Design & Build

The foundations of a solar project offer multiple opportunities for driving down system costs. Arash Yazdani of PRI Engineering describes some of the key steps involved in investigating the specific conditions of a project site and developing a foundation design that will stand the test of time.

Cost and risk factors can make countries facing energy access issues the most difficult for developers to build solar projects, despite their huge potential. Tom Kenning reports on two plug-and-play solutions that may provide a solution in off-grid locations.

The streamlining of all phases of a PV project will be essential to ensuring anticipated deployment goals are met. Tom Kenning looks at the AI-enabled technologies helping speed up project construction and easing a shortage of skilled labour

Yezin Taha, Founder and CEO of Nevados Engineering, on how solar tracking technology can help eradicate the still common practice of levelling sites prior to installing solar panels – and thus avoid the problems, environmental impact and cost associated with site grading. This is an executive summery of a recent white paper by Nevados.

Antarctica is one of the harshest and most inhospitable environments for human activities due to its extreme climate. Traditionally, research stations in Antarctica were powered by fossil fuels. The comparably simple requirement of supplying a research station with electricity and heat in most other parts of the world can become much more challenging in Antarctica. The picture can be quite different when using solar power, as is the case at Belgium’s Princess Elisabeth Antarctica Research Station in the continent’s Queen Maud Land. PV Tech Power’s Simon Yuen talks to Slovenian solar company Bisol and the International Polar Foundation about features of renewable energy production at the research station which was established in 2009.

Architect Dr Silke Krawietz on how Building-integrated Photovoltaics can be used in existing and new buildings and urban structures to create built-up environments that harness the power of nature.

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.