With EV sales continuing their climb, and overall carbon emissions targets getting more ambitious, stakeholders in the energy system will need to consider flexibility options from, among other points, EV charging. A large distribution system operator in the U.K. is now examining the options to remunerate customers for adapting their EV charging patterns to load profiles of the grid. If successful, the exercise may help mitigate grid infrastructure expansion costs.

UK based energy data service provider and consultancy EnAppSys released its quarterly review of the European energy market. While renewables have covered a large chunk of the continent’s demand, that trend will likely change in the second half of the year, as production from renewables falls. Meanwhile, coal generation is being pushed out of the U.K. market, although not fully to the benefit of renewables as gas-fired power plants are picking up momentum.

Crossboundary Energy Access (CBEA) was established in January with large investment contributions from Rockefeller and Shell Foundations. The funding facility, which said it would work to unlock $11 billion in funding for the electrification of 100 million people in Africa, has penciled its first transaction with PowerGen Renewable Energy.

The Business & Human Rights Resource Centre has published a report looking at the human rights due diligence performance of the renewables industry and examined individual generation methods. The report finds that, while the solar sector is not top of the sad list, its vest also isn’t completely unstained.

… and it will be quite an effort. The U.K.’s grid operator, National Grid, released a new report on possible energy system transformation pathways, amidst growing public concern over climate change. Ramping carbon emissions reduction targets up from 80% to 100% prompts technical challenges. These can be overcome but will require full alignment of policy effort and individual awareness and decision making.

Scatec Solar moved into the Malaysian Solar market in late-2016. The company sealed financing for 197 MW of capacity with the help of the country’s green bonds, the year after. Malaysia is continuing on its solar trajectory and will hold the third iteration of its tenders for the allocation of an addition 500 MW in generation capacity.

The Armenian solar market has been somewhat slow to take off, but it could be experiencing a serious push, following an announcement that Abu Dhabi-based energy company Masdar plans to deploy 500 MW of solar and wind capacity in the country.

In pursuit of a lower levelized cost of energy for the next generation of inverters, some manufacturers have turned to acquiring considerably more expensive semiconductors. While this may sound like a misstep at first, the trick could be pulled off — though not easily, and not always — yet.

After the bombshell new this week, the Italian inverter manufacturer’s CEO spoke to pv magazine about the future of ABB’s R&D hubs, manufacturing sites, hundreds of employees and of course Fimer’s outlook.

Despite a demanding ceiling price of €45/MWh the tender has received applications for projects with seven times the generation capacity it will allocate.