Highlights

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 startup formerly known as GE Solar has become a full fledged company, with GE and BlackRock announcing the creation of Distributed Solar Development, a behind-the-meter solar joint venture.

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.

A new paper published by scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology examines the potential for integrating small solar cells into the wireless sensors needed to power the fast-growing internet of things (IoT) ecosystem, many of which are located indoors. This market could represent a unique opportunity for thin film PV technologies, and perovskites in particular, to reduce the risk inherent to ramping up commercial scale production.

According to the Taiwanese market research company, PV panel demand will increase by 16% over 2018 shipments. TrendForce also believes this growth trend will continue in 2020.

Western Australia-based solar glass developer ClearVue has signed a deal with Taiwanese thin-film solar module manufacturer BeyondPV to set up a dedicated production line for solar strip modules at its production facility in the city of Tainan.

After several year of stalled and failed projects, Zimbabwe’s government is now seeking to implement existing projects, and to get rid of licensed projects that have never been realized. The first attempt will be pushing forward the 100 MW Gwanda solar project, which had been awarded to Intratek in 2015. The government is further planning to grant incentives to rooftop PV under net metering.

Through a new procuremente exercise, the Oman Power and Water Procurement company (OPWP) is now seeking developers for the Manah Solar I IPP and Manah Solar II IPP projects with a capacity of 500 MW and 600 MW, respectively. Both plants will be located at Manah which is around 150 km southwest of Muscat.

In 2019, the United States will become the world’s largest market for grid-connected battery energy storage, writes IHS Markit’s Camron Barati, as solar-plus-storage and peaking capacity requirements drive increased procurement.

According to the new auction schedule approved by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development, three more renewables procurement exercises will be held each year in 2020 and 2021. Through the seven bidding rounds, the Italian authorities seek to allocate approximately 4.8 GW of new power generation capacity.