Design & Build

Simone Mandica of asset manager WiseEnergy details how solar installations can be repowered to extend their service life and maintain high standards of technology.

Spanish multinational electric utility giant Iberdrola has created something not only unique to Spain, but also to the wider European continent: Europe’s largest solar PV plant. Situated in the central-western region of Extremadura, the ‘Francisco Pizarro’ project, named after the renowned Spanish conquistador, has a generation capacity of 590MWp and came into operation in August 2022. The plant has nearly 1.5 million PV modules installed.

As the floating solar sector becomes more mature, larger projects are being deployed in a range of water bodies, presenting a host of construction challenges. Jonathan Touriño Jacobo talks to project developers about how the latest technology is driving growth.

As solar becomes more sophisticated, the industry is leaning on more advanced software and AI to determine the best sites and optimum system designs. Molly Lempriere explores the role AI and other advanced techniques are playing in solar development.

Solar project sites with meaningful terrain variance are becoming the norm. Nextracker’s latest innovation in single-axis tracking mitigates the cost and schedule risk associated with deploying projects on challenging terrain.

More than ever before, solar developers are implementing measures to support animal habitats and improve the biodiversity of their sites. Alice Grundy explores how this cohabitation can be encouraged - and the challenges left to tackle.

Late last year AES Corportation unveiled the Atlas, an automated solar deployment robot the company claimed to be a first of its kind. Here, AES gives PV Tech Power the full story of its development.

An industry consistently making losses and dropping its rates for years is now riding a wave of sky-high prices. Upcoming events look set to reduce prices, but shipping companies will be having a field day well into 2023, writes Sean Rai-Roche.

Known globally for its university, Oxford is now making a name for itself as a testing ground for the largest hybrid battery energy storage system (BESS) of its kind anywhere in the world.

Ryan D. Quint, senior manager at North American Electric Reliability Corporation take a look at the key considerations – and difficult balance – of managing grid connection from a transmission operators point of view.