iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

28. The US and India are locked into having high-price local solar module markets, due to trade wars. Sigh.

An edit of a meme, from a cartoon by Tom Gauld, to apply to trade wars. Two very similar-looking countries are on opposite sides of a river. One is labelled “Our Blessed Homeland”, the other “Their Barbarous Wastes”. Jenny Chase has edited the text below so that “Our Blessed Homeland” has “Our Support for Strategic Industries” while Their Barbarous Wastes has “Their Filthy Production Subsidies”. Likewise ”Our Investment in the Energy Transition”, “Their Profit-chasing Bandwagon-Jumping”. “Our Free Market Competition Benefitting Consumers ,”Their Terrible Dumping at Cost”. “Our Innovative Collaborative Companies”, “Their Nasty Cartels”.

Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

19. After extensive complaints from me, BNEF now defines long-duration storage correctly: not in hours, but as technologies where “the cost and scale of energy capacity (GWh) are largely decoupled from those of power capacity (GW)”.

Boxout from BNEF’s 2026 Long-Duration Storage Outlook, March 2, 2026. https://www.bnef.com/insights/38819/view

It reads: Long-duration energy storage definition and technology coverage
While there is no universally accepted definition of LDES, BNEF defines it as energy storage technologies in which the cost and scale of energy capacity (GWh) are largely decoupled from those of power capacity (GW).
This report focuses on novel LDES technologies, excluding solutions such as conventional pumped hydro. We also exclude chemical-based solutions here as BNEF covers this sector separately. Lithium-ion batteries are excluded from this analysis, as they are generally classified as short-duration storage technologies. For thermal storage, we restrict our scope to power‑based projects, excluding those designed solely for thermal output.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

11. How mismatched is European seasonal solar supply and electricity demand? Well, here is the situation for my fully electrified house in Switzerland with 13.2kW of solar, a heatpump and an EV. I would have needed about 122kW of PV to be self-sufficient across December.

A screenshot of an app from inverter maker SolarEdge, which monitors the author's monthly household solar electricity production and energy consumption, for the year beginning 1 September 2024. Total production was 10.79kW, consumption 13.62kW. However, in December total consumption was 1.74MWh, while production was only 0.2MWh; in June, total production was 1.72MWh, consumption 0.8MWh.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

3. Solar is struggling because it’s running into saturation effects in major markets, where there’s already plenty of power in sunny hours, and adding more solar panels generates the most power in the same hours. The power stack in Germany in a sunny week now looks like this.

A chart, sourced to BNEF and ENTSOE-E, showing the hourly German power generation stack from July 12, 2026 to July 19, 2026. Solar (bright yellow) absolutely dominates in the middle of every day, often generating 48-50GW in a grid where load peaks at 62GW. Power exports frequently exceeded 7GW in the middle of the day.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

2. Solar was about 8.8% of global electricity generation in 2025 (from BNEF’s generation stats, which stick to published figures, ie no selfconsumption or offgrid solar or fossil). It’s much higher in places, eg 18% in Germany (shown). This is causing fewer problems than once feared.

A chart from BloombergNEF showing annual generation in Germany from 2005 to 2025. The yellow sliver of solar grows from nothing to 18%; the blue sliver of wind grows from 4.5% to 26.3%. This is at the expense of nuclear (from 27.2% in 2005 to zero in 2023) and coal (46.3% in 2005, 20.4% in 2025) though gas grows from 11.6% to 17%. Overall power demand also dipped noticeably over the period.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

1. It’s the end of the beginning of the age of cheap solar. 2026 is likely to be the first down year for PV build, despite module prices of 11-12 US cents per Watt in normal markets, not substantially up from the lowest levels ever (9 cents in 2025 before a Chinese export tax rebate was cancelled).

A chart showing BloombergNEF’s forecast of global PV build by year, as of October 2026. It shows global new build falling from 655GW in 2025 to 584GW in 2026, mainly due to a drop in China. In 2027 the market recovers slightly to 618GW, but it stays well below 900GW/year to 2036.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Balcony solar installations that make you go "hmm", an occasional series.

