The Malagasy government has announced three PV projects, each with a 5 MW generation capacity, will be built this year. The nation’s cumulative installed solar capacity was only 33 MW at the end of last year.

In our series of renewable energy and geopolitics interviews, Indra Øverland – head of the Center for Energy Research at the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs – explains why hydropower can be the perfect match for intermittent renewables such as solar and wind. Hydropower assets are one of the biggest geopolitical stories of the energy transition but receive almost no attention. Nations with strong hydro potential may become linchpins of regional renewable energy.

The deal introduced a 15-year grace period for household PV system owners, during which they could choose whether to take net metering payments based on assumed energy use or a potential new system based on actual use and measured by smart meters.

The 16.4 MW solar facility is located 14 km southwest of the New Ulaanbaatar International Airport. The project was developed by Sharp Corporation in partnership with Sermsang Power (SSP) and Tenuun Gerel Construction (TGC).

Although it is unclear how much generation capacity will be contracted, several projects submitted for the subsequently cancelled fourth government renewables auction may participate in Thursday’s procurement. ‘Qualified users’ – energy consumers needing more than 1 MW of power and without access to regulated power supply from national utility CFE – are expected to be among the buyers at the exercise.

After earmarking €3 million last year and €4 million in 2017, the Italian region of Lombardy has decided to further support residential and commercial storage projects linked to renewables.

In a chat with pv magazine, the managing director of GoodWe’s European unit, Thomas Haering, described the inverter manufacturer’s plans to expand capacity this year, after construction started on new factories in Suzhou and Guangde.

The scheme will be open to renewable energy systems not exceeding 500 kW in capacity. The Albanian government expects the program to enable the deployment of 200 MW of PV.

Brazilian energy agency the EPE has pre-qualified 1,829 renewable power projects with a combined capacity of 100.8 GW for the procurement exercise. The A-6 auction is expected to be the largest in terms of allocated capacity and to deliver lower bids than previous rounds.

The project, in its preliminary development phase, should reach a total generation capacity of around 800 MW. The two solar parks that will make up the Castilla-La Mancha project would each have a 400 MW capacity.