Morning Brief: 110 MW coming to South Dakota, Solar United Neighbors to host second annual Pennsylvania Solar Congress
Also in the brief: SunStreet, Lennar and NAHB to demo solar home at the International Builder’s Show, Powerhome installs largest dealership project in the Midwest, a Lancaster construction company set to get 2 MW installation and more.
Utility-scale solar PPA pricing down 4.7% in 2019, with 13.6 GW of corporate deals signed
LevelTen’s PPA Price Index showed Q4 pricing down 0.9% versus Q3, while BNEF saw nearly 20 GW of solar power corporate PPAs signed globally.
Is California trying to kill the community-scale generation market?
The community-scale market segment has been plagued by ongoing policy neglect, and otherwise poor policy choices. Will policymakers heed the track record of demonstrated failure and finally create new programs that address previous problems?
French solar institute and Enel announce 24.63% efficiency for heterojunction solar cell
The efficiency of the cell, made with a standard M2 wafer, was raised 0.7% by using an improved busbar-free screen printing metallization based on heterojunction processes developed with manufacturing equipment provided by Swiss specialist Meyer Burger.
Coronavirus could cause solar panel price spike
The coronavirus outbreak in China could raise solar module prices in the near term as manufacturers have already begun experiencing wafer and solar glass shortages. Production rates are also being affected by an extended new year holiday introduced by the authorities as a measure to deal with the virus, and the requirement workers from infected areas quarantine themselves for two weeks.
The new SunPower: CEO Tom Werner on disintegrating a PV firm and software eating solar-plus-storage
“It’s what we’ve talked about for many years — it makes sense to produce energy where you use it. And it makes sense that it would be intelligent and easily optimized. The new SunPower will focus exclusively on accomplishing that.”
Morning Brief: Lapetus Solar goes live, Captona acquires 24 MW in New England
Today in the brief: Capital Dynamics signs a 100 MW PPA with The Indiana Municipal Power Agency, regulators approve 149 MW in Wisconsin, Safari Energy completes its 100th project with Extra Space Storage and more.
Hanergy named in class action complaint by ex-employees at Alta Devices
“Hanergy…is not above the rule of law, and this is not China. In abruptly closing the Alta plant, defendants violated the federal and California WARN Acts, which require at least 60 days written notice of termination where a plant is shut down and/or mass layoffs occur.”
Germany added almost 4 GW of PV in 2019
The German network operator reported approximately 339 MW of new solar in December. New installations for 2019 exceeded new capacity additions in 2018 by more than 1 GW.
Hardware Brief: Solar+storage+indoor farming, space robots, battery packs at $135/kWh, more!
Sunmodo’s racking hardware has been approved by Sunnova, Schneider Electric and Scale Microgrid Solutions are partnering up to do some indoor farming, Groundwork rents the machines you need to build and maintain your facilities and more! Also – send your gear news to USA-Editors@pv-magazine.com to get in here.