A cropped photo of some south-facing solar panels mounted on a balcony, which would be in full sunlight if the awning of the balcony was not hanging right over nearly all of them. Taken close to midday near the poster's home in Switzerland.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

The main reason I haven't done half the work and writing I wanted to do over the past year. He's pretty cute though.

Photo of a large blonde white baby sitting in a bathtub under a tree.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

A slight wrinkle in this analysis is that "freshwater withdrawal from existing fleet" isn't a comprehensive view, eg future nuclear plants are likely to be on the coast and use saltwater for cooling. Here's the same figure based on gross water withdrawal.

Two BloombergNEF charts of gross water withdrawal under BNEF power system scenarios. Gross water withdrawal includes seawater which is returned. In this case the total figures are much higher (since today a lot of coal and nuclear uses salt water) and rise in the late 2040s in both scenarios. Nuclear especially increases water use in the Net Zero scenario, which has new nuclear. Water demand for coal falls in both scenarios.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

The global power fleet (excluding hydro) withdrew 29.8 billion cubic meters of freshwater worldwide in 2025, BloombergNEF research finds, and a more-rapid energy transition would significantly reduce this at least from existing power assets by 2050.

A screenshot of two BloombergNEF charts of freshwater withdrawal for non-hydro power plants in two BloombergNEF power system scenarios to 2050, Economic Transition and Net Zero. In both scenarios the power withdrawal drops, more rapidly in Net Zero. In 2050, the Economic Transition figure is down to just under 20 billion cubic meters, while for Net Zero is is still about 12 billion. The full research note published in September 2026 is under the paywall here: https://www.bnef.com/insights/40317/

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Maybe individualised print runs have got just a little too cheap. This came through the door today - note it's not even in a local language. Also thanks Co-op I probably will.

A flyer from Swiss supermarket Coop, reading "Make the most of our vast wine selection, Jenny Chase" - ie directly addressed to the recipient.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

You're Going to Need a Bigger Boat. (Kudos to my wind colleague Kajsa Jernetz for this entirely serious piece of analysis on wind turbine installation vessels worldwide).

Screenshot of a Bloomberg article titled "Wind Installation Vessels: You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat". The text reads, "As new wind turbines become taller and more powerful, their components are getting heavier. If wind turbines continue growing, the existing fleet of turbine installation vessels will be incapable of carrying the increasingly heavy loads and lifting to future hub heights. Even if turbine growth stagnates, foundation installation vessels will struggle to keep up as projects move into deeper waters that require larger, and heavier, foundations."

A further By the Numbers section clarifies that 28% of offshore wind installations outside mainland China are at risk between 2026 and 2035 if turbines keep growing, that installation vessels could be in tight supply by 2030, and that BNEF's database tracks 209 vessels, of which 82 operate outside mainland China.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Not to dunk on this but it isn't really true that the Hormuz oil crisis is driving a solar boom. Here's this chart updated to June of China solar exports, showing that the March spike in exports has subsided and was therefore mostly just export tax rebate effects.

Chart from BloombergNEF and SinoImex showing monthly dollar-value exports of solar cells and modules from China, by market, from November 2024 to June 2026. They spiked to $4.5bn in March 2026 because a key China export tax rebate was removed, fell to $3.1bn in April - still high but possibly due to some spillover effects and deadline missing - and then are back to a normal-ish level of $2.2bn in May and $2.5bn in June.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Unlike that of the rest of southeast Asia, Pakistan's gas demand has been falling. Pakistan's solar boom is partly attributable to excellent do-it-yourself videos on Tiktok and youtube, and partly to two other factors, says Zainaab Basil in an interview with BNEF. www.bnef.com/insights/40017

Chart of Pakistan's gas demand, historical and forecast, sourced to BloombergNEF which collated data from Pakistan Energy Yearbook, Pakistan Economic Survey, Bloomberg Terminal’s AHOY JOURNEY (historical), Independent System and Market Operator’s (ISMO) Integrated Generation Capacity Expansion Plan 2025-2035 (IGCEP 2025-2035), National Electricity Power Regulatory authority (NEPRA).

