Highlights

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.

The 17 MW installation, to be located in the southern region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, is expected to begin commercial operations in March.

This year’s version of Berkeley Lab’s Tracking the Sun report saw residential installs fall 6% to $3.50 / W, small business fall 11% to $2.90 / W and large business fell 5% to $2.20 /W in 2017, with light changes in early 2018. However, these averages cover wide price variances in different markets.

The German module manufacturer is planning a further expansion of capacity in Europe. In France and Armenia, new production lines for solar cells and modules are planned to start this year.

The world’s number one poly maker claims the worst of the fall-out after Beijing’s policy change has already occurred, and will press ahead with plans to expand production capacity – but its development business may need to find new sources of funding.