Friday, 17 July 2026

The Baltic Power offshore wind farm fed electricity to Poland's national grid for the first time, with a first turbine now generating power as the 1.2 GW project enters phased commissioning, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Additional turbines will undergo start-up and testing over the coming weeks, and their output will also flow to the national grid, the outlet reported.

Crews have installed 54 of the 76 planned turbines offshore, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. Construction is due to finish this autumn.

ORLEN and Northland Power are building the project as a joint venture, the outlet reported. All inter-array and export cables, totalling 350 km, are laid, and both offshore substations are in place.

When fully operational, the farm will run 76 turbines rated at 15 MW each, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital. Annual output is put at about 4 TWh, equivalent to around 3% of Poland's current electricity demand.

The site spans 130 sq km and sits about 23 km offshore near Choczewo and Łeba. Its power is expected to cut carbon dioxide emissions by up to 2.8 million tonnes a year against conventional generation, the outlet reported.

ORLEN CEO Ireneusz Fąfara said the company's investment program in Poland's energy sector could reach as much as PLN 380 billion in total spending.

Leeward Renewable Energy (LRE) laid out details of its 725-MW solar power fleet in Oklahoma during a recent celebration, according to Power Magazine.

The fleet represents a $1.5 billion investment, according to Power Magazine.

The Oklahoma solar fleet supports Google's operations in the state, according to Power Magazine.

U.S.-assembled solar modules sold at a median $0.30 per watt through the second quarter of 2026, holding flat, according to Anza data published on July 9, 2026.

The supply chain platform draws from 55 modules across 19 suppliers, and pegged the interquartile range for the segment at $0.280/W to $0.325/W.

TOPCon technology dominates the tracked set, with 49 of the 55 modules using it against 6 running Mono PERC, pv magazine reported. Tier-1 designation covers 45 of the modules, and 32 clear Foreign Entity of Concern (FEOC) compliance checks.

Compliance stakes rise soon. The FEOC content threshold climbs to 45% for solar projects beginning January 1, 2027, according to pv magazine.

Manufacturers have restructured ownership to stay under the FEOC line. JinkoSolar offloaded a 75.1% stake in its Jacksonville, Florida facility to private equity firm FH Capital for $192 million, holding onto a 24.9% minority position to fall below the ownership threshold. JA Solar handed 100% equity of its 2 GW plant in Phoenix, Arizona to Corning Incorporated in April 2025, pv magazine reported.

Trade action is also pressing on the segment. American Manufacturers for Energy Resilience filed an anti-dumping and countervailing duty (AD/CVD) petition on June 18, 2026 targeting solar cells and modules from South Korea. The coalition brings together Heliene USA, SEG Manufacturing, and Canadian Solar's Jeffersonville PV Cells subsidiary.

Anza maps out when buyers would feel the cost. Its timeline puts countervailing duties in September 2026 and anti-dumping duties in a window from late November 2026 to mid-January 2027, should the U.S. authorities advance the case.

Bloom Energy and Ballard Power Systems are pursuing different approaches to how hydrogen fuel cells will power the future economy, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

Bloom Energy is deploying solid oxide fuel cells for AI data centers as a near-term hydrogen infrastructure play, according to Hydrogen Fuel News. The company is marketing its high-temperature solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC).

Ballard Power's PEM systems await broader hydrogen adoption and policy support, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

BHEL and thyssenkrupp nucera have agreed to manufacture alkaline water electrolysers in India to support green hydrogen production under the National Green Hydrogen Mission, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The deal aims to accelerate green hydrogen production and foster local supply chains, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

The collaboration was announced at the headquarters of Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited in New Delhi.

Researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Gdansk University of Technology and the Polish Academy of Sciences studied the value of purifying key components from end-of-life solar panels for reuse in new solar panel manufacturing, according to pv magazine.

The team dismantled twelve modules made by German, Chinese, South Korean and US manufacturers, sampling the aluminium frame, glass and solar cell for compositional analysis, pv magazine reported.