The chart shows gas demand by sector (grid power / domestic / fertilizer / industry / other / losses), in billion cubic meters. Between 2020 and 2025 the total dropped 16%, though it spiked in 2021 on higher losses. The main sectors in the drop were grid power, domestic and industry. This decline is expected to continue at a slower rate to 2035.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

We are driving the EV back to Switzerland from Kent, and wow this is a huge solar structure in a random place. ( @bjoernstats.bsky.social is running down the car battery more than I feel comfortable with).

Photo of a dry field by a motorway, with a huge structure of 8 by 9 solar panels standing free like a sculpture on the horizon.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

This is solar build in Germany - a big slowdown 2013 to 2022 as the country tried to downratchet the overgenerous feed-in tariffs, but picking up strongly in 2023.

A BloombergNEF chart showing solar build, 2000 to 2036 (expected as of mid 2026). After a boom from 2009 to 2012, the market slowed down to just a few GW/year before picking up to 15GW/year in 2023 and slightly more in 2024 and 2025.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

It's true that the German wind market fell off between 2018 and 2025, though we expect the auctions to bring it back up from 2026 to 2036.

A chart showing German wind onshore and offshore new build by year from 2000 to 2036 (forecast as of mid 2026). These were around 2GW/year from 2000 to 2012, had a small boom of 4-6GW/year 2015-2017, a few years of doldrums and is expected to pick up again to nearly 12GW in 2026.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

Minutes of a market's peak solar output that can be stored in total battery capacity, end of 2025. Hawaii was the highest I could find, at 92 minutes, while the EU-27 aggregate is just 8 minutes.

Chart showing BloombergNEF data for minutes of battery storage, calculated as cumulative battery capacity in megawatt-hours at the end of 2025, divided by cumulative solar capacity in megawatts at the end of 2025. It is highest in Hawaii at 92 minutes, is 66 minutes in California, 44 minutes in Saudi Arabia, 34 minutes in the UK and around 30 in Texas, total US, Chile and Italy. Germany and mainland China are both on 15. Spain has 2 and India, 0.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

The baby is big enough to be on a bike! He seems resigned about it.

Jenny Chase, on a bike, with her 10-month-old baby on the back seat. A field of maize and the Alps are in the background.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Batteries are replacing gas to firm up wind and solar in Australia, though (chart), and also in California (link). www.eia.gov/todayinenerg...

A screenshot of a BloombergNEF chart also sourced to the Australian Energy Market Operator, showing the intraday hourly average revenue earned in the National Electricity Market for the first quarter of each year from 2022 to 2026, for gas-powered generation (grey) and batteries (pink). The majority of revenue is in the evening hours, when the sun goes down. The revenue from gas is clearly lower in 2026 than in previous years, and battery discharge revenue is clearly eating into it.

From the associated story, "During the first quarter of 2026, discharge from utility-scale batteries in the NEM averaged A$0.40 million ($0.28 million) in wholesale energy market revenue at 7 p.m., up 211% from A$0.13 million the year prior. The increasing volume of batteries discharging during evening power price peaks in the NEM is reducing demand for the gas plants, whose average evening revenue earned fell 23% to A$0.58 million in 1Q 2026, down from A$0.76 million in 1Q 2025.
As more batteries come online, competition to maximize returns from arbitraging intraday swings in the power price will intensify. Increasing volumes of charge and discharge from competing battery projects is starting to soften volatility in the NEM, tempering the very dynamic that made the market so lucrative to batteries in the first place.
Across the NEM, average intraday arbitrage was A$203.33 per megawatt-hour in 1Q 2026, a 12% year-on-year decline, driven partly by the increasing penetration of battery storage in the NEM. This ‘self-cannibalization’ of arbitrage value available to batteries could intensify further in the near future with an estimated 9 gigawatts (27 gigawatt-hours) of capacity currently under construction across the country. Battery projects will need to diversify their revenue streams with non-market sources of value such as offtake agreements and system security contracts to bolster their business models against lower arbitrage returns."

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

This is Germany - solar supply of 47GW at 2pm on that Tuesday, of grid load of 57GW. Solar was still supplying 18.8GW at 5pm. Can you imagine the situation 20 years ago when that solar contribution would have been negligible?

