Research finds solar can support bird, bat activities
A pair of research studies led by the Argonne National Laboratory have demonstrated how “ecovoltaic” installations in the midwestern United States are home to more bird and bat activities than nearby fields used for agriculture.
The role of robotics in boosting U.S. solar recycling capacity
Solar recycler OnePlanet will draw on vision-guided robots and automation to scale their River City facility and recover more, purer valuable materials from spent panels.
EVs as key players in distributed energy networks and grid modernization
Nuvve’s new outlook report says V2G projects will be the backbone of battery aggregation efforts.
Agrivoltaics for sorghum and soybeans
Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found that shading from agrivoltaic systems reduces grain numbers in both sorghum and soybean, but sorghum can partially compensate by increasing grain weight while soybean cannot. The study shows that sorghum and soybean respond differently due to their physiology, offering guidance for crop selection and management to minimize yield penalties in agrivoltaics.
Kudos for grid operator SPP’s plan to link transmission planning and interconnection
The Solar and Storage Industries Institute has endorsed SPP’s proposal to reform interconnection by building transmission, identifying promising areas for transmission interconnection, and inviting interconnection applications.
U.S. solar manufacturers ink spacecraft deals
An Arizona manufacturer struck an research agreement with NASA, while a company in Colorado will supply thin-film solar to an unnamed private spacecraft company.
New research shows antimony chalcogenide solar cells are suitable for space use
Researchers in the U.S. tested the degradation of antimony chalcogenide solar cells exposed to proton radiation. The result indicated a robust tolerance and potential for use in space.
DOE removes “renewable” from National Renewable Energy Laboratory
The US Department of Energy (DoE) has renamed the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Colorado as the National Laboratory of the Rockies, a change it says aligns the institute’s mandate with the Trump administration’s applied energy priorities.
Utilities can manage data center demand with focused tariffs and rate design
Enverus report says actions can weed out speculators and shorten interconnection queues.
MIT spin-out 247Solar aims to decarbonize baseload power and industrial heat
The company opened a $25 million Series B funding round to support its concentrated solar power solution that stores and dispatches heat and electricity.
