Monday, 31 August 2026

ClearVue Technologies has announced a manufacturing breakthrough that lets its Gen 3 solar vision glass units take high-performance soft low-emissivity (Low-E) coatings on the same established systems used for conventional commercial glazing, according to pv magazine.

The Australian building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) specialist said the energy-generating units can produce more than 50 W per square metre while holding up to 80% visible light transmittance, pv magazine reported.

The coating step is where the claim bites. Soft Low-E layers are standard in commercial facade glass, and running them through existing lines rather than a bespoke process is what ClearVue frames as the change.

"This removes a practical barrier for the industry," said Doug Hunt, Chief Executive Officer of ClearVue Technologies, in comments reported by pv magazine. Hunt said the result is that energy-generating glass can be weighed against conventional facade products "rather than requiring an entirely separate design or manufacturing process".

That framing puts the product into the specification decision facade designers already make, instead of a parallel track requiring separate design or manufacturing, per Hunt's account.

Borkum Riffgrund 3 has entered commercial operation with an installed capacity of 913MW, ranking it among Germany's largest offshore wind farms currently running, according to Offshore Engineer OEDigital.

Corporate buyers have contracted 786MW of the project's output, Offshore Engineer OEDigital reported. Amazon holds the largest share at 350MW, followed by BASF at 186MW.

Covestro and Energie-Handels-Gesellschaft/REWE Group each signed for 100MW, while Google took 50MW, according to the same report.

The contracted volume covers most of the wind farm's nameplate capacity, leaving the balance of the 913MW uncommitted under the disclosed agreements.

Virginia has become the first state in the United States to launch a bulk-purchasing campaign for rooftop solar, according to Canary Media.

The program is called Switch Together, Canary Media reported.

Canary Media reported that the campaign promises to bring down the cost of installing rooftop solar panels for households across Virginia.

Valterra Platinum, described by Semafor Net Zero as the world's largest platinum group metals miner, is betting that China's push into hydrogen-powered freight trucks will generate a fresh wave of demand for the metals.

The miner's projection rests on fuel cell vehicles capturing a fifth of the global heavy-duty truck market, according to Semafor Net Zero.

Platinum is used in fuel cell stacks, and the supply base is concentrated. South Africa supplies more than 80% of the world's platinum, Semafor Net Zero reported.

The policy backdrop is explicit. Under China's 15th five-year plan, energy security and the rollout of hydrogen infrastructure are central priorities.

Deployment is being steered toward locations where hydrogen is cheapest to make. Beijing is putting fuel-cell fleets near low-cost production hubs in the Yangtze River Delta, according to Semafor Net Zero. Pilot tank-swapping stations for heavy trucks are also being tested, aimed at cutting distribution costs.

That combination, siting fleets next to production and swapping tanks rather than refuelling at fixed stations, addresses the cost of moving hydrogen rather than the cost of making it. Distribution economics have been the harder constraint for heavy freight, and the pilots test whether logistics can be engineered around them.

For a producer whose output depends on a single country's mines, the fuel cell truck segment matters as a volume channel rather than a marginal one. Valterra's own case turns on that one-fifth market share assumption holding, with more than 80% of global platinum coming from South Africa.

Third-party solar photovoltaic operations and maintenance (O&M) contracts grew by 61 GW over 2025, lifting the tracked global total to 348 GW, pv magazine reported, citing Wood Mackenzie.

The 15 biggest providers took on 41 GW between them during the year and now oversee 200 GW, which pv magazine put at 57% of the analyzed capacity.

NovaSource Power Services stayed at the top of the ranking, closing the year with 38.4 GW under management, pv magazine reported.

Sixth-placed Sterling & Wilson grew its book 53% year on year to 13.5 GW, according to pv magazine.

North American full-wrap comprehensive O&M contracts repriced downward, with prices off 18% year on year, pv magazine reported.

Middle East and Africa volumes nearly doubled over the same period, according to pv magazine.

The underlying study, Wood Mackenzie's Global Solar PV O&M Service Provider Dynamics 2026, looks at portfolio sizes, cost trends and service strategies at more than 130 active providers, pv magazine said. Its coverage spans the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia-Pacific outside China.