World

United Solar Holding has secured more than $900 million to complete the financing required for its 100,000 MT polysilicon manufacturing facility in Oman. Production is expected to begin during the first quarter of this year.

The European Commission is revising its Cybersecurity Act. While presenting the proposals in European Parliament, the commission’s Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen, said dependency on a very limited number of solar inverter suppliers could “pose a significant security risk.”

Iola Hughes, Head of Research at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, tells ESS News that 2026 is set to be another strong year for BESS, with forecast additions exceeding 450 GWh and no material supply constraints in sight. Meanwhile, the initial impact of rising lithium prices is already visible at the cell level, but the full effect has yet to ripple through to system pricing.

Researchers in China developed a novel two dimensional (2D) seeding agent to regulate crystallization in a 1.80-eV wide-bandgap perovskite film. A perovskite-silicon tandem device made with the resulting optimized subcell achieved an efficiency of 31.13%, outperforming a control device.

Egypt’s Kemet has signed three agreements with Chinese companies over the last week, covering plans for a 5 GW solar cell complex, a 5 GWh battery energy storage factory and Egypt’s first solar inverter factory.

Once considered isolated incidents, spontaneous glass breakages in solar modules are becoming more frequent, highlighting the limits of some manufacturing choices and the need for closer quality control.

Joint owners of the 2 GW Al Dhafra solar power plant Abu Dhabi National Energy Company, Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, EDF Power Solutions and Jinko Power, alongside offtaker Emirates Water and Electricity Company, have issued the green bonds to refinance the plant’s existing debt obligations and support its continued operation.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.

A new generation of sodium-ion (Na-ion) battery cells has been launched as an alternative to the virtual monopoly of lithium-ion (Li-ion). Although the technology is unlikely to displace significant Li-ion market share, recent improvements make Na-ion a viable solution for certain niche applications, with potential for wider usage if cost becomes competitive.

The patent infringement case was related to an unspecified TOPCon solar cell technology.