U.S. withdraws from IRENA
Director-General of the International Renewable Energy Agency, Francesco La Camera, says the “door for continued cooperation remains open” following announcement the United States is withdrawing its membership.
Ascent Solar expands frontiers for thin-film PV in space
Company also seeks terrestrial applications for its lightweight, flexible modules.
Comstock Metals expands solar recycling network with new California center
The company has secured a strategic site in California to process end-of-life photovoltaic modules for the Western United States. It will feed its Nevada facility that is designed to process more than 3 million solar panels annually.
SB Energy secures $1 billion from OpenAI and SoftBank for Stargate datacenter expansion
The investment supports the development of a 1.2 GW AI data center campus in Milam County, Texas, and integrated solar and energy storage infrastructure projects.
2026 National Electrical Code changes: PCS and EMS part 2
Power control and energy management systems (PCS and EMS) are powerful tools that will enable the next generation of electrical systems, and the way they are featured in the 2026 NEC is a testament to the ways they can unlock the capability of distributed energy systems and more fully utilize the capacity of electrical infrastructure.
2026 is set to be a year of reset, repowering, and resilient growth
As the solar industry navigates a transformative 2026, success belongs to the “middle market” innovators and service-driven firms mastering the billion-dollar repowering boom.
Illinois sets energy storage procurement goal
Governor Pritzker signed the Clean and Reliable Grid Affordability Act into law, directing the procurement of 3 GW of energy storage in Illinois over the next two years.
Grid-forming inverters significantly enhance grid stability, national lab finds
The Kauaʻi Island Utility Cooperative in Hawaii, which deployed storage before grid-forming inverters became available, became a test case for diagnosing grid issues that can arise with older grid-following inverters, and how grid-forming inverters can stabilize a grid.
Solar module efficiency could exceed 35% by 2050
A new Perspectives research study on the future of the global PV supply chain outlines how module prices, performance, and lifetimes could evolve over the next 25 years. The work reflects a collaboration among leading solar research institutions worldwide. One of the study’s authors, the director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE), told pv magazine that solar module and cell efficiencies could exceed 35% by 2050, with panel prices expected to drop by a factor of two.
In case you missed it: This week’s top five solar news stories
pv magazine USA spotlights news of the past week including market trends, project updates, policy changes and more.