Silver accounts for up to 47% of a panel's recoverable value, according to the researchers, who warned that falling silver content in newer panels could cut future recycling revenue.

Laminate analysis showed high crosslinked ethylene-vinyl acetate with low crystallinity levels below 17%, indicating continued protective function even in end-of-life panels, per pv magazine.

The study found antimony levels in solar panel glass can exceed threshold limits. As a result, recyclers may require special license and monitoring processes to handle antimony-contained glass safely, according to pv magazine.

Crushing or milling panels is likely to contaminate the glass with silver and copper, the researchers warned, reducing its value and potentially making the largest component of the panel non-recyclable.

The researchers noted that federal-level policy on photovoltaic recycling in Australia is absent, pv magazine reported.

Carbon Recycling International and Tianying Group have delivered the world's largest e-methanol reactor to China's Liaoyuan project, according to Hydrogen Fuel News. The reactor supports the Liaoyuan eMethanol Project in Jilin Province, China.

The project aims to produce 170,000 tonnes per year of renewable methanol from green hydrogen and captured CO2, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The main goal is to showcase large-scale power-to-liquid technology to meet demand for low-carbon fuels in challenging industries, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

Researchers from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Universidad de Cádiz are using dark fermentation to co-process brewery wastewater and municipal sludge, generating green hydrogen and volatile fatty acids, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The teams pair the process with predictive modelling for scale-up and frame it as a circular economy approach, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

Hydrogen Fuel News described the dark fermentation approach as a lab-scale proof-of-concept.

Syntholene Energy Corp.'s geothermally integrated solid oxide electrolyzer cell (SOEC) demo plant in Husavik, Iceland, produced its first 500 kg of green hydrogen at 99.9% purity, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The company claims the site is the world's first geothermally integrated high-temperature electrolysis plant in northern Iceland, per the same report.

At the Husavik Power Station, the plant combines geothermal heat with renewable electricity to power the SOEC units, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

Expander Energy has selected Plug Power's GenEco PEM electrolyzers for its Mackenzie Biofuel Project in British Columbia, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The plant in northern British Columbia will convert forestry wood waste into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), renewable diesel, naphtha, and bio-wax using low-carbon electricity, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

The memorandum of understanding pairs green hydrogen production with biomass-to-liquids synthesis, targeting a final investment decision by 2026 and commercial operation in 2029, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

Onboard hydrogen-injection systems use electricity produced by the diesel engine to split water, then feed the resulting hydrogen or oxyhydrogen back into the same engine, according to CleanTechnica.

That setup can make a diesel exhaust plume look cleaner, but CleanTechnica argues the visible change is evidence about smoke, not about climate performance.

Squadron Energy has proposed the 558 megawatt Banandra wind project on 11,600 hectares of mostly grazing land south-east of Darlington Point, according to RenewEconomy.

The site sits just east of the newly created South West renewable energy zone (REZ), which RenewEconomy reports has already reached capacity. Rather than seek access inside the crowded zone, Squadron says its 90-turbine project will plug into the existing 330 kV line between Darlington Point and Wagga Wagga.

Access into the South-West REZ has been tight. RenewEconomy reports the zone has granted access rights to just four projects, three of them scaled down, because the new Project Energy Connect is rated at only 330 kV rather than the 500 kV that many developers say would have unlocked more capacity.

Community consultation on Banandra started in May, and Squadron lodged the state planning application and the EPBC referral at the start of July, according to RenewEconomy.

Wind developers have run up $2 billion in extra costs since the Pentagon halted permitting, and they see the government's new rationale as another attempt to shut the industry down, according to Grist.

The onshore projects caught in the freeze total 44 gigawatts of capacity, according to Grist. That is four times what the offshore projects unwound through federal payouts would have produced.

Those offshore cancellations followed court losses over stop-work orders, Grist reported. To end more than 11 gigawatts of offshore wind, the Trump administration paid developers a combined $2.6 billion.

A coalition of renewable energy groups and wind companies took the Department of Defense to court in May over the onshore permitting pause, Grist reported. The coalition called the pause the most damaging new tactic in what it described as the administration's campaign against the industry.