Daily power supply for Germany on June 22 and 23 2026, during a heatwave, from BNEF. On Tuesday, June 23, solar was supplying 47GW out of 58GW load at 2pm - and generally the big yellow chunk is a majority of daytime power demand.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

The UK doesn't yet have that much solar capacity, and neither does France; but even so, imagine the power grid last week if it *hadn't* had that big solar chunk (this is France last Tuesday, during a scorcher; at 2pm, load was 57GW and solar was 19.5GW).

Chart of power demand, supply and load for France on June 22 and 23 2026, during an extreme heatwave. Source is BloombergNEF. The power mostly came from nuclear, but there's a substantial chunk of power coming from solar during the daytime.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

For example my solar panels produce about 60kWh a day in the sunniest days of April and May, but also produced 52.6kWh yesterday (when we used 33kWh).

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Accidentally turned the garden hose full on the baby for several seconds, and after a moment of confusion he is delighted to be sitting in a puddle. (It seems I only breed water creatures).

A large baby sitting on a mat outside, in a small puddle of water.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

That's the NEO Energy Transition Scenario. My chart was the BNEF solar team forecast. Basically we don't think the ETS is right - it builds more wind than the wind team thinks, for one.

Some text and a char . The text, which more or less recapitalates what the chart says, reads: "2.1. BNEF’s New Energy Outlook Energy Transition Scenario –the terawatts add up
BNEF has just published its New Energy Outlook 2026 (web | terminal), which presents BloombergNEF’s long-term energy and climate scenarios for the transition to a low-carbon economy.
The Economic Transition Scenario (ETS) – which models a transition led by market forces, and is our base case – is lower than our forecasts (Figure 2). Solar worldwide in the ETS reaches 8.9TW by 2035, generating 23% of world electricity, while our mid scenario is 10.7TW. Even the Net Zero Scenario (NZS), a considerably more ambitious one for renewables, only builds 11.4TW of solar by 2035, generating 27% of the world’s electricity, and then reaches 30.8TW for 40% of world electricity by 2050."

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Here's the BNEF PV forecast for 2Q 2026. Still 50.5GW of buffer for 2026, which can absorb a fair amount of small markets growing. We cut the China annual estimate by 11GW(DC) which makes a big hole.

Chart showing new build PV, historicals and forecast, by country. The world total was 655GW(DC) in 2025 and 640GW(DC) in 2026, after which the global market resumes slow growth driven mainly by the buffer capacity (ie, unknown / unallocated markets such as African countries, which we cover individually but have no confidence in our ability to identify booms).

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

So far so good: excuse the horrible picture. I have a pen set up outside my office window so he doesn't feel abandoned but so that he and the adults can get used to each other. He has a hot water bottle in the bucket to cuddle with because the mornings are chilly.

A photo from the author's office window in the basement. There are several layers of heavy bars, but can be seen that there is a gosling outside on grass in a predator-protection pen, chatting to the adult geese who are loose in the garden.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

First full day and he wants to cuddle everything. Including the baby, who is fascinated and wants to grab him. *sigh* I have extra grey hairs but we're doing okay.

Day-old gosling snuggling in the crook of the poster's arm.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

We are go. A little too much go, he is very keen to stagger off after the adults and while in a couple of weeks I shall let him, right now he would just die.

Photo of a new-hatched gosling meeting his very interested father.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Exciting times in the incubator as the single fertile egg this year hatches. (Single gosling is not good, but hopefully we can get it out with the adults asap).

A photo of a goose egg hatching in an incubator.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Yeah, in the old days I would have taken two days for the event and likely taken the train back. But now I have responsibilities (one pictured) and don't want to drop them on the head of @bjoernstats.bsky.social for longer than necessary.

A fat fairhaired baby sitting under a tree.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Climbed up to the Sälischlössli on the way home from dropping the car off at the garage; Olten's looking good on a sunny May 1. Also saw a black woodpecker on the way down.

Photo of the undistinguished Swiss city of Olten from a nearby hill.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Not really the point of this article but I can't believe the editors let us use 'plain vanilla photovoltaics (PV)' to refer to solar without storage.

