Friday, 21 August 2026

A renewables pilot in Australia is designed to deliver both electricity and financial returns to First Nations communities, according to RenewEconomy.

RenewEconomy identifies Lauren Mellor of Original Power at Marlinja Community in its reporting on the pilot.

The stated aim sets the project apart from conventional community solar or wind arrangements, where the local benefit is usually limited to supply rather than a revenue share. RenewEconomy frames the pilot around both outcomes.

A white paper from Sustainable Source Studios alleges that most of what the United States labels solar module recycling ends in landfilling, downcycling or offshoring rather than closed-loop recovery, pv magazine reported. "Almost none of what the United States calls 'solar recycling' is closed-loop recovery," the paper states.

The cost gap between tipping fees and legitimate recycling drives the outcome, according to the analysis by S3 cited by pv magazine, which estimates roughly 90% of discarded U.S. panels go straight to landfills.

Volumes are set to climb. The report estimates the U.S. solar industry will face about one million tons of retired photovoltaic modules by 2030, rising to roughly ten million tons by 2050.

Where material does get processed, the report points abroad. Korea Zinc targets 120,000 tons per year of solar panel materials at its Onsan processing facility in South Korea by 2030, according to the report as summarized by pv magazine.

Domestic processing capacity for one of the metals involved disappeared more than a decade ago. The report says tightened National Ambient Air Quality Standards for lead led to the closure of the last operating lead smelting facility in the U.S. in 2013.

A photovoltaic-thermal hydrogen rig cooled by injected air bubbles reached a peak thermal efficiency of 45.5% and produced hydrogen at 15.5 ml/min in outdoor testing in Tamil Nadu, according to pv magazine.

The design injects air bubbles into the water channel behind the panel to improve cooling, and researchers in India built it to raise thermal efficiency, electrical efficiency and hydrogen production together, pv magazine reported.

Electrical performance separates the bubble-cooled unit from a plain panel. At an air-injection rate of 0.011 kg/s, the photovoltaic-thermal water system hit a maximum electrical efficiency of around 11.1%, against 8.1% for the conventional photovoltaic system, according to pv magazine.

Testing was not confined to a laboratory bench. The team ran the system on the rooftop of a building in Tiruchengode, Tamil Nadu, in southern India, under real-world outdoor conditions, pv magazine reported.

Researchers from K.S.Rangasamy College of Technology and SRM Institute of Science and Technology took part in the work, which was published in Case Studies in Thermal Engineering, according to pv magazine.

The combination matters because a photovoltaic-thermal collector recovers heat that would otherwise degrade cell output, and here that recovered heat and the cooler cell temperature feed the same hydrogen-producing loop. The reported gap between 11.1% and 8.1% is the measured electrical payoff from that cooling step under field conditions.

Europe's solar panels generated 17 percent more power during the summer's heat waves than they normally do, steadying grids as afternoon cooling demand rose, according to the energy think tank Ember.

The demand surge was concentrated in the south. Extreme temperatures in late June lifted Italy's power demand by 28 percent against the previous week, Ember found, while France recorded a 14 percent increase over the same comparison.

Thermal plants moved the other way. Five gas plants in the United Kingdom cut output by a combined 2.5 GW after heat degraded the effectiveness of their cooling systems.

Nuclear was also exposed. France lost 18 percent of its nuclear capacity to what Ember described as "environmental factors" in mid-July.

Water-dependent generation fared no better: Europe's hydropower production hit its lowest July level in a decade. Wind offered little cover in the United Kingdom, where heat-induced low wind speeds halved typical wind farm generation in June.

The adaptation bill is already being written. France's state-owned utility plans to spend over USD 10 billion adapting its nuclear and hydropower plants to warmer temperatures and lower water availability over the next 15 years.

N-type G10L mono wafers changed hands at an average CNY 1.12 per piece, a weekly gain of 40%, pv magazine reported, citing the Silicon Industry Branch of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association (CNMIA).

That move came as polysilicon trading in China restarted. On Aug. 19, the CNMIA branch described a slight recovery in the market, which had gone through early August with almost no transactions and no public quotations. Even so, the association put domestic polysilicon output above 110,000 metric tons for the month.

Buyers drove the wafer repricing. Cell manufacturers outside China pulled forward wafer orders during a policy window because of trade risk tied to US Section 232 tariffs, and India's installation season opened, lifting export demand, the CNMIA said. The association identified that demand jump as the main cause of the price surge.

Among producers, Daqo New Energy booked USD 62.7 million in second-quarter 2026 revenue, against USD 26.7 million three months earlier, according to pv magazine. Its third-quarter polysilicon output guidance runs from 40,000 MT to 45,000 MT, with the full-year 2026 target unchanged at 160,000 MT to 180,000 MT.

DR Laser expects demand from new back-contact capacity plus upgrades or expansions of existing production lines to total 40 GW to 50 GW in 2026, pv magazine reported.