Fifty-five Democratic representatives asked the Department of Defense in a May letter for a confidential briefing on why the delays were happening, according to Grist.

Pentagon lawyers responded in filings that the delays are a practical result of a review needed to guard against emerging threats, Grist reported.

The stakes tie to a construction deadline. Some projects may already have missed a July 4 cutoff to qualify for federal tax credits under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, according to Grist.

Spain-based Sunwafe is planning a 20 GW ingot and wafer factory, according to pv magazine.

The company has secured a site in northern Spain and a €200 million ($232.6 million) grant for the project, pv magazine reported.

Michael Pinto is the newly appointed chief executive of Sunwafe, according to pv magazine.

DBI - Gastechnologisches Institut Freiberg's gas processing plant at Energiepark Bad Lauchstädt passed TÜV tightness tests, clearing the facility for industrial-scale purification, storage and transport of green hydrogen to a regional refinery, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The park sits in Saxony-Anhalt, where DBI operates the hydrogen gas processing plant, Hydrogen Fuel News reported.

The facility will purify green hydrogen produced by a 30 MW Sunfire electrolyser, according to Hydrogen Fuel News.

The electrolyser draws power from a nearby Terrawatt wind farm, Hydrogen Fuel News reported. Clean gas then passes through a salt cavern for storage and onto a revamped 25 km pipeline.

Avaada Electro Ltd has commissioned the first 3 GW phase of its 6 GW n-type TOPCon solar cell manufacturing facility in Butibori, Nagpur, India, according to pv magazine.

Vineet Mittal, chairman and whole-time director of Avaada Electro Ltd, said the 6 GW Butibori factory contributes to India's green industrial development and technology independence, pv magazine reported.

On the module side, the company operates 8.5 GW of n-type TOPCon glass-to-glass module manufacturing capacity across Nagpur and Dadri, according to pv magazine. It plans to add a further 5.1 GW, taking total module capacity to 13.6 GW.

Avaada is developing an additional 6 GW solar cell manufacturing line in Greater Noida, pv magazine reported. That line would raise its total solar cell production capacity to 12 GW.

The wider group's generation arm, Avaada Energy, holds a renewable portfolio exceeding 17.70 GW, according to pv magazine. That figure includes more than 7.20 GW of operational capacity and approximately 10.50 GW under construction.

Brazilian solar installer Alba Energia is pairing smart power controllers with Aneel's simultaneity rules to get around reverse power flow restrictions and build larger distributed solar arrays, according to pv magazine.

The approach rests on rules Aneel introduced in 2024 that allow reverse power flow assessments to be waived when specific technical requirements are met, pv magazine reported.

At the Guisolphi family property, the utility authorized only 7.5 kW of grid export, according to pv magazine. Alba Energia responded with a 37.2 kW plant fitted with a 23 kW inverter and a smart controller configured to hold grid injection to the authorized 7.5 kW.

The controller lets the array run larger than the export cap by keeping surplus generation behind the meter. According to Ribeiro, surplus energy converts into credits that the consumer unit can use for up to 60 months, sustaining savings during nighttime consumption or peak demand periods.

Alba Energia first ran into reverse power flow limitations in 2024, when local utility Santa Maria began carrying out simulation-based connection studies, pv magazine reported.

The simultaneity calculation that underpins the waiver draws on the previous 12 months of average consumption, according to pv magazine.

A research team from Morocco has designed a passive counterweight-and-pulley mooring system for floating photovoltaic (FPV) systems that tracks water-level changes and reduces platform motion, according to pv magazine.

The design automatically follows water-level shifts while improving platform stability, pv magazine reported.

Laboratory-scale testing and numerical simulations showed surge and sway motion reductions of up to 71.7% and 65.6% respectively, with 75% water-level tracking efficiency, according to pv magazine.

The laboratory floating platform measured 0.662 m by 0.382 m by 0.027 m and had a mass of 1.6 kg, supported by 11 floats, pv magazine reported.

The system was presented in a study published in Scientific Reports, according to pv magazine.