The promise of lower utility bills is a key motivator for most prospective solar customers, but time of use (TOU) rates — which charge different electricity prices depending on the time of day — add complexity to finding the best deal for the customer. Luckily, there are several strategies solarRead More

Panasonic Eco Solutions of North America announced a cross-country expansion of its Residential Solar Installer program, adding six Premium installers located across three regions, enabling more homeowners access to the Panasonic Solar Modules HIT portfolio. Launched in the U.S. in 2016, the Panasonic Solar Premium Installer program provides value-added benefitsRead More

Bifacial PV modules have the potential to increase energy output by 5-10 percent annually in many locations. To achieve commercial viability, the products need to demonstrate their bankability. Common testing models, have begun to incorporate bifacial models. However currently only little validation data for bifacial PV modules exists, which alsoRead More

Canadian Solar Inc. has delivered 10 MW of its bifacial PV modules, the BiKu CS3U-PB-AG that made its debut at Solar Power International in Anaheim this year, to Neighborhood Power for four solar power projects near Portland, Ore. This represents the first significant delivery of bifacial solar PV modules intoRead More

Rigid silicon solar panels dominate the utility and residential markets, but opportunity exists for thin-film photovoltaic and emerging technologies notable for being lightweight and flexible, according to scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Thin films such as cadmium telluride (CdTe) and copper indium galliumRead More

Stanford electrical engineer Shanhui Fan wants to revolutionize energy-producing rooftop arrays. “We’ve built the first device that one day could make energy and save energy, in the same place and at the same time, by controlling two very different properties of light,” said Fan, senior author of an article appearingRead More

SunPower is now providing high-efficiency SunPower Performance Series (P-Series) solar panels under the Caterpillar brand. Offered as part of the Cat Hybrid Energy Solutions suite, the monocrystalline, shingled-cell Cat PVC395 MP solar panels are currently available through the Cat dealer network in Southeast Asia, Africa, South America, and the MiddleRead More

An already burgeoning solar power industry faces another significant boost thanks to one widely used and long-valued material—graphite. Why is that? For one, graphite is crucial to silicon production. Its resistance to extreme heat makes it ideal for manufacturing the crucibles and moulds used to make silicon, as well asRead More

A team of solar energy researchers from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, has been awarded $1.35 million from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office to continue its work toward increasing the efficiency and lifetime of photovoltaic modules—specifically aimed at pushing their lifespan to 50 years.Read More

Understanding degradation rates is important for the PV industry, along the entire value chain. According to the 2018 PV Innovation Roadmap, a DOE-conducted survey of 89 companies and researchers, better understanding of the degradation rate was cited as the single biggest need under “Reliability and Durability,” which itself was theRead More