The nation has been plagued by extensive power outages again with debt-riddled utility Eskom blaming heavy summer floods for taking out extensive parts of its coal-fired power generation fleet.

The Hong Kong-listed, Chinese state-owned solar developer is in a race against time to settle a US$350 million bond which is due to mature on January 25. The bail-out, which will be put to the vote on December 30, will leave the company a further US$125 million shy.

Now Chinese state-owned, the developer appears to want to draw a line under a traumatic two-year period which saw its fortunes reversed in dramatic fashion. Effectively now part of China’s Shuifa construction conglomerate, the proposed new name is intended to reflect the fact.

To have any hope of restricting global heating to a maximum of 1.5 degrees Celsius, the renewables success story which saw 108 GW of solar deployed last year needs to be cranked up to the next level – and fast.

The Shanghai-based project developer – which will soon relocate to the U.S. – says the profit margins are not high enough in those markets and has cancelled its project pipeline in the nations. The company has also changed its CEO after less than five months and is on a drive to reduce capital costs.

The political statements issued by the Conservatives, Labour, the Lib Dems and even the Green Party almost entirely ignore solar power amid a welter of vague ambitions ahead of the December vote. The increasingly obvious effects of climate change have clearly entered the consciousness of voters, though – the net zero commitment even got as high as page 55 of the Conservatives’ 62-page document.

The German solar company issued a statement over the weekend claiming it had been the victim of fraud perpetrated by its module importers and stating its intent to sue the offenders if the modules in question are found to have had their documents of origin deliberately altered.

There was unanimous approval at a vote on the debt reorganization plan put before creditors in Hong Kong today and now it remains only for the scheme to be rubber-stamped in the territory – and in Bermuda – before the task of rebuilding the soon-to-be-state-owned business can begin.

Having envisioned an 18-month transition to grid parity solar in the world’s biggest PV marketplace, developers of large scale projects are now reportedly being told the subsidy taps will be switched off at the end of December.

It is back to the meeting room for beleaguered shareholders in the debt-saddled solar project developer, ahead of a proposed shares purchase by a Chinese coal and real estate company.