The IFC and the country’s power utility are planning to build small on-grid solar parks across three to five different sites, and are seeking a project consultant.

A floating solar array will be located in the North Sea near an aquaculture and an offshore wind power facility. The €2 million pilot project is being developed by a consortium including Tractebel, Jan De Nul Group, Deme, Soltech and Ghent University.

The huge floating plant is expected to be located on a water surface close to the Saemangeum, an estuarine tidal flat on the coast of the Yellow Sea. Construction on the facility is planned to start in the second half of next year. Around 4.6 trillion won ($3.9 billion) of private funds will be invested in the project.

Part three of our series on solar’s less covered markets takes us to Belgium, where despite impressive instsllation numbers from the rooftop market, a lack of volume means the country is unlikely to hit its EU mandated 2020 targets for renewable energy.

According to the Taiwanese market research company, PV panel demand will increase by 16% over 2018 shipments. TrendForce also believes this growth trend will continue in 2020.

Overall, 31 renewable energy projects have pre-qualified for the final phase of the auction. The outcome of the procurement exercise will be announced on July 22. Around 300 MW of capacity will be allocated.

The African Development Bank is providing around $56 million to fund a program to bring electricity to around 900,000 households in sub-Saharan Africa by 2025. The financial institution will also provide African distributed energy service companies with critical technical guidance and credit enhancement.

In the first part of pv magazine‘s series on solar’s hidden champion markets, we take a look at Mexico. The country currently has 4 GW of total installed PV capacity, and overtook Chile as Latin America’s largest solar market by the end of 2018. But the cancellation of auctions and other negative signals from government could put a damper on things moving forward.

The massive Núñez de Balboa solar plant is planned to be installed in Usagre, near Badajoz, in the southern region of Extremadura, Spain. The funding comes to multinational utility Iberdrola after securing three PPAs for the project.

After several year of stalled and failed projects, Zimbabwe’s government is now seeking to implement existing projects, and to get rid of licensed projects that have never been realized. The first attempt will be pushing forward the 100 MW Gwanda solar project, which had been awarded to Intratek in 2015. The government is further planning to grant incentives to rooftop PV under net metering.