Highlights

The European Solar Manufacturing Council has been launched at EU PVSEC in Brussels. Participating research institutes, mechanical engineers, material and PV manufacturers stress the importance of having big solar manufacturers in Europe.

The EU PVSEC conference and exhibition in Brussels began this morning with presentations from key figures in PV development, who celebrated the technology’s achievements so far and predicted even bigger things in the coming years. pv magazine‘s Mark Hutchins was on hand to hear all about it.

New measures under preparation by the Spanish government include the setting of a calendar for new auctions, elimination of the solar tax and support for community solar and PV irrigation projects. Spanish developer X-Elio has secured a PPA for two 50 MW solar projects in the southern region of Murcia.

pv magazine’s Quality Roundtable at the 2018 Renewable Energy India (REI) Expo, took place in front of a packed audience. It discussed current problem areas in the India solar industry; how solar developers and solution providers can improve the quality of PV installations; and innovative financial instruments to reduce the cost of debt and scale up infrastructure investment.

Portugal’s Directorate General for Energy and Geology is reviewing another big bunch of “unsubsidized” solar schemes.

The independent power producer has closed on a US$499 million, investment grade, private placement financing representing approximately 650 MW of utility-scale wind and solar power projects.

The US$1.54 billion transaction will make Con Edison the 2nd-largest owner of operational solar assets in the United States, and is expected to close by the end of the year.

The application of IoT, tapping, and analytics of big data, and much hyped applications like blockchain are making an impact on the solar PV sector and related devices, and also their interactions with the grid. But software has played an important role in the evolution of our industry dating back some 30 years.

Strong local content requirements may be embedded in the tender, according to the first draft of its rules, with selected projects required to rely on a 60% quota of modules made in Turkey. A 30 MW/ 90 MWh (AC) storage project will also be included at one of the three sites identified for the tender.

Around 40 billion kWh of clean electricity will be generated by PV systems in Germany during the first nine months of the year. According to calculations by the German Solar Industry Association, the total generation figure from last year will soon be reached.