Emiliano Bellini
Italy’s Water Alliance launches €110 million tender to buy power from renewables
The purchased electricity will be used to power the companies’ purifiers, waste water lifting stations, treatment plants of drinking water, cathodic protection systems, and several offices.
Hungary unexpectedly terminates FIT for PV projects ranging from 50 to 500 kW
The Hungarian government has amended its recently issued support scheme METAR, in order to introduce a tight deadline for residential and commercial PV, which will, in reality, mean the end of most of projects in this segment. The METAR scheme had been approved by the European Commission last summer.
Nepal launches tender for large-scale solar
The Nepal Electricity Authority is seeking bids for projects ranging from 1 MW to 5 MW across 25 sites.
Ukraine has now 63 MW of solar under net metering
The net metering scheme, which is open to rooftop solar PV projects not exceeding 30 kW in size, was introduced by the Ukrainian government in 2015.
Algeria set to resume plans for large-scale solar with strong local content commitment
In a conversation with pv magazine, Mouloud Bakli, president of the Algerian solar energy association, Club Energia (branch of FCE), says that multiple solar pipelines are set to be restarted by the Algerian government. Furthermore, two new tenders, for Independent Power Producer, and solar hybrid power, projects, will be issued by the end of Q2 2018. For all of these plans, local content requirement rules will apply. The existing local PV module industry, on the other hand, is expected to reach a combined annual capacity of 550 MW by the end of the year, while several manufacturers of mounting structures, cables, solar glass and junction boxes are already operating in the market.
ABN Amro launches €200 million fund for energy transition
The fund is expected to make equity capital investments in the range of €10 million to €25 million, mostly in the Netherlands and Northwest Europe.
SkyPower Global enters deal to deploy 1 GW of solar in Uzbekistan
The Canadian solar developer has signed an agreement with local power utility, Uzbekenergo for several large-scale PV projects, which would span several regions in Uzbekistan. Overall, around US$1.3 billion is expected to be invested in this plan.
Four-junction tandem thin film cells have strong potential for residential applications, MIT scientists say
Four different thin film solar PV technologies were tested by the MIT experts across three types of environment in the U.S.: Arid (Arizona); temperate (South Dakota); and humid (Florida).
Stanford scientists unveil new manganese-hydrogen battery for storage of wind, solar
The water-based battery relies on a reversible chemical reaction that stores electrons in the form of hydrogen gas. Despite encouraging first results, the prototype developed by the research team now needs to be further developed.
EDF brings 200 MW of PV online in Dubai
The PV plant is the first section of the third 800 MW phase of the 1 GW Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park. The facility will sell power to the Dubai Electricity & Water Authority at US$0.00299 per kWh.
