Author: solarenergy

By Martin McConnell February 16, 2026 This week on Projects Weekly, Arctic Cold and REC Solar have partnered for a rooftop solar system on a cold storage facility. Also, El Paso Electric Company and Base Power have announced a home battery pilot program, looking to bring up to 10 MW of residential storage to western Texas. Hanwha Renewables and Chrysalis Energy have partnered for a massive solar and storage rollout across North America, with potential to move off the continent as well. WeaveGrid and SolarEdge have partnered for utility-scale solutions from residential batteries. In the northeast, Greenbacker secured funding for the…

Hydrogen bonds, best known for holding water and biomolecules together, now play a powerful role in solar energy conversion as part of a new supramolecular photocatalyst for water oxidation. Researchers from Inner Mongolia University and Tsinghua University report that carefully designed hydrogen bond interactions can reshape charge behavior in organic photocatalysts, opening a route to more efficient artificial photosynthesis. The team constructed a photocatalyst in which hydrogen bonds connect an electron donor, a perylene diimide supramolecule, to an electron acceptor, an aminated fullerene unit. These hydrogen bonds create a highly polarized local environment that improves dielectric shielding and weakens the…

The financing of large-scale BESS in the UK and Europe has evolved significantly in recent years, but challenges remain, particularly around the availability of tolls and fixed income products. That’s one of the key takeaways from the conversations we’ve had with event speakers coming to the Energy Storage Summit 2026 in London next week, February 24-25, including executives from Fidra Energy, Kona Energy, Triple Point, Danske Commodities and ion Ventures. This is a shortened version of a pan-European-looking article that originally appeared on our sister site Energy-Storage.new (Premium access required). Evolution of the European market Britain ended 2025 with over…

Energy company RWE will use Arenko’s asset management platform Nimbus to manage and trade three DC-coupled solar-plus-storage projects in Great Britain, with a total capacity of 150 MW.The partnership builds on the similarity of the two companies collaboration on three further UK solar plus storage projects in 2024. These projects had a total capacity of 165 MW of solar and 55 MW/110 MWh of battery energy storage system (BESS), while the three new ones were reported to have a total of 150 MW without specifying solar and BESS. The 150MW probably refers to the grid connection and solar capacity. However,…

An international research group led by the Slovenian University of Ljubljana has conducted a study on emerging ultra-high temperature heat pump technologies based on solids or gases. All these technologies, which have the potential to reach temperatures up to 1,600 K (1,326.85 C), were assessed in their current state. The team delved into their challenges, described potential solutions, applications, scalability and technology readiness level (TRL) and further presented a roadmap for future development. “The main advantage of these technologies is that they can operate at high temperatures, which not many heat pumps can do,” says Katja Klinar, co-author of the…

Hydrostor has entered into a 50 MW/400 MWh offtake agreement with California Community Power (CC Power) for its Willow Rock Energy Storage Center, providing robust capacity to six members of CC Power’s community choice aggregator. February 16, 2026 Marija Maisch By ESS news Canadian long-term energy storage (LDES) developer Hydrostor has signed a 50 MW/400 MWh offtake agreement with California Community Power (CC Power) for its Willow Rock Energy Storage Center project. The agreement secures storage capacity for six members of CC Power’s community choice aggregator. The 500 MW/4,000 MWh advanced compressed air energy storage facility (A-CAES) is designed to…

SOLRITE Energy has established a new virtual power plant (VPP) offering in the Texas ERCOT market Sun. Up to 60 kWh of solar energy storage per home can be included in the VPP agreement (VPA), receiving an “all-in” retail energy rate of 12¢ per kWh, all for a cost of $20 per month. The SOLRITE sonnen Battery VPA offering is limited to “deregulated utilities” in Texas, including Houston, Corpus Christi and McAllen. Credit: sonnen “SOLRITE’s new battery-only VPA product in Texas represents a significant milestone for the growing VPP market in America,” said Blake Richetta, chairman and CEO of sonnen…

UNSW researchers have developed a thermally aware tracking algorithm that reduces solar module temperatures and UV exposure during inverter clipping and trimming, slowing degradation without reducing AC output. When tested in Chile’s Atacama Desert, the strategy was found to be able to reduce module temperatures by as much as 7.7 degrees Celsius. February 16, 2026 Emiliano Bellini A research team from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has developed a thermally aware tracking algorithm to reduce solar panel temperatures during periods of clipping and curtailment. Inverter clipping occurs when the DC energy from a PV system exceeds the maximum…

Manufacturing the next generation of solar panels could reduce global CO2 emissions by as much as 8.2 billion tonnes by 2035, according to a new international study led by researchers at the University of Warwick with colleagues from the Universities of Northumbria, Birmingham and Oxford. The team explored how the rapid scale-up of advanced photovoltaic technologies can both support global decarbonization and reduce the footprint of solar energy production itself. Solar panels, scientifically known as solar photovoltaics, convert sunlight directly into electricity and are already central to climate mitigation strategies worldwide. As countries deploy solar energy at multi-terawatt scales over…

The Philippines has unveiled plans for the next four green energy auctions, one of which will focus on rooftop solar and solar-plus-storage in select parts of the country. Another upcoming auction will focus on solar on canals, agrisolar and solar on poles over fish ponds. February 13, 2026 Patrick Jowett The Philippines’ Department of Energy plans to auction an additional 25 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2035 under its flagship Green Energy Auction (GEA) program. The announcement, made at the Renewable Energy Investment Forum 2026 on February 13, also revealed plans for the next four GEAs, scheduled for launch…