A screenshot of a BloombergNEF article, including a chart of a load duration curve showing that supplying a rising proportion of hours of the year with solar and storage goes up slowly to about 95%, then more sharply, and goes asymptotic to 100%. This is specifically in Saudi Arabia where the sunshine is pretty constant.

Text says, "Solar is the cheapest source of electricity in many countries, including Saudi Arabia, where BloombergNEF estimates a levelized cost of plain vanilla photovoltaics (PV) at $15 per megawatt-hour.
This is not necessarily useful to run the ranks of data centers the country aims to host, though, as their high capex means they need to run nearly constantly to amortize that cost. Adding a battery can change that — especially in the Saudi climate, where solar generates a similar high amount of electricity nearly every day of the year. Batteries seldom sit either empty or full for multiple days.
BNEF estimates that PV and batteries could supply 99.5% availability for a baseload demand source like a data center, for a cost of just $70 per megawatt-hour (MWh) — more expensive than gas at $40-49/MWh, but not massively so."

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Spring is at least a week more advanced here in the UK than in Switzerland. Also, Center Parcs is pretty good for children aged 7+ years.

Early oak leaves against a blue, partly clouded April sky.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Probably no goslings this year. First incubator batch all infertile, so put some under Stiorra, who I thought was broody. But today she wasn't feeling it and spent the whole day sitting in the sun.

A grey and white goose named Stiorra on a nest. She has a missing beak tip as a result of a fox attack, but she does not let this interfere with any of her plans.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

Well this article about hermit crabs has made me sad this morning. I do feel that when you get to know any animal, no matter how humble, you will start to see it as interesting and special. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/m...

Text from the New York Times story, "Saving Hermit Crabs by Breeding them in the Suburbs".

"She began to see them in new ways. They are social animals that thrive in family groups. They require large spaces with hamster wheels for exercise, display distinct personalities and communicate with unique chirps. Like parrots and ball pythons, they can live 50 years.

“They’re voiceless, misunderstood, elegant, incredible creatures that nobody cares about,” Akers said in her makeshift lab, where bright aquariums line the walls. In one, Fernandina, a stately, purple, baseball-sized crab around 40 years old, unfurled herself from a coconut hut. “They live so long, they must have some knowledge or sentience.”

It pains Akers and her crab-loving friends that so many hermit crabs are denied the chance of a long life. Some store owners toss them out at the end of the beach season if they aren’t sold.

“It’s ingrained in that boardwalk mentality that the crab is for the summer,” said Stacy Griffith Wodicker, of Fairfield, Ill. Her organization, the Land Hermit Crab Owners Society (motto: “Good Friends in a Pinch”) helps rehome unwanted pet crabs."

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Uh oh, the baby no longer stays where I put him.

A sandy-haired fat baby on the floor, next to a mat suitable for laying a baby on. He has clearly rolled himself off.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

They're really not very photogenic right now, and I haven't been spending enough time with them because I have a seven-month-old baby, but here's a somewhat old one.

Five geese eating spring cabbage from a hand.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

BNEF's forecasts for solar build over time. We drastically* underpredicted what China would deploy in 2023 and 2024, and the effect of Russia invading Ukraine in 2022. We cut forecasts in late 2025 because the long-expected cannibalization is biting hard. But now there is a new fossil fuel squeeze.

A BloombergNEF chart by Jenny Chase's team, showing solar build forecasts over time for selected quarters since 2011. In 2011, we only had two-year forecasts and they were flattish at 30-40GW/year; over the years, these forecasts drift upwards and generally are lower than what actually happened. In 2021 we started doing forecasts to 2030, and they were also flattish, though also hilariously drift upwards. In 2024 we expected solar build to rise from just under 600GW, to about 850GW in 2030; as of 1Q 2026, we cut this slightly in the long run.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Victory! This is BNEF's new definition of long-duration storage, from Yiyi Zhou's 2026 Long Duration Storage report (paywall: www.bnef.com/insights/38819 )

A screenshot of BNEF's 2026 Long-Duration Storage report. It reads, "Long-duration energy storage definition and technology coverage
While there is no universally accepted definition of LDES, BNEF defines it as energy storage technologies in which the cost and scale of energy capacity (GWh) are largely decoupled from those of power capacity (GW).
This report focuses on novel LDES technologies, excluding solutions such as conventional pumped hydro. We also exclude chemical-based solutions here as BNEF covers this sector separately. Lithium-ion batteries are excluded from this analysis, as they are generally
classified as short-duration storage technologies. For thermal storage, we restrict our scope to power‑based projects, excluding those designed solely for thermal output. For more on LDES
definitions across key markets, see A.1"

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Oh, when will my husband come home from work (battery is at 97% charge and if he doesn't plug the car in soon we'll be throwing away electricity. I already baked a three-goose-egg quiche).

