Author: solarenergy

Electricity retailer Vistra is expanding its battery aggregation program Enphase energy’s IQ batteries for residential virtual power plants (VPP). The program, Battery Rewards, is offered through Vistra’s flagship electricity brand, TXU Energy, and allows eligible Enphase customers to earn incentives by exporting stored battery power to the grid during periods of high demand. Enphase IQ batteries. Through Battery Rewards, Vistra collects energy from participating customer residential batteries and sends it to the Texas electric grid during times of energy demand. By using flexible distributed energy resources, the program helps manage peak demand. “As Texas continues to expect rapid load growth,…

ACME Solar has signed two power purchase agreements (PPAs) for a total of 450 MW under a robust renewable energy project (FDRE) with SJVN Ltd. The company has also commissioned another 38 MW/82 MWh at its Jaisalmer Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) facility in Rajasthan. March 6, 2026 Uma Gupta By pv magazine India ACME Solar said its ACME Greentech Seventh unit has signed two PPAs with SJVN Ltd. for 300 MW and 150 MW of solar capacity under an FDRE project. The company secured the capacity in SJVN’s FDRE-IV tender at a winning tariff of INR 6.75 ($0.074)/kWh for…

Freight costs from the Far East to the US and Europe have increased week on week, while almost 150 container ships are currently unable to leave the Arabian Gulf due to the risk of sailing through an active conflict zone, according to an analysis by Xeneta, a benchmarking platform for sea and freight rates. March 6, 2026 Patrick Jowett Freight costs, which contribute to the overall cost of a solar installation, have risen week on week on trade lines from the Far East following military attacks in the Middle East, according to an analysis published by Xeneta. The latest update…

The Chinese manufacturer said its new three residential battery lines support 90% depth of discharge and deliver more than 6,000 cycles. March 6, 2026 Lior Kahana Chinese manufacturer Solis has announced the launch of a range of residential energy storage systems. The launch, introduced under the SolisStorage brand, marks a shift in the company’s focus from manufacturing inverters to becoming a more comprehensive supplier of energy storage systems. “All batteries are built with long-lasting LiFePO₄ chemistry, support depth of discharge of 90% or more, deliver more than 6,000 cycles and are designed to maintain reliable performance for up to 10…

In a new weekly update for pv magazineOPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a brief overview of the major price trends in the global PV industry. March 6, 2026 OPIS Free-On-Board (FOB) China TOPCon modules rose this week, supported by firmer April cargo loading indications. Top producer sources said most March deliveries have already sold out, pushing price talks to April and wider deliveries in the second quarter. The Chinese Module Marker (CMM), the OPIS benchmark rating for TOPCon modules from China, rose 3.45% to $0.120/W FOB China, according to the OPIS Global Solar Markets Report released on March 3.…

As electric vehicles and networked storage expand globally, engineers are looking for better ways to track how lithium-ion batteries age under real-world driving and operating conditions. A new study supported by Jilin University and China FAW Group reports a deep learning-based method that monitors battery health with errors of less than 1 percent, even when current and voltage vary in complex patterns. The work appears in the journal ENGINEERING Energy and focuses on health status, a measure of how much usable capacity remains compared to a new cell. Conventional approaches often assume stable operating conditions and can struggle when confronted…

The systems deliver outlet water temperatures up to 74 C, operate at ambient temperatures from -25 C to 43 C, and can be connected in groups of up to 16 units for larger commercial applications. March 4, 2026 Lior Kahana The ecodan Pro CAHV Image: Mitsubishi Electric Trane HVAC USA Mitsubishi Electric Trane HVAC US (METUS), a joint venture between Mitsubishi Electric and Trane Technologies, has launched a new line of air-to-water heat pumps for hydronic heating and domestic hot water (DHW) in three-phase applications. The new range, branded ecodan Pro, debuts with the CAHV heat pump, offered in two…

Origis Energy will complete three solar projects totaling 413 MW this summer in Ector County, Texas. The Rockhound Projects have received their latest round of funding and will join Swift Air Solar II and III in West Texas to produce more than 700 MW of solar energy upon completion. Swift Air Solar from Origis Energy. “This financing reflects the quality of the Rockhound portfolio and the confidence our capital partners place in Origis’ ability to execute complex, multi-project transactions with discipline and scale,” said Alice Heathcote, CFO of Origis. Natixis CIB and Santander invested $545 million in the Rockhound projects.…

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU) yesterday approved three initiatives to expand clean energy generation in the state, improve grid reliability and control electricity costs for New Jersey homes and businesses. New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill NJBPU opened incentives for solar and battery storage projects, opened a second round of storage requests, promoted the Competitive Solar Incentive (CSI) Program, and approved the nation’s largest expansion of a state-run community solar program. “Solar energy and battery storage are the fastest and most cost-effective ways to build new electricity generation. Today’s actions advance Governor Sherrill’s clean energy goals while continuing…

Researchers from South Korea have improved dust detection from solar panels using SMOTE and stable diffusion (SD) augmentation, where SD increases detection accuracy from 76.5% to 98.9% while maintaining spatial realism. March 4, 2026 Lior Kahana A research group from South Korea Jeju National University addressed the imbalance of the datasets in photovoltaic modules by applying two complementary augmentation strategies. Specifically, they applied a synthetic minority oversampling technique (SMOTE) at the feature level and stable diffusion (SD) augmentation at the image level. A dataset imbalance occurs when one class in a dataset contains many more examples than the other, causing…