This week, Women in Solar Europe (WiSEu) gives voice to Oana Ijdelea, the founder and managing partner of Romanian law firm Ijdelea & Associates. She says there is no objective blockage impeding women from pursuing a career in the renewable sector. There is, however, a vicious circle where women may become reluctant to apply for a position where males appear to be more present, and on the other hand, the lack of female presence in such roles does not encourage other women to step in.

In a new weekly update for pv magazine, OPIS, a Dow Jones company, provides a quick look at the main price trends in the global PV industry.

The requirements of measures such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) mean that solar panel prices in the United States can be twice as much as in Europe.

Prices for tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) solar panels continue to fall. pvXchange.com founder Martin Schachinger explains how this will affect the sale of PV modules based on passivated emitter and rear cell (PERC) cells.

Economic cooperation between India and Australia may open doors for investment in clean energy technology, but challenges still abound in a competitive global market. Vibhuti Garg and Shantanu Srivastava, of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), discuss the role that public funding and resource pooling could play in supporting manufacturing ambitions.

Aiko Solar has won a patent litigation case against Maxeon Solar Technologies in a Dutch court. The judge has ruled that Aiko Solar did not infringe upon Maxeon Solar’s EP2297788B1 patent for back-contact (BC) solar cells.

An international research group has utilized a newly designed coalitional game system to ensure economic fairness between members of energy communities. The game system considers different types of prosumers relying on stand-alone and combinations of solar and storage.

Novel research from Germany and the USA has analyzed the impact of heat pump (HP) integration on the ability of day-ahead load forecasting in energy communities. Using different models, the scientists have also investigated whether HP loads should be forecasted separately from the rest of the household or both together.

Ausgrid, a distributed network provider in the Australian state of New South Wales, has powered up its third battery energy storage system under the federal government’s AUD 200 million ($132 million) Community Batteries for Household Solar program.

Waaree Energies says it will supply 445 MW of its 540/545Wp dual-glass PV bifacial modules to Statkraft India’s single-location solar projects in Rajasthan, India.

A compact, “motionless” wind turbine with a magnetic generator designed for large commercial rooftops provides 5 kW of capacity per unit. Aeromine Technologies secured Series A funding for scaling its innovative design.

Gamesa Electric has released a white paper on losses due to harmonics in PV plants, including an independent study that compares the performance of ultra-low total harmonic distortion inverters.

The subsidiary of Chinese-Canadian solar manufacturer Canadian Solar says the financing will go towards developing and constructing solar and battery energy storage projects across Spain, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands, France and Germany.

Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Agency is partnering with Husk Power Systems for interconnected minigrids and isolated minigrids, rooftop commercial and industrial (C&I) solar, productive use of energy (PUE) initiatives, appliance sales, and financing.

Christian Victor, an X (formerly Twitter) user, has published a new map showing land consumption in Germany. It reveals that open-cast mines occupy more square meters than ground-mounted solar arrays and wind farms combined.

The Japanese industrial technology supplier is shipping coating tools for perovskite solar panels with dimensions up to 1,000 mm × 2,000 mm. The company will also offer soon a support for 2,400 mm ×1,200 mm sizes.

The French research institute presented in a scientific paper the technical details of its recyclable heterojunction module with a power output of 566 W and a carbon footprint of just 313 kgCO2eq/kW.

Researchers in China have designed an inverted perovskite solar cell with a new strategy aimed to optimize the cell’s bottom region. The proposed cell was treated with two molecules known as 2-mercaptoimidazole and 2-mercaptobenzimidazole and was based on a hole transport layer relying on a self-assembled monolayer.

A research group in Spain has demonstrated the technical feasibility of using repaired solar modules with satisfying results. It also warned, however, that there is an urgent need to define a protocol for evaluating the features of a “viable” repaired panel.

Researchers at the University of Bologna carried out crash simulations to qualify a novel solar powered 350 kg passenger vehicle for the next edition of the 3,000 km Bridgestone World Solar Challenge (BWSC) across the Australian continent.

India’s Pahal Solar has launched n-type tunnel oxide passivated contact (TOPCon) glass-backsheet modules with peak power outputs of 560 W to 595 W and efficiency ratings ranging from 21.68% to 23.03%.

Researchers in Niger have proposed to use photovoltaic energy to power the operations of evaporative cooling greenhouses. The proposed experimental solution uses locally made pads and is reportedly able to compete with commercial counterparts.

The tandem solar cell is based on a perovskite top cell treated with an additive known as 2,3,4,5,6-pentafluorobenzylphosphonic acid (pFBPA), which reportedly improves its power conversion efficiency and fill factor. The tandem device also integrates a bottom heterojunction silicon cell made with a 190-μm-thick, 2 Ω.cm, n-type, float-zone, shiny-etched monocrystalline wafer.

China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) says it has bought 790 MW of solar modules from Yingli at $0.12/W through a procurement process.

Scientists in China have fabricated a prototype of a PV system integrating phase change materials, a thermoelectric generator and thermal collectors. The three technologies are intended to cool the solar panel and increase its power generation efficiency.

Energy Vault and Enel have revealed plans to build 18 MW/36 MWh of gravity storage in the United States. They say that the project will be the first large-scale gravity energy storage in a Western country.

Amp Energy is pushing “full steam ahead” on the development of a green hydrogen production facility with up to 10 GW of electrolyzer capacity in South Australia, after finalizing commercial agreements for the multimillion-dollar project.

The Israeli authorities have proposed a plan to deploy 250 MW of floating solar and agrivoltaics through four PV plants in the Negev Desert near Ramon Airport.

Japanese power generator Jera says it aims to take the lead in developing the global hydrogen & ammonia value chain with about 7 million tons of handling volume, while Cepsa reveals it is moving forward with its green hydrogen plans in Spain.

Daewoo’s new hybrid inverters feature LiFePO4 batteries. They are available in six variants, with power ratings ranging from 0.5 kVA to 10 kVA.