A dashboard showing the current status of the author's solar and storage system (a new 22kWh battery with an old 13.2kW solar system). The battery is at 97%, and still charging from the sun.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

When I see these headlines I pull up BloombergNEF's solar exports from China tool, and yeah, Cuba was the destination for $117 million (about 1.3GW) of Chinese solar panels in 2025.

A snapshot of a screenshot from BloombergNEF's Solar Exports Tool, showing exports from China to Cuba by month, 2023-2025. This data comes originally from China Customs via the firm SinoImex. The chart shows a major increase from late 2024 and into 2025, from negligible levels in 2023.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Enjoyed this article despite the weird and untrue first line, it's good to see some actual evidence of working equipment in the reported factories. But, um, I am not sure it is a good thing to buy your solar panels from a cowboy OR from Genghis Khan. www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2026/01/excl...

A screenshot of an article from Solar Power World Online, about a factory by ELITE Solar (formerly ET Solar) opening in Egypt. The text reads, "At ELITE Solar’s Egyptian grand opening, both ELITE Chairman Derek Liu and OCI Chairman Woo Hyun Lee wore cowboy hats that they said represented the “cowboy spirit” of what they’re doing together. Lee fashioned Liu as a “modern Genghis Khan” for ELITE’s early entry into the Egyptian market, leading the way for solar domination across the region."

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

The view from nursery pickup today.

A photo of a snow-covered farm landscape with the Jura hills behind. Mist is rising from the ground.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

I thought this had to be wrong on US PV manufacturing capacity, but checked my team's work, and yeah for module manufacturing capacity it's about right.

A chart from BloombergNEF showing US annual PV production capacity as of October 2025. Polysilicon capacity is about 20GW/year (from Wacker and Hemlock), wafer capacity 2GW/ year (Corning), cell capacity 3GW/year, and module capacity 63GW/year (the largest is First Solar, followed by Hanwha Q CELLS, with a large number of other firms).

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

The most interesting part of this was that the article does address the cause / correlation question. (My prior would have been to assume that the people with the sense to get vaccinated were less likely to be developing dementia and other conditions, but maybe it is not just that).

Text from the New York Times article, "Vaccines Are Helping Older People More Than We Knew":

Nearly all studies of off-target benefits are observational, since scientists cannot ethically refuse a safe, effective vaccine to a control group who could then become infected with the disease.

That means such studies are subject to “healthy volunteer bias,” because vaccinated patients may also practice other healthy habits, differentiating them from those not vaccinated.

Although researchers try to control for a variety of potentially confounding differences, from age and sex to health and education, “we can only say there’s a strong association, not a cause and effect,” Dr. Maggi said.

But Stanford researchers seized on a natural experiment in Wales in 2013, when the first shingles vaccine, Zostavax, became available to older people who had not yet turned 80. Anyone who had was ineligible.

Over seven years, dementia rates in participants who had been eligible for vaccination declined by 20 percent — even though only half had actually received the vaccine — compared with those who narrowly missed the cutoff.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

First day back at work after maternity leave, and in my new office in the basement (the baby has my old office). I have company.

A desk with a computer set up right next to a window, where the ground outside is above the level inside. A goose is looking in the window; behind her, others are hanging out in the snow-covered garden.

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

One more for "you can install solar panels yourself on your garage wall, but sometimes you shouldn't". (Might be vandalism, might be kids kicking footballs - either way I don't think those panels will be able to claim on warranty. Roofs have advantages!).

Four solar panels attached to a wall at ground level, facing the street. Three of them have been broken from multiple impacts; cracks run all over the panels.

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