The Saudi energy company submitted the second lowest bid, an LCOE of 0.08872 SAR ($0.0236) per kWh, while the excluded competitor, a consortium led by Japan’s Marubeni, had offered 0.09976 SAR ($0.0266) per kWh.

While new PV additions in 2017 totaling 264 MW, the country’s cumulative PV capacity had reached 3.8 GW. The market’s main driver remains residential PV.

Although official statistics report that grid-connected PV capacity reached 1.82 GW as of the end of December 2017, the completion of two large-scale projects totaling 215 MW in early January has raised Chile’s total installed power to around 2.04 GW.

The parent company of SunPower and the French National Research Agency have launched a new initiative aimed at developing new plasma processing methods for semiconductors and solar PV.

According to a new report published by the consultancy Greener, PV system prices for distributed generation projects fell by 24% last year in Brazil. Total turnover of DG solar, meanwhile, was R $1.47 billion (approximately US$462 million). In other news, the country has joined IRENA.

The French energy regulator has decided to reduce FITs for the first quarter of this year by between 1.2 and 5%.

In the first 2018 round for solar rebates, funds were allocated in just nine minutes. More than two thirds of the selected projects included a storage solution.

The Danish energy group made the announcement in its latest financial results, where it stressed how its strategic transformation to a green energy company is progressing.

The Norwegian polysilicon producer saw its stake in the joint venture (JV) with Chinese silicon material manufacturer, NSF reduced, after the latter agreed to provide all of REC Silicon’s outstanding capital contribution for the project.