LG Chem, South Korea’s major manufacturer of powertrain batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), is contemplating on investing a second battery production plant in the US so as to meet the increasing demand from American car makers, according to an exclusive report from Reuters on July 11. Sources with knowledge on this matter told Reuters that LG is planning to commit as much as US$1.7 billion into this project, and that the new plant could be up and running as early as 2022. ...  more

China has been passionately conducting its energy transition into green energy, such as solar energy. In 2018 alone, there were 43 GW PV energy devices installed. The accumulated capacity in China has also exceeded 170 GW. However, according to one study in Switzerland, China's severe air pollution might have lowered its solar power potential by 15% between 1960 and 2015. ...  more

Toyota's plug-in hybrid PHV (photovoltaic hybrid vehicle) might have an upgrade. Recently, Sharp, Toyota and the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) in Japan worked together on a new Prius PHV project. They upgraded the demo car to 34% ultra-high conversion efficiency PV panels. They plan for the demo car to go on public road trials by late July. ...  more

Massachusetts has rolled out a new "Clean Peak Standard (CPS)" capable of multiple support, paving the way for the commercial and industrial energy storage system provider Stem to enter the state's energy storage market. ...  more

The expansion plan of Baoshan land planning in Hsinchu Science and Technology Park has been passed by the Environment Protection Administration (EPA) at the Environmental Evaluation Conference on July 10. According to the domestic media reports, TSMC, a wafer foundry, will partner up with the Pingtung County Government to develop large-scale solar power plants, in order to achieve 20% of adoption rate of renewable energy. The power generation is estimated to reach 1.3 billion kWh.   ...  more

Taiwan’s largest solar enterprise United Renewable Energy Co. (URE) has announced that it will be significantly cutting its workforce and production capacity for this year. ...  more

Ceres Power, a world leading developer of low cost, next generation fuel cell technology and Doosan Corporation, has signed a Collaboration and Licensing agreement to jointly develop SOFC distributed power systems initially targeted at the Korean commercial building market. ...  more

Taiwan's United Renewable Energy Co., Ltd. (URN) announced on July 8th the layoff of up to 450 of its employees, which is approximately 15% of its total workforce. The layoff comes as the company seeks to scale down its operations to survive the slump of the PV power market. ...  more

Taiwan Mobile has recently announced a donation of NT$1 million, as a part of its initiative for raising NT$3.89 million for the installation of a PV power system, for the Spinal Cord Injury Patient Center. ...  more

Battery electric vehicles (BEV) have been on the agenda of most auto makers. However, recently during BMW's NextGen event in Munich, BMW executive and board member Klaus Fröhlich surprisingly expressed to reporters that EVs are overhyped. "There are no customer requests for BEVs. None." ...  more