The funds will be used for renewable energy facilities and projects associated with the bond have already obtained Climate Bond Initiative certification.

Some 56 bids were submitted for the fourth round of the RenovAr program for large scale renewables. Projects will be selected on July 22. With this procurement the Argentinian government wants to allocate a total of 350 MW of solar and wind generation capacity, with a 10 MW size limit per project.

The $99 million financing was provided by the CAF development bank of Latin America. The large scale solar facility will be in the Atacama desert.

The Dutch parliament has approved a motion made by the governing coalition to restrict construction of large scale solar plants on agricultural land but has watered down its provisions. Under the legislation, solar parks will only be permitted on agricultural land in areas where no smaller alternative projects are viable.

Although only four PV plants with a combined capacity of 150 MW were grid connected by mid-April, the Vietnamese government expects another 88 FIT-entitled solar facilities to come online by the end of next month. By Sunday, 34 projects with a combined capacity of 2.2 GW had already arrived on top of the mid-April connections.

In the first five months of the year, 16 solar projects with generation capacities larger than 99 MW were approved by the Colombian authorities. One of the projects may reach a 700 MW capacity, another has 240 MW and five more can generate up to 200 MW as around 3.55 GW of PV capacity has been added to the national pipeline.

The International Energy Agency says more than 2 million electric vehicles hit the road last year, to take the total to more than 5 million. The agency has stressed the importance of public policy, charging infrastructure and a fall in costs for continued EV uptake, and says up to 43 million EVs could be sold in 2030.

In a series of statements to pv magazine, South African panel manufacturer ARTsolar has explained why it recently filed a petition to request the introduction of import tariffs on solar modules from other countries. The company claims such a measure is needed to save real jobs and retain the technological expertise of the country’s PV industry.

According to a paper published by the European Network of Transmission System Operators, a significant number of grid infrastructure projects in the Ten-Year Network Development Plan 2018 have been delayed, with public opposition identified as the main hindrance.

The canceled tender was seeking investors for the construction of two 50 MW PV plants, as part of a joint venture with local utility BPC. The new tender will focus on independent power producers.