Here are some noteworthy company announcements from the week: 

Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (KAHRAMAA) has announced the successful financial closure for the 800 MW solar project Siraj-1. According to its company, Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Mizuho Corporate Bank provided a senior loan to finance the project. The company also announced to set the levelized electricity cost (LEC) at 5.281 Dirham (~$1.44)/kWh. The project will be installed in the Al Kharsaah area, west of Doha. In the first phase, 350 MW will be connected to the grid in the second quarter of 2021. The commercial commissioning for the total capacity is expected in the first quarter of 2022.

Hexagon Peak, Foxconn Vietnam, and Inpos teamed up to build and operate the largest rooftop solar project in Vietnam. Hexagon Peak, the project development arm of Hexagon Holdings Singapore, announced that it had signed a long-term power purchase agreement with The New Wing Interconnect Technology, a fully-owned subsidiary of Foxconn Group. Inops will build the project with a nominal power output of 6 MW at New Wing’s manufacturing facility near Hanoi, Vietnam.  The company said that the project will generate sufficient electricity to cover 25% of its manufacturing operations, and would help avoid 113,520 tons of carbon emission.

Jinko Solar, a Chinese solar cell and module manufacturer, announced that its large-area- N-type mono-crystalline silicon solar cell reached up to its maximum solar efficiency of 24.79%. The company said that the product had set the world record for large-sized contact-passivated solar cells. JinkoSolar said that the solar cell was fabricated on a high-quality CZ mono-Si substrate, with a practical size of 267.72cm2 and included passivated contact technologies, advanced diffusion, and surface passivation.  The Institute for Solar Energy Research in Hamelin (IFSH), Germany, confirmed this result independently, according to the company’s press statement. The record-breaking mono-crystalline silicon solar cell will be gradually applied for production.

Greenko, a renewable developer, announced that it has teamed up with ONYX InSight, global analytics and engineering firm, to modernize 500 wind turbines in India. England-Based ONYX InSight will help upgrade the data-quality of wind turbine drivetrain to empower the adoption of the latest predictive analytics.

ONYX InSight will install its ecoCMS, advanced sensing equipment, in a phased retrofit project across the 500 direct drives and geared turbines, according to the press release. ONYX InSight will use its condition monitoring software platform, fleetMONITOR, to generate data, which will be used to identify developing machinery failures, it added.

LG Chem, a South Korea based advanced lithium-ion batteries manufacturer, announced its partnership with SolarEdge Technology Inc, a specialized company in smart energy, to bring compatibility with the LG RESU10H (400 V, 9.8 kWh) home batteries. According to the company, this new offering allows users to manage their energy throughout the home or opt for even higher efficiency and choose pre-selected loads for backing up. The 9.8 kWh LG RESU10H battery uses LG Chem’s lithium-ion battery technology to boost efficiency while maintaining energy density. With this new offering, the companies believe that the homeowners can optimize their battery energy with a 90.8% combined system efficiency and 200% DC oversizing.