New Technology

If Portugal wants to bring forward its target to have 9GW of installed capacity by 2026 rather than the end of the decade, it will need to solve one of its main barriers it faces at the moment: permitting issues.

Tractebel – a subsidiary of French utility Engie – has developed a new offshore floating solar technology in partnership with offshore energy specialists DEME and maritime infrastructure firm Jan De Nul.

Floating PV (FPV) developer Sungrow FPV will supply floating systems to a 192MW project in Indonesia, which it has said will be the largest floating installation in the country.

Chinese technology company Huawei will supply string inverters and smart transformer stations to a 205MW PV and wind farm in Poland.

Renewables company BayWa r.e. has completed the construction of a 24.5MW floating solar PV (FPV) plant in Grafenwörth, Austria.

As solar projects become ever larger, sites with slopes and uneven terrain are becoming the norm for project development, leading tracker manufacturers to adapt their offerings accordingly. Molly Lempriere details the latest launches that aim to address this issue.

Spanish water company Miya has acquired a minority stake in Xfloat, the Israeli floating PV tech developer.

While collecting verified bottom-up project data in real time has previously been cost-prohibitive, satellite data can now be leveraged to make comprehensive market intelligence attainable for investors. Daniel Cruise and Joseph Triepke, partners at energy intelligence firm Lium Research, reveal how satellites can provide more reliable insights into the construction of US utility-scale solar projects.

The future of solar module deployment may be rooted in mass, rapid deployment rather than precisely tilted, steel-mounted and spaced-out panels extending over acres of land. So says Australian company 5B, which manufactures accordion-style folding solar arrays that arrive at a project site flat-packed and ready to be deployed.

Australia and Germany have collaborated to boost research into green hydrogen production with a A$110 million (US$77.8 million) investment in four projects.