, instead of being fixed to the roof with screws, are attached through a double-sided adhesive.

The global off-grid solar appliance market began an uneven recovery from the worst ravages of the global pandemic in the second half of last year, according to market body GOGLA, but more finance and policy support must be made available to have any chance of achieving universal electricity access this decade.

A well-designed rooftop solar system should last 20 or 30 years, or longer. This guide for choosing the right contractor should help ease your concerns.

A German PV system owner has developed a simple solution intended at preventing the birds from nesting under the modules.

Solar installation surged in the first quarter of 2021, with developers completing their delayed projects from last year.   

Researchers led by the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi have projected the waste expected from end-of-life solar panels and related components. They assumed 347.5 GW of total installed solar generation capacity would be reached this decade. The academics said the waste would include critical metals worth around $645 trillion, 70% of which could be recovered.

The sheer volume of new power lines which will be required to accommodate the rising tide of solar installations ensures copper has been included by the International Energy Agency on its list of minerals which must keep flowing if the energy transition is to stay on course. And it’s not production that’s the potential bottleneck.

A prototype of a cement-based battery has been developed in Sweden for potential applications in buildings. Its creators claim it could become a solution to store electricity from rooftop PV and they do not exclude that it could also be used for the storage of large-scale renewables.