World

At least 22 people, most of them foreign nationals, were killed in a massive fire at a South Korean factory that manufactures non-rechargeable lithium batteries in Hwaseong city, just south of Seoul. The cause of the blaze is still being investigated.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory noted an increase in spontaneous glass breakage in solar panels. The PV Module Index from the Renewable Energy Test Center investigates this and other glass-related trends in solar manufacturing.

Oxford PV has announced a record-setting 26.9% efficiency for its perovskite tandem module at Intersolar Europe 2024, the continent’s largest solar and energy storage event.

Almost ten years after the “Powerwall 1,” US EV giant Tesla has launched its home battery system, Powerwall 3, in the United Kingdom and Germany. The Powerwall 3 is being officially presented at The smarter E Europe this week.

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.

The plummeting costs of energy storage, driven by China’s relentless price war, are expected to catalyse more economic deployments worldwide. Lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries are surging in market share due to their lower costs and higher cycle life compared to nickel-based lithium-ion batteries.

Reliable assessment of the local solar radiation resource is a major component of large-scale PV power plant project development and financing. This assessment is usually based on the assumption that the long-term average annual solar radiation from previous years is not significantly different from the expected future solar resource availability. In many areas of the globe, the solar radiation availability in 2023 was considerably higher (up to 10-12%) than the long-term average, and this might be overshadowing the fact that a large fraction of utility-scale PV power plants is undeperforming.

California startup Planted Solar uses construction robots and high-density arrays to deliver what the company says are higher energy outputs and lower balance of system costs.

The Chinese back contact module maker said its new products rely on the company’s all-back-contact (ABC) cell technology and feature a temperature coefficient of -0.26% per C.

The Chinese manufacturer said its new Hi-MO X6 Artist series has an efficiency of up to 22.3% and a power output ranging from 420 W to 430 W. The smaller version is currently priced at CNY 298 ($41.7)/m2 and the largest model is sold at CNY 268/m2.