First Solar exits the EPC business
Citing the wild success of its Series 6 module, First Solar has announced that it is closing its engineering, procurement and construction business in the United States in order to concentrate on scaling, developing, and selling modules.
Hardware: Q Cell and Solaria all black, Sunfolding’s summer body, NY sheep services, more!
Hardware, get your fresh hardware! SunPower is releasing energy storage, solar module pricing looks flat, and make sure to shake pv magazine hands as we walk the floor at Solar Power International in Salt Lake City next week!
The blackest black for more efficient solar cells
MIT scientists claim to have created a material 10 times more black than anything witnessed to date. It is said to be able to absorb more than 99.96% of incoming light and reflect 10 times less light than other superblack materials. The invention may be interesting for the development of black silicon PV technology and carbon nanotube-based solar cells.
Soltec achieves 16.2% Bifacial Gain, Ohio State makes a potassium battery breakthrough: pvMB 9/18/19
Happy Wednesday, folks and welcome to the pvMB. Today we’ll be checking out 7 Michigan school districts moving to electric bus fleets, Extensible Energy’s virtual battery, net metering protests in The Big Easy and more.
Hardware brief: Sonnen gets smarter, tariffs biting harder, Vikram Solar’s new modules, more!
Only a couple of weeks until Solar Power International when we get to see the hardware in person – but for now, you get us! Kern Solar Structures galvanizes their steel well, a delta between 275 and 310 watt modules, and Solis is launching a utility scale inverter in the USA.
New technologies, new challenges: An interview with Jenya Meydbray of PVEL
In this interview, pv magazine talks with PV Evolution Labs CEO Jenya Meydbray about the new designs including heterojunction that will allow the solar industry to reach higher efficiencies, and the challenges entailed therein.
In lab secrets, Tesla is talking about 20-year lithium ion batteries
Researchers have found that over three years of testing lithium ion NMC532 graphite battery cells have the potential to stay structurally sound long enough for cars to reach greater than 1 million miles, and grid connected energy storage to last more than 20 years under daily use.
Hardware brief: Tesla solar patents, RBI’s “Underground Surety”, solar+storage+SCADA, more!
Hey, when you see me at SPI in Salt Lake City – make sure to show me things to take a picture of so I can get it into the brief! Otherwise, enjoy your weekend and some gear: small scale solar from Morningstar’s SureSine, module pricing trending downward, more!
Electric company pushing electric school buses in Virginia, high speed car charging network in Iowa
Power utilities are continuing a nationwide push for vehicle electrification to grow flat since ~2007 electricity demand, with Dominion Energy now aiming for a 100% electric school bus replacement program, starting with 50 by the end of 2020 in Virginia, along with Mid American pushing for 15 high speed car charging locations across the Iowa utility’s service area.
Yotta gotta lotta $$, module pricing down, insurance for C&I, SMA’s 4.6 MW inverter, more!
As SPI approaches and hardware announcements speed up – we’ll work to keep you up! NREL speeds up ultra-efficiency solar cell manufacturing, SolaRack has a new rooftop attachment seal technique – and it uses 18% less product , APA Solar Racking’s Titan system doing well this year, more!
