Author: solarenergy
Oxford community renewable energy organization Low Carbon Hub says its battery energy storage system (BESS) share offering is now 80% funded.Since the The share offering opened in March200 investors paid £440,000 to install the BESS at Ray Valley Solar, the 19MW community-owned solar power plant operated by Low Carbon Hub. The 3MW/12MWh BESS is the first in the UK to be community owned, according to the group, a Community Benefit Society. Members of the public and organizations can purchase shares in the Community Energy Fund through direct impact investment platform Ethex. Investments start at €100, with a maximum of €100,000.…
Solar energy is now responsible for this most new generation capacity added to the US electric grid, solar and storage accounted for a most of the capacity growth from renewable energy sources last year and a variety of solar-adjacent home energy technologies have become staples of residential energy systems. At the same time, installation takes longer, systems are more difficult to get right the first time and avoidable truck rolls are increasing. What installers have to deal with on the construction site has fundamentally changed. Even if there is global annual expansion of renewable capacity increased by 16%an installer rarely…
Gresham House Energy Storage Fund (GRID) has signed a sale and purchase agreement (SPA) for the conditional purchase of a 480MW battery energy storage system (BESS) near Rayleigh, in Essex.The terms of the acquisition are subject to the project receiving a favorable “Gate 2” connection offer, expected between September 2026 and January 2027.Once completed, the acquisition would be the fund’s largest BESS project in its portfolio, both operational and under development. Currently the largest operational BESS is the 100MW Melksham, an almost fivefold increase, while representing a doubling of two 240MW projects in the pipeline of the fund’s three-year plan.“Rayleigh…
Türkiye’s energy regulator has reduced the grid fee by 68% for around 800 unlicensed solar power plants that have expired their ten-year purchase guarantee period. May 26, 2026 Patrick Jowett Image: Tarik Haiga/Unsplash TurkeyThe Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) is reducing the grid fee for unlicensed first-generation solar power plants commissioned before 2019 after the expiry of their ten-year feed-in tariff. According to a document in the country’s official gazette, the levy will be applied at TRY0.656 ($0.014)/kWh, down from the previous TRY2.081/kWh, representing a 68% reduction. Unlicensed solar power plants in Türkiye are primarily designed for self-consumption up to…
Redeia used advanced simulation to test anti-cascade cell towers under extreme multi-tower collapse scenarios. The results confirm that current Spanish network design standards effectively prevent cascading failures and support overall network resilience. May 26, 2026 Pilar Sanchez Molina By pv magazine Spain Spanish high-voltage grid operator Redeia has announced that its technology subsidiary Elewit has teamed up with engineering software company Akselos to develop an advanced simulation project that assesses the structural behavior of anti-cascade towers in overhead transmission lines under extreme, sequential collapse scenarios. The initiative has validated the existing design criteria used in the Spanish transmission network and…
By Charles W. Thurston May 26, 2026 Quatsino Community Energy Plan (Photo credit: Barkley Resource Group) Canada’s solar and storage industry is growing by leaps and bounds and is expected to grow by a third or more in the coming year. Training enough solar installers to keep pace with this growth is a new challenge for the Canadian solar industry. An important program to help meet this training demand is National Resources Canada’s revived Science and Technology Internship Program (STIP), which in April provided about $30 million for a new round of training in 2026 and 2027. The solar workforce…
Japanese researchers conducted a large-scale field study on 200 commercial trucks to evaluate the performance and fuel-saving potential of vehicle-integrated solar photovoltaics (VIPV) in practice. Their results show that VIPV systems can reduce alternator load and fuel consumption by approximately 5.5-7%, with approximately 70% of horizontal solar radiation effectively reaching the vehicle surface and approximately 85% of PV output directly offsetting alternator demand under real operating conditions. May 26, 2026 Emiliano Bellini Researchers from Miyazaki University have investigated the real-world performance and fuel-saving potential of vehicle-integrated solar photovoltaics (VIPV) on heavy-duty vehicles through an extensive field study in Japan, finding…
A German research team conducted a techno-economic analysis of POLO back-junction (BJ) solar cells in Germany, finding that they can offer significant cost and efficiency advantages over PERC technology. Their results show that POLO BJ enables lower production costs, reduced silver usage and lower differentiated electricity costs, making it a promising candidate for competitive European PV production. May 26, 2026 Emiliano Bellini Researchers from the German Aerospace Center (DLR) have conducted techno-economic analyzes of the production of n+-type polysilicon on oxide (POLO) back-junction (BJ) solar cells in Germany and have concluded that the associated costs and benefits can be significant…
The European Commission, in its first Innovation Fund heat auction, has awarded €400 million ($465.7 million) to 65 industrial heat decarbonization projects in 10 European countries, focusing on electrification and renewable heat technologies in energy-intensive industries. May 25, 2026 Brian Publicover The European Commission has selected 65 projects in 10 European countries that will receive a total of EUR 400 million in subsidies as part of the Innovation Fund’s first industrial heat auction. The plan aims to accelerate the deployment of electrified and renewable heating technologies in energy-intensive industries. The selected projects span Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany,…
Research from Britain shows that aerosols will have reduced global solar energy production by 5.8% in 2023, equivalent to 111 TWh. Although China accounted for more than half of the global total in 2023, the country is the only major solar producing region to show a decline in annual losses. May 25, 2026 Patrick Jowett Pollution from coal-fired power plants can significantly limit the energy output of solar power plants, especially in areas where power stations are located nearby, according to new research. A British-based research team led by the University of Oxford And University College London used satellite data…