Sanctions stall 100 MW of solar in Russia

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Construction of the 100 MW Sputnik solar plant in Russia's Volgograd oblast has been halted and potentially canceled due to Western sanctions, according to sources.  

A spokesperson for the Volgograd regional government told pv magazine on condition of anonymity that the project's investor, JSC Solar Systems, has said that construction would not start this year, as initially planned, due to an inability to source critical imported equipment.  

The spokesperson said that the investor could have opted for alternative technologies, but decided to put the project on a halt instead, “until things settle down.”

In July, another anonymous source told local news outlet V1 that the investor was forced to delay construction due to a lack of foreign components, including some that were to be purchased from Schneider Electric Global.  

Sergey Kopytov, the head of the Danylovsky region of Volgograd, said that following consultations with the investor, the regional authorities held a tender and passed the land for the project over to a local agricultural producer for the next three years.  

Kopytov confirmed that construction was suspended due to Western sanctions. JSC Solar Systems will only be able to resume development once the rental contract expires in 2025. However, it remains uncertain whether the plant will be built when it happens.  

By Ian Skarytovsky

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