Things are moving very quickly in PV. Something that was true in 2019 may no longer be true.

This year, for instance, the majority of Chinese manufacturing capacity, the largest manufacturers (and possibly the majority of panels manufactured, although data are sparse) have moved from p-PERC to TOPCon, precisely because of the latter's better low-light performance (and lesser reasons). p-PERC dominated from about 2015 to 2021 (after polycrys, a-Si, CdTe thin-film and CI(G)S lost the growth race). Some manufacturers are moving to heterojunction instead. HJT also does better than p-PERC. So we are moving on from p-PERC apparently.

Also this year, a large minority, or the majority (again public data are rare) of panels are bifacial, in order to capture light reflected off the ground (snow, in particular) to improve winter performance and low sun angle performance/capacity factor.

Clouds and winter are not PV killers.

> Things are moving very quickly in PV.

Hope is not a plan.

As Germany is going to find out this winter.

It's not hope. Things have moved quickly. This discussion started with the false claim that solar needs sunny California type weather. It does not. Cleve Hill solar park will run as a for-profit commercial enterprise, without government subsidies. In cloudy UK. UK being located at the northern part of the planet.

> As Germany is going to find out this winter.

Germany's problems have more to do with the non-viability of relying on Russian gas than on anything else. You can predict things like the Ukraine war as well as you can predict an earthquake at Fukushima.

> This discussion started with the false claim that solar needs sunny California type weather.

There was no such claim.

Again, I think we're done here.

> There was no such claim.

Anyone can read to the top of thread and see that you are wrong about what started the discussion.

How does nuclear help Germany this winter? Bear in mind Russia makes about half the world's nuclear fuel and has been sanctioned, and Germany's plants need refueling.

Things are stalled in nuclear. Hope is, indeed, not a plan.

A plan is a plan, and PV has one. Wind has another.

Straightforward engineering optimisations, hundreds of them, all adding up, with few political considerations. (I won't say no political considerations, because there are always people who will cut off their nose to spite their face.)

Nuclear has hope and promises.

> How does nuclear help Germany this winter?

Well, it doesn't, because they've shut all their nuclear plants down.

That's rather the point, yo.

So you need years and years to build nuclear don't you? Sounds like hopium to rely on an unpopular source of energy that has decades long contruction times. And the builder has to declare bankruptcy. Wind and solar are far faster and less risky financially to build. Yo.