In case you missed it: Five big solar stories in the news this week
pv magazine USA spotlights news of the past week including market trends, project updates, policy changes and more.
DOE finalizes $1.45 billion loan guarantee for Qcells’ Georgia solar plant
Qcells aims to reestablish critical parts of the U.S. solar supply chain by manufacturing ingots, wafers, cells, and finished solar modules.
DC Grid debuts off-grid DC solutions to address growing power demand
The newly launched Mountain View, California startup is betting its DC modules can help circumvent interconnection queues.
Off-grid solar-plus-storage could power data centers used for training AI models
Firms building datacenters to train artificial intelligence models could power the centers with high-solar microgrids in the southwest U.S., researchers found. The power demand for such datacenters is estimated at 15 GW to 150 GW by 2030.
Annual lithium-ion demand surpasses 1 TWh for first time
The big milestone comes on the back of a record month for electric vehicle sales and strong battery energy storage system (BESS) deployment. However, EV demand remains far behind BESS with the latter’s impressive growth reaching a year-on-year increase of 175% and cumulative 19.4 GWh deployed in November alone.
PVH introduces U.S.-made solar foundation system
With manufacturing based in Texas, the company reports that this is the first foundation system to meet 100% domestic content standards, thus potentially qualifying for the domestic content adder.
Sunrise brief: Antidumping investigation could more than double cost of U.S. EV battery, energy storage
Also on the rise: Perovskite-silicon solar cell achieves 28.6% efficiency, ready for mass production. Energy experts urge California Governor to reject anti-rooftop solar executive order. And more.
Antidumping investigation could more than double cost of U.S. EV battery, energy storage
Anti-dumping, countervailing duties on battery materials could have serious effects on the EV and energy storage markets, as the battery material and manufacturing markets in the U.S. are still in very early stages.
Arizona rooftop solar customers will have a monthly fee added to their bills in 2025
The Arizona Corporation Commission approved a nominal grid access fee for rooftop solar customers. The charge is a few dollars each month – but utility APS said it wanted the charge to be as high as $88 per month.
PG&E granted loan guarantee of $15 billion from DOE
PG&E believes that investing in infrastructure will help it supply the forecasted load growth, increase electric reliability and reduce costs for its consumers across